Virginity
Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof, vary. Heterosexuals may or may not consider loss of virginity to occur only through penile–vaginal penetration, while people of other sexual orientations often include oral sex, anal sex, or manual sex in their definitions of virginity loss. The term "virgin" encompasses a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern, and ethical concepts. Religious rituals for regaining virginity exist in many cultures. Some men and women who practice celibacy after losing their virginity consider themselves born-again virgins.
There are cultural and religious traditions that place special value and significance on this state, predominantly towards unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honour, and worth. Like chastity, the concept of virginity has traditionally involved sexual abstinence. The concept of virginity usually involves moral or religious issues and can have consequences in terms of social status and in interpersonal relationships. Although virginity has social implications and had significant legal implications in some societies in the past, it has no legal consequences in most societies today. The social implications of virginity still remain in many societies and can have varying effects on an individual's social agency.
Etymology
The word virgin comes via Old French virgine from the root form of Latin wikt:virgo, genitive virginis, meaning literally "maiden" or "virgin" The words wikt:virgino and wikt:virgulo are hyponyms.The Latin word likely arose by analogy with a suit of lexemes based on vireo, meaning "to be green, fresh or flourishing", mostly with botanic reference—in particular, virga meaning "strip of wood".
The first known use of virgin in English is found in a Middle English manuscript held at Trinity College, Cambridge of about 1200:
In this, and many later contexts, the reference is specifically Christian, alluding to members of the Ordo Virginum, which applies to the consecrated virgins known to have existed since the early church from the writings of the Church Fathers.
By about 1300, the word was expanded to apply also to Mary, the mother of Jesus, hence to sexual virginity explicitly:
Further expansion of the word to include virtuous young women, irrespective of religious connection, occurred over about another century, until by about 1400 we find:
In modern english, virgin is not restricted to youth or females; older women can be virgins, men can be virgins, and potential initiates into many fields can be colloquially termed virgins—for example, a skydiving "virgin". In the latter usage, virgin means uninitiated, as in the much older virgin knight. "Virgin" is also used as an adjective in terms like virgin field.
Culture
Concept
The concept of virginity has significance only in a particular social, cultural or moral context. According to Hanne Blank, "virginity reflects no known biological imperative and grants no demonstrable evolutionary advantage."Medieval bestiaries stated that the only way to capture or tame a unicorn was by way of using a virgin as a lure, due to her implied purity. The topic is popular in Renaissance paintings.
Although virginity has historically been correlated with purity and worth, many feminist scholars believe that virginity itself is a myth. They argue that no standardized medical definition of virginity exists, that there is no scientifically verifiable proof of virginity loss, and that sexual intercourse results in no change in personality. Jessica Valenti, feminist writer and author of The Purity Myth, reasons that the concept of virginity is also dubious because of the many individual definitions of virginity loss, and that valuing virginity has placed a woman's morality "between her legs." She critiques the notion that sexual activity has any influence on morality or ethics.
The urge of wanting one's spouse or partner to have never engaged in sexual activities is called a virgin complex. A person may also have a virgin complex directed towards oneself.
Definitions of virginity loss
There are varying understandings as to which types of sexual activities result in loss of virginity. The traditional view is that virginity is only lost through vaginal penetration by the penis, consensual or non-consensual, and that acts of oral sex, anal sex, manual sex or other forms of non-penetrative sex do not result in loss of virginity. A person who engages in such acts without having engaged in vaginal intercourse is often regarded among heterosexuals and researchers as "technically a virgin". By contrast, gay or lesbian individuals often describe such acts as resulting in loss of virginity. Some gay males regard penile-anal penetration as resulting in loss of virginity, but not fellatio, handjobs or other types of non-penetrative sex, while lesbians may regard cunnilingus or fingering as virginity loss. Some lesbians who debate the traditional definition consider whether or not non-penile forms of vaginal penetration constitute virginity loss, while other gay men and lesbians assert that the term virginity is meaningless to them because of the prevalence of the traditional definition.Whether a person can lose their virginity through rape is also subject to debate, with the belief that virginity can only be lost through consensual sex being prevalent in some studies. In a study by researcher and author Laura M. Carpenter, many men and women discussed how they felt virginity could not be taken through rape.
Carpenter states that despite perceptions of what determines virginity loss being as varied among gay men and lesbians as they are among heterosexuals, and in some cases more varied among the former, that the matter has been described to her as people viewing sexual acts relating to virginity loss as "acts that correspond to your sexual orientation," which suggests the following: "So if you're a gay male, you're supposed to have anal sex because that's what gay men do. And if you're a gay woman, then you're supposed to have oral sex, because that's what gay women do. And so those become, like markers, for when virginity is lost."
The concept of "technical virginity" or sexual abstinence through oral sex is popular among teenagers. For example, oral sex is common among adolescent girls who fellate their boyfriends not only to preserve their virginity, but also to create and maintain intimacy or to avoid pregnancy. In a 1999 study published in JAMA, the definition of "sex" was examined based on a 1991 random sample of 599 college students from 29 US states; it found that 60% said oral-genital contact did not constitute having sex. Stephanie Sanders of the Kinsey Institute, co-author of the study, stated, "That's the 'technical virginity' thing that's going on." She and other researchers titled their findings "Would You Say You 'Had Sex' If...?" By contrast, in a study released in 2008 by the Guttmacher Institute, author of the findings Laura Lindberg stated that there "is a widespread belief that teens engage in nonvaginal forms of sex, especially oral sex, as a way to be sexually active while still claiming that technically, they are virgins", but that her study drew the conclusion that "research shows that this supposed substitution of oral sex for vaginal sex is largely a myth".
A 2003 study published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality focusing on definitions of "having sex" and noting studies concerning university students from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia reported that "hile the vast majority of respondents in these three studies included penile-vaginal intercourse in their definition of sex, fewer respondents considered penile-anal intercourse to constitute having sex" and that "oral-genital behaviours were defined as sex by between 32% and 58% of respondents". A different study by the Kinsey Institute sampled 484 people, ranging in ages 18–96. "Nearly 95 percent of people in the study agreed that penile-vaginal intercourse meant 'had sex.' But the numbers changed as the questions got more specific." 11 percent of respondents based "had sex" on whether the man had achieved an orgasm, concluding that absence of an orgasm does not constitute "having had" sex. "About 80 percent of respondents said penile-anal intercourse meant 'had sex.' About 70 percent of people believed oral sex was sex."
Virginity pledges made by heterosexual teenagers and young adults may also include the practice of "technical virginity". In a peer-reviewed study by sociologists Peter Bearman and Hannah Brueckner, which looked at virginity pledgers five years after their pledge, they found that the pledgers have similar proportions of sexually transmitted diseases and at least as high proportions of anal and oral sex as those who have not made a virginity pledge, and deduced that there was substitution of oral and anal sex for vaginal sex among the pledgers. However, the data for anal sex without vaginal sex reported by males did not reflect this directly.