Let's get rid of "virginity"!

Big nothing

When you type “virginity” into a search engine, the Internet politely makes sure that you are not interested in topics such as: “how to lose virginity?”, “how to check if I am a virgin?”, “how to recognize a virgin?”, “facts about virgins” or “virgin woman – check it out!” And suddenly you gain access to content of the incredible kind. What detailed information you can find! Your eyes widen, and your open hand starts to move towards your forehead, but stops just short of it, because you have captured the essence of the great social obsession with overinterpreting virginity and cherishing virgins: a sense of lack. Because how else can you recognize, define and tame something that does not really exist, especially when you look at it from a physiological perspective? Change your search settings if you want. There is nothing here, but feel free to search.

Hymen - these are the facts

A "virgin" or, when talking about boys and the Polish language, a "virgin," is someone who has not yet had their first sexual intercourse. In contrast, inaugural sex is generally believed to be based on penetration, which many believe means that the hymen is broken during it. Is everything clear? Only seemingly.

It also often happens that the hymen – or rather the hymen or the vaginal wreath , as this fold of mucous membrane is increasingly referred to (so as not to spread the myth about its structure) – practically does not block access to the vagina. Often, because it is exactly the same with vaginas in general – each one is different. As Olga Tokarczuk noted in Bieguny : “Bodies are basically similar, no secret. But not vaginas. They are like fingerprints”. And as you can easily guess, it is their structure – including the structure of the hymen of a specific person – that determines whether blood will appear on the snow-white sheets like a scarlet rose.

Moreover, sexual intercourse is just one of countless forms of sex. There is also oral sex, anal sex, and scissoring, among others. Some of them do not affect the hymen. This is also one of the reasons for another problem with virginity – at what point should it end: at the moment of violating the vaginal ring or generally at the first sexual contact? And if it is the latter, why is this hymen, adored by society, so important?

First time like in a movie?

Ah, these lyrical comparisons. Fair cheeks, smooth foreheads, halos of golden hair... The alleged attributes of virgins have always been a wonderful stimulus for the imagination of poets, although if anyone, the old lyric poets had little in common with virgins (and with purity in general). Similarly, film depictions with their often caricatured interpretations of virginity and teenage sex have nothing to do with reality.

In recent years, it seems that the subject has been dispelled by the perfectly balanced coming-of-age film that is Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird . [Spoiler alert!] Of particular note is the scene in which the main character (played by Saoirse Ronan) goes to bed for the first time with her big crush (played by Timothée Chalamet), and then, upon learning that her Kyle has had several partners, the exact number of which she can't remember, exclaims in exasperation, "Why didn't you keep a list? We're in high school!" A moment later, she confesses, "I wanted it to be special." "Why?" her partner asks, then adds, "You'll have plenty of non-special sex in your life." But she wonders to herself, "I was on top! Who the hell is on top the first time?!" [End of spoiler]

The cult of virgins

Religions of course play a huge role in creating the burning, sometimes deadly (literally and figuratively) need to maintain this special form of purity. From ancient times to modern times, virgins were responsible for looking after the temples of the goddess Vesta, rewarding those who were faithful to Allah, or bringing this divine gift, sweet burden, their greatest value to the nuptial chamber of their first and only husband. What does the Catholic religion have to say about this? Let's just look: starting with the Virgin Mary and ending with the heroines hailed as saints - many women that we can read about in the Bible were virgins, or at least were recognized as such. By a strange coincidence, in the case of male saints, this detailed information was omitted.

Cruel traditions

All over the world, it is in the cult of virginity that the so-called defenders of tradition find justification when they commit terrible crimes against women. A woman who has been "soiled" is a disgrace to her family. Only death - her death - will erase such an insult. A woman who does not feel pleasure during sex will be more likely to remain a virgin and a faithful wife. Let's make her suffer - let's deprive her of her clitoris. A woman who had the chance to even be alone with a man will not stand in line with the other virgins from the village, will not find a second admirer. So let's force her to marry, kidnapping her from her family home, as is happening in Kazakhstan. This is just the beginning of a long list of atrocities that people around the world experience at the hands of people intoxicated by the vision of a violated hymen, a piece of tissue in the vagina.

There is nothing to be ashamed of

Society has always exaggerated the importance of virginity and the function of virgins, so teenagers' expectations about their first time are raised, putting them in a state of exceptional tension. Suddenly, their teenage life revolves around undertaking sexual initiation, which - like every experience created by pop culture - may turn out to be disappointing. There were supposed to be fireworks, but it's awkward and a bit scary, because what will happen if he tells all his friends? It will be embarrassing! It seems that the term "virginity" exists mainly for this purpose - to make you feel ashamed. Of the fact that you still have it, that you don't have it anymore, that you had it for too long or too short, or of the fact that you gave access to what is most precious to someone inappropriate. See how many virgins he has on his list!

There is no point in pressing

On the one hand, shame, on the other – pressure. A young woman will probably hear from her peers at least once: "Don't act like a prude!", a young man: "Dude, you squealed like a virgin!", and in their heads a conviction will be born that the words "you're a virgin!" should be treated as an insult. Women are afraid of slut-shaming, but none of them wants to be "boring". At the same time, some men are convinced that they should end up in bed with only virgins.

But boys don't have it easy either. Your friends will tell you that if you haven't had sex for the first time, you're not a real man. That means you're a wimp, a nerd who has no way of proving your sexual orientation (as if homosexuality were also something bad). All of this makes losing your virginity nothing more than a spectacle played out in front of your peers. Exactly: "loss." The very phrase "lose your virginity" suggests to us that we're acting wrong, because you can "lose" something special, something you miss later. And yet, by having sex with mutual consent, even for the first time, we gain - if not pleasure, then a new experience.

Let's get rid of virginity

All logical premises indicate that virginity is something that does not exist. It exists, to some extent, on a psychological level, especially when young people's heads are filled with false information and exaggerated images, but physically - as confirmed by gynecologists - it does not change anything in us. We are not machines to have factory settings. It is impossible to check what is on the menu. So we can feed ourselves with medieval stories about virgins. We can equate being a virgin with virtue (as the PWN dictionary states: "a set of positive moral traits" and "adherence to the principles of ethics") and explain to our daughters that they do not have to put cucumber slices on their eyelids, because this virtue makes their whole face glow. We can tell our sons that they cannot call themselves men until they have picked the fruit from a virgin's tree.

Or we can stop beating around the bush and finally focus on education. Get rid of "virgins" and "hymen" from dictionaries, remove harmful content from textbooks that has nothing to do with scientific facts, and instead use more words like "closeness," "consent," "trust," "natural," and "your" and "decision."