Back in 10th grade, one of my guy friends was on an overseas trip with other members of our class. He shared a room with several other guys, and at some point, while enjoying the relaxed drinking laws, the topic of sex circulated the room. The question was posed -- who had lost their virginity? Everyone said "no" or "not yet" except one -- the boy who was infamous around school for explicit PDA with whichever girlfriend he was seeing at the time.
The group was shocked to have an experienced man in their midst and started posing questions -- "Dude, what's it like?" being the question of the hour. At this point, the sexual veteran fumbled with his words and posed an unexpected question, "well ... does anal sex count?" It seems that was as far as he'd gotten, but to him that was close enough.
Last weekend, I was hanging out with a group of friends engrossed by a very interesting discussion. Like many conversations, I have no idea how this one started. I only remember, my friend shouting, "I know people who have anal sex so they can call themselves virgins!"
This piqued my interest, so I started asking around and a lot of people had friends who supplemented one form of sex for another because they wanted to retain the title of "virgin." Before breaking it down lets start by giving a few definitions:
virgin, n.
1.A person who has not experienced sexual intercourse.
2.A chaste or unmarried woman; a maiden.
Well that's a start. A person who hasn't had sexual intercourse and a chaste woman are both considered virgins. So what is chaste? Chaste has several possible meanings but my favorite is, "abstaining from all sexual intercourse; celibate."
For those of you who don't see where this is going, I'll speak plainly. "Virgin" is used differently by many people. You can see it means abstaining from sexual intercourse, but what about other sexual acts? Back to the dictionary.
sexual intercourse, n.
1.Coitus between humans.
2.Sexual union between humans involving genital contact other than vaginal penetration by the penis.
According to American Heritage Dictionary, it seems sexual intercourse is a bit broader than placing a penis in a vagina.
The idea of virginity seems to vary from person to person. For homosexual men who have not had sex with a woman, anal sex can be considered losing one's virginity. Yet, some heterosexual couples seem to consider anal sex an exception and use it as an alternative for vaginal intercourse.
When considering the terms of virginity, one person I spoke with said people who say they are virgins but practice anal sex or engage in a lot of fellatio aren't painting the picture of purity that's associated with the term.
No one needs to know your sexual status, but it often comes up among close friends and potential partners. So what do you say if you have done some things but not everything?
With many people using the word "virgin" to literally mean they haven't had vaginal intercourse, it's harder to know what someone means when they say they are a virgin. Too much hair splitting could cheapen the word for those who use it to mean purity from all forms of sex.
Now that we're out of the 50s and people are openly trying different forms of sex, it's hard to keep a narrow definition of virgin. Personally, I think virgin means abstaining from all forms of sex (though I'll admit I go back and forth on fellatio for heterosexual couples), and I'm sure other people have different interpretations. For them I offer this: Anyone wishing to engage in some forms of sex but not go to the furthest possible extent, why not make a new term. Half-virgin, perhaps?
Megan Hein is a Cavalier Daily Health & Sexuality Columnist. She can be reached at hein@cavalierdaily.com.
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