It’s not real…so why continue to refer to it? Let’s bust that…myth.
What? It’s not real? But what about “losing my virginity?”
“The night I lost my virginity.”
”The 40-year-old Virgin and video-gamer-virgins who live in their mom’s basement?
“That guy who took my virginity.”
Let me break it down for you:
- Virginity is a social construct. There are no physical evidence of loss of virginity in most cases, and the idea that all women have a hymen that could possibly remain “unbroken” prior to sex is a myth. (There emerging term is “vaginal corona” to describe tissue that can change shape in the vaginal folds but it comes in lots of shapes and can change after childbirth…like LOTS of body parts.) Bleeding the first time you have penetrative sex can happen but it’s historically more likely to be caused by a lack of lubrication plus the stretching of the vaginal walls (including the corona.)
- The idea of virginity has been used to police women’s bodies by indicating that virgins are “worth more” and that preserving virginity is an important job to be done by the girl and her family. See the story of St. Maria Goretti, canonized by the Church for being raped but praying the whole time to preserve her virginity at the age of 11. She was stabbed to death, but…
