Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences by Laura Carpenter
Authors: Laura Carpenter
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physiological grounds. According to Danice Marshall, a 28- year-old heterosexual African American nurse practitioner:
To say someone is a virgin or not does not have to do with whether or not they had an intimate relationship with the perpetrator or the partner. If you’re no longer a virgin, it’s just because of the fact that a penis en- tered a vagina.
Discontent with this aspect of the definition of virginity loss was com- mon, however. Said Karen Lareau, “It’s not the way that I would . . . de- fine losing your virginity . . . in a romantic kind of world. [But] it would
definitely be intercourse, so I wouldn’t consider them a virgin. Unfortu- nately.”
The remaining half claimed, in contrast, that nonconsensual sex could not result in virginity loss, or could do so only in a technical sense. Some said that this was because rape was not “really” sex. Matt Bergquist, a 24-year-old White heterosexual engineer, explained:
For some reason I don’t think of rape and molestation . . . as sex in the same way. I guess losing your virginity is at least partially defined by the experience you gained about sex and relationships. And I think that there’s so much that’s strange about [coerced] encounters that they may not really fall into that category.
Others suggested that virginity loss depended on volition. In the opinion of Carrie Matthews, a 20-year-old White heterosexual nursing student:
I see virginity as definitely something that you can choose into, and peo- ple . . . don’t get to choose into rape. . . . If their only sexual experience has been something like a rape, I would call them a virgin even though technically something did happen.
Both arguments give social and psychological changes equal weight as physiological experiences in determining whether a person has “truly” lost her or his virginity.
The women I spoke with were considerably more likely than the men to exclude nonconsensual sex from their definitions of virginity loss. Nearly two-thirds of the women said that rape could never or could only technically constitute virginity loss, compared with only half of the men. This stands to reason, given women’s greater susceptibility to rape and the fact that a larger proportion of women in the study had personally been the victims of sexual assault—8 of 33 women, compared with one of 28 men. Every one of the nine former victims maintained that virgin- ity could not be lost through coerced sex. 16 Gender differences in beliefs about nonconsensual sex and virginity loss probably also stem from women’s greater familiarity with the feminist argument that rape is an act of violence rather than a sexual act. First voiced in the 1970s, this claim has spread through magazine articles, support groups, and events such as Take Back the Night marches. 17 In fact, I found a generational difference, with only one-third of women and men born between 1973 and 1980 be-
lieving that coerced sex could result in virginity loss, compared with over half of those born between 1962 and 1972. This pattern suggests that this feminist understanding of rape is gradually being incorporated into main- stream understandings of sexuality and virginity loss.
For many of the people I interviewed, social and psychological criteria also overshadowed physiological ones when it came to the possibility of regaining virginity. Half believed that under no circumstances could a person become a virgin, or lose their virginity, more than once. Although some made this argument on physiological grounds, others pointed to ex- periential factors. As Tony Halloran, a 21-year-old White heterosexual busboy, saw it:
I’ve seen commercials about [born-again virginity], but I don’t see how they do it. Like, they can’t forget that experience. . . . They’ll always have that memory of when they lost their virginity, for the first time. So I don’t see how they can become a virgin again.
Experiential factors also
To say someone is a virgin or not does not have to do with whether or not they had an intimate relationship with the perpetrator or the partner. If you’re no longer a virgin, it’s just because of the fact that a penis en- tered a vagina.
Discontent with this aspect of the definition of virginity loss was com- mon, however. Said Karen Lareau, “It’s not the way that I would . . . de- fine losing your virginity . . . in a romantic kind of world. [But] it would
definitely be intercourse, so I wouldn’t consider them a virgin. Unfortu- nately.”
The remaining half claimed, in contrast, that nonconsensual sex could not result in virginity loss, or could do so only in a technical sense. Some said that this was because rape was not “really” sex. Matt Bergquist, a 24-year-old White heterosexual engineer, explained:
For some reason I don’t think of rape and molestation . . . as sex in the same way. I guess losing your virginity is at least partially defined by the experience you gained about sex and relationships. And I think that there’s so much that’s strange about [coerced] encounters that they may not really fall into that category.
Others suggested that virginity loss depended on volition. In the opinion of Carrie Matthews, a 20-year-old White heterosexual nursing student:
I see virginity as definitely something that you can choose into, and peo- ple . . . don’t get to choose into rape. . . . If their only sexual experience has been something like a rape, I would call them a virgin even though technically something did happen.
Both arguments give social and psychological changes equal weight as physiological experiences in determining whether a person has “truly” lost her or his virginity.
The women I spoke with were considerably more likely than the men to exclude nonconsensual sex from their definitions of virginity loss. Nearly two-thirds of the women said that rape could never or could only technically constitute virginity loss, compared with only half of the men. This stands to reason, given women’s greater susceptibility to rape and the fact that a larger proportion of women in the study had personally been the victims of sexual assault—8 of 33 women, compared with one of 28 men. Every one of the nine former victims maintained that virgin- ity could not be lost through coerced sex. 16 Gender differences in beliefs about nonconsensual sex and virginity loss probably also stem from women’s greater familiarity with the feminist argument that rape is an act of violence rather than a sexual act. First voiced in the 1970s, this claim has spread through magazine articles, support groups, and events such as Take Back the Night marches. 17 In fact, I found a generational difference, with only one-third of women and men born between 1973 and 1980 be-
lieving that coerced sex could result in virginity loss, compared with over half of those born between 1962 and 1972. This pattern suggests that this feminist understanding of rape is gradually being incorporated into main- stream understandings of sexuality and virginity loss.
For many of the people I interviewed, social and psychological criteria also overshadowed physiological ones when it came to the possibility of regaining virginity. Half believed that under no circumstances could a person become a virgin, or lose their virginity, more than once. Although some made this argument on physiological grounds, others pointed to ex- periential factors. As Tony Halloran, a 21-year-old White heterosexual busboy, saw it:
I’ve seen commercials about [born-again virginity], but I don’t see how they do it. Like, they can’t forget that experience. . . . They’ll always have that memory of when they lost their virginity, for the first time. So I don’t see how they can become a virgin again.
Experiential factors also
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