Saturday, November 14, 2009

Asexuality & Virginity: Not Synonymous


Why are virgin’s left out of sexual discussions? In this generation of raunchy culture where women feel liberated by being openly sexual and promiscuous without shame, how is a twenty something year old virgin supposed to feel, especially when all his/her friends are having sex often and can’t seem to live without it? Like an outcast. Well, that depends on their situation. If the person claims that they are saving their virginity for that one “special” person or waiting to get married, then I don’t think they’ll necessarily feel so bad about being a virgin, they might even be proud (even if they think their missing out in the meantime). If they have religious beliefs concerning pre-marital sex, then they’ll probably be a little judgmental about their friends’ sexual behavior and think they’re being immoral. If they are choosing to abstain from sex until they’re finished with school or getting their career established, then they might not feel so horrible about being an “old” virgin either. However, all of this does not address the frustration a virgin might feel when all their friends and family had sex ages ago and doesn’t want to talk to them about sex because they don’t want to hurt their “virgin ears”. In fact this may make the virgin feel really left out and abnormal.
To make this dilemma even more problematic and stigmatizing, there are even studies that conclude that losing your virginity later on, around the ages of twenty one to twenty three, can cause sexual health problems later on according to research done at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute's HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies. (For more information go to abcnews.com and enter “virginity” in the search bar) So should a virgin feel proud or ashamed of their sexual purity in contemporary American society? If the virgin has to deal with peers and family members who render them asexual then they will more than likely feel ashamed, but if the virgin is socially engaged as a sexual being that has not yet experienced sexual intercourse, then they will probably feel more secure with their sexuality. The bottom line is this: Virgins are not asexual and should not be excluded from sexual discussions just because they are virgins. They have as much, if not more, sexual desire than a sexually active person. So feel free to talk to a virgin about sex because they will understand, for the most part anyway.

2 comments:

  1. I agree completely. Virgins should be included into sex conversations. We were all there once, after all. I don't mind talking to virgins just like I talk to my sexually active friends. it is usually the virgins themselves that are shocked and squeamish about my bluntness regarding my sex life. For that reason, I have been less inclined to talk to virgins the way I used too...

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  2. Well the problem with that is that virgins need to be educated by their peers whether they like it or not, so I think the squeamishness should be put aside for the sake of their gaining knowledge of what sex is like and what they'll probably need to know or info that will come in handy in the future.

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