Virginity. It's the Halley's Comet of sex, happening once in a lifetime. Special because it's a one time deal, or it used to be thanks to plastic surgeons who promise to "revirginize" with surgery, it's a time-old ideal of waiting. But in America, no one waits. Not for a hamburger, not for a message, not for traffic. Not for love.
If no one seems to hang on to their virginity, why is it an issue? Because Americans only want what they don't have, thus the appearance of "revirginization," and lately, it's even found it's way into the political race of '08. After more than a decade, and $1.5 billion in state and federal dollars" of abstinence-only education, the new presidential contenders are promising a more cost effective way to teach safe sex in the U.S.
So, with new ways to bring back virginity, like it's a fad, what does it mean to be a virgin in America?
Anatomy class teaches that it means penetration, but it isn't always necessary to penetrate to have sex. There's no miracle or immaculate conception involved in the pregnancy of lesbian who is artificially inseminated, is there? She is "with child," without the touch of a man, right?
Maybe this proves that there is a distinct difference between being celebate and being a virgin.
Colin Adamo, the singular and unfortunate fellow to be working on a woman's magazine, says that virginity has more to do with experience than genital bumping. He says that first fumbles, soft touches, skims across the skin, they're all part of a sexual encounter, one that should count as a v-card swipe.
Anyone who has had to anxiously undress someone else for the first time, be naked in front of another person in an erotic setting, fumble through words of an inexperienced conversation of seduction, or squirm in and out of uncomfortable first try positions deserves to have swiped his or her V-Card just as much as the next person.Well then, credit or debit?
He does, however, raise an excellent point; sex has more to do with satisfaction than reproduction, which is now only a side effect.
President Bush might encourage abstinence, but Americans in general are tossing the idea out the window. Are these pants, sold exclusively in K-Mart, representative of the American perspective on the subject? Do t-shirts like this one, made for guys and girls, show how Americans really feel
about the idea of virginity?In the end, is it "just a word?"
Really, it's impossible to diffrentiate between someone who has gone all the way, someone who hasn't, and someone who is caught somewhere in between. The label, and the implications, positive or negative, that go along with it, is an individual matter.
