Few days back...
i came across this article from
Kok Blok (http://k0ks3nw4i.blogspot.com)an article about
virginity...
what struck me about this article is that he argues..
"
how virginity is bothersome, pointless and meaningless... "
got your attention?
read on and find out his thoughts..
"It is one of the superstitions of the human mind
to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue."
Voltaire
******************
Back on the trip in March, during one of the 12 hours plus train rides we endured between the cities we made our stops, talking was the most logical way for us to spend our surplus time, and if you've ever travelled with anyone for any length of time, you'd find yourself spontaneously loosening up before too long - even if you weren't very close to them to begin with. You want to get to know a person beneath the obvious? Invite them along on your vacation, get trapped with them for a whole day in a moving train carriage and prod a little. Every human being, I find, is a full bag waiting to spill. Everybody wants to be heard.
One recurrent conversational topic was about love and relationships, something we all can identify with (regardless of whether we have it or we don't). Somehow after a few hours, the topic morphed into one centering on virginity and what each of us thought of it. Unsurprisingly, views were schismatic - and are basically polarized into two camps. One is for it, and the other thinks that it's better to be done and over with.
One guy thinks that virginity is paramount and said that he will only marry a virgin - or to put it in his own words; "I like my presents unopened." I won't bother listing out his reasons and arguments here because (1) I am sure everyone knows what they are, and (2) I won't be able to reiterate them with much conviction because I - well, I have a differing opinion on the subject. So I'll only talk about what I think.
I think virginity is bothersome, pointless and meaningless.
I was a bit surprised by myself when I said those words in that train carriage chug-chugging in the evening through the Indian countryside because prior to that moment, my vocal views on virginity were one of conservative conformation. I'm Asian. Sex outside of wedlock is evil and immoral. Blah and blah and blah. It's funny how one's mind can change so drastically without one noticing until that mind starts speaking again.
I remember a friend, a girl, told me that she lost her virginity to her boyfriend, after holding out and denying it for many, many years to all her previous boyfriends. What she said about that was this,
"I used to think that virginity is something very, very precious, and must be protected no matter what until the day I get married. It's only after I lost it that I see just how worthless it is."
Those words rattled in my head a lot till it came as a sudden revelation to me that virginity is (or will be) just like my sixteenth birthday. I don't know why it was significant but everyone seems to think it is in some ineffable way. No one seems to give much thought to all the other teen years. Why not fourteen or fifteen or seventeen? Why bloody sixteen? I remember looking forward to my own sixteenth birthday, being all excited and anticipatory of some magical transformation of my sixteen years old person or some secret knowledge which would be telepathically telegraphed into my sixteen years old mind - or something! I don't know what. No one ever specified that. And when my sixteenth birthday finally came for real, I felt just the same as I was before I was sixteen. Nothing changed the least bit at all.
Like what I said in that train carriage about virginity that evening,
"Virginity is a lot like a person's sixteenth birthday. It seems like a big deal before you reach it. But once you're there... Meh."
I think that the concept of virginity - especially of female virginity - is terribly unjust. It is used as a standard marker of a girl's virtuosity or purity. If an unmarried woman is virgin, she's clean, good and loved by God but if she's not, she's some promiscuous skank who is dirty and used. I find that that standard leaves much to be desired. Say if a virginal girl is raped, what does it say about her morals? Is she still virtuous or pure? A lot of people would say that her virtuosity is unsullied because she never had sex till it was forced upon her, but is no longer pure because she had been violated. I find that incredibly insensitive and degrading, and this is precisely the sort of thinking that puts so many stigmas on the women who have undergone such a horrifying experience - as if they haven't been punished enough just for being a victim.
Some would even consider a virgin who was raped to be neither virtuous nor pure! No shit! They still stone rape victims to death in some parts of the world.
Anyhow, I agree that rape really have no bearing on this discussion, but it does reflect a bit of just how most people view women, including the women themselves.
