the center for humane sexual culture

Sometime around the age of 18, I can’t remember exactly when, I realized that it just wasn’t worth it. Virginity was becoming too much of a burden. As an out and proud asexual I didn’t appreciate being categorized by my lack of sexual experience. Not having sex didn’t make me any more innocent or any less self-aware, it didn’t make my any better or any worse or any different than anyone else, and the notion that it did was seeming increasingly absurd. “Virgin” was becoming a label of sexual shame, a way to define me by what I was not. So I gave it up.

I wish I could point to some ritual. I wish I had written the word “virgin” on a piece of paper and tossed it in the fire, or that I had waved my arms, taken a deep breath and felt the shame exhale from my system. Maybe it would have been good to exorcise one pointless ritual with another, but instead I just said “fuck it” and was a virgin no more.

And, despite all of expectations, losing my virginity DID change me. All my life I’d been told to either be ashamed of having sex or not having sex or both. I’d been told that whether I had sex and how I had sex would profoundly affect my worth as a person. Rejecting all of that beats 45 seconds in the back of a Yugo any day.

I can’t recommend this process enough for anyone out there who identifies as a virgin or non-virgin. There’s enough to worry about when it comes to sex. Between STIs, clear communication, emotional turmoil, pregnancy, gossip, roleplaying, safety words and finding the right toys, we can’t afford to spend time stressing over how thoroughly we’re flowered. Shaming virgins and non-virgins gets in the way of real, vitally important dialogue about sex.

So here’s my plan. You know how True Love Waits gives out those virginity pledge cards that kids sign and carry around in their wallets? Remember those draft card burning rallies in the 60s?

Let’s start a group called “True Love Now!” and hold rallies across the country. Let’s have everyone- virgin, nonvirgin and sort-of virgin rip up cards and say “fuck it” to sexual shame. Let’s hand out condoms and safer sex information and have workshops on exploring nonsexual intimacy. Let’s stop worrying about who’s doing what and start helping each other do sex, power, pleasure and intimacy on our own terms.