Jessica Valenti’s point of view on virginity is one of the
truest and most relatable things I have ever read. Growing up in a fairly
strict Catholic household, attending Catholic school for fourteen years
(including pre-K) I told from an early age that girls who have sex before
marriage are going to hell and are simply not “nice” girls. I carried this with
me for a very long time, so long in fact that when my first friend lost her
virginity in the 10th grade, it became the biggest deal. We
questioned, “How could she do this, doesn’t she know that sex is wrong?!” From
then on, she and every other girl who had already cashed in the V-Card became
“those girls,” the ones who everyone talked about.
But do you know what everyone wasn’t talking about? The boys. No one cared about the boys in this situation who were active participants in losing their virginities as well! Boys aren’t put under the same microscope, as girls are when it comes to having sex. Rather, it’s quite the opposite. While girls are put down and thought of as “bad girls” or “sluts,” boys are patted on the back and congratulated when they have sex. As a woman this double standard is so frustrating.
What is most frustrating, however, is where all of the judgments on women come from. Sure, some of them are from men, but at the end of the day, most of the hate and judgment about sexuality is from other women. In Valenti’s article, she discusses a time when her mother found an empty condom wrapper in her bag and told Jessica that if she kept having sex, no one would want to marry her. This is a sentiment that women hear more than you would expect. At 20 years old, when I finally got up the courage to tell my mother that I had lost my virginity that year and made the responsible choice to go on birth control, she hung her head and kept repeating, “Where did I go wrong?”
This response to women’s sexuality is just the kind of thing that Valenti is discussing. This double standard and almost slut-shaming that we’re subjecting our fellow women to. When we make a decision about our bodies, do we want that questioned or have judgment passed upon it? No. Then why do we believe that it’s okay to subject other women to our judgments and opinions on their choices? Whether a woman has had 0 sexual partners or 15, she can still be a good and pure woman. The judgment ends now, and it needs to begin with us.
The fact that women are judged so harshly over losing their virginity is disgusting. People say that men don't want "used" women, which proves that this is such a man's world. Women who choose to remain abstinent, save themselves to give to their husbands. They refrain from sex to give their virginity like it's a gift, yet do the recipients deserve it? Have they saved themselves too? Most likely, the answer is no. Like you said Kaitlyn, men are often congratulated for losing their virginity. If women are pressured to remain chaste, then men should be too.
ReplyDeleteKaitlyn and Kirsten, you both bring up good points about the inequalities between men and women when it comes to the respect we give them based on their actions. Importantly, as Kaitlyn points out, women themselves are often the ones that enforce these strict guidelines. And Kirsten points out this is often about ultimately pleasing men. I wonder about the way men experience these issues, too. There is certainly a system of boys policing boys in terms of expectations to be heterosexually active. Does this have the same outcomes, though? I think it might be different for men who identify as straight versus gay.
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