Discounting that, what about those who have willingly given up their virginity premaritally to a person they thought they love or used to love? Can we consider them to be promiscuous or loose (no puns intended)? Again, most guys do. I used to be just like that. I used to like my "presents" unopened too. I used to think that girls who gave up or would give up their virginity before marriage are sluts. It isn't until recently that I started to realise that if a person have truly loved a girl before, he would never ever think of her as a "present" - an object, a thing. I think all guys are guilty of this, at least for some part of their lives. Anytime the loss of virginity is mentioned in the same sentence as "dirty" or "used"; that's objectification in action. That's a failure to see a woman as a real living, breathing person - one who is capable of making mistakes at some point in their past.
Heck, I don't think I even consider that a "mistake" on the women's part. A woman's body should be her own and however she wishes to express her love and that shouldn't have any bearing at all on any relationships she gets into afterwards. A lot of guys will disagree with me, with variations of the same old chauvinistic arguments which demean women. I believe I am above that now. In case anyone starts running with scissors with just a gist of what I'm aiming to impart here, I would like to say that I'm not preaching promiscuity or infidelity here. I believe that wanton or unprotected sex with multiple partners is bad and I advocate sticking with the one you love as long as you can. All I'm saying is that virginity need not be such a big damn deal.
So in summary, let me just say that I don't give a fuck whether the person I'm marrying next time is a virgin or not. But if she is - well, more power to her!
P.S. On a related note, some guys think that it is their prerogative to control what their girlfriends wear on the pretext that it's to "protect" her. To a certain extent, it can be true but the tales I heard of some guys going as far as to only let their girlfriends wear formless T-shirts and pants - that's just another form of reducing a girl to the level of property. I think it's perfectly fine for a guy to dislike their girlfriend dressing in revealing clothes, but he ought not to think that he has the right to prevent her from doing it. Or as a wise person (me) always says, "Just let her wear the clothes she likes now, before she's too old to wear them."
P.P.S. There's this T-shirt quote I read once that goes, "Virginity is a disease, and I'm the doctor."
P.P.P.S. So, a show of hands if anyone wants to hear my thoughts on abortion, homosexuality and slightly burnt food?
Kok Blok (http://k0ks3nw4i.blogspot.com)
***************
My Take:
yes,
its unfair to classify a lady
whose virginity has been forcefully taken away from her to be considered,
as some would say "tainted"
or being labeled someone who has lost her virginity.
i believe, and i hope most of you do,
VIRGINITY is something which can't be lost...
can't be taken away...
VIRGINITY is something which only can be given...
and can only be given,
once..
to me,
if a lady was for instance, raped, her virginity is not taken...
her virginity is not lost, not stolen,
virginity is not an item...
it'll be still a part of her,
remain within her,
until she decides to give it away full heartedly,
and of course, voluntarily...
saying that,
those people who actually label virginity as a present...
or labeling a lady as a present for that fact...
well..lets see...
i have no words for them
guess their heads are all f**ked up to even come out with such comparisons...
i recommend psyc help =)
as for Kok Blok,
i'll agree with you...
saying that its unfair and unjust to classify those whose
virginity has been forcefully taken away from them to be
no longer pure, virtous or whatsoever..
you express yourself well through that article....
however,
i believe...
you've made one big mistake...
saying that "virginity is bothersome, pointless and meaningless..."
now that is really pointless and f-ed up..
virginity is something that belongs to every woman..
something which is a part of them...
saying that they're bothersome, pointless and meaningless
is simply saying that...
the extra 'weightS' you carry at your crotch every day ever since u were born are bothersome, pointless and meaningless...
dude....whats up with that?
so yea...
VIRGINITY is something special....
they're not pointless..
like how the 'weights' are not pointless,
how they actually bear mens' future..
the conclusion is...
i can't sum up a word to represent what virginity means to a woman..
i believe...
a lady has a right to give her own reason or her own representation..
on what her virginity really means to her..
its not for us to decide...
~Jian
