The phrase "losing virginity" is the creation of fundamentalists who see sex as an evil except in the service of procreation. So they enlist terminology to create the desired pejoritive connotation.

When you first have sex, you are not really "losing" anything. You are actually "gaining" something, the experience of participating in the most pleasurable and meaningful of all human interactions.

Instead of ending a life of abstenance, you are starting a life of participation.

So instead of asking "when did you lose your virginity?, ask "when did you begin your sex life?"

You are not really missing something, if it's not something you can see or feel.

O.O Well, from a girl's point of view it's definitely something that can be seen and felt until a while after the "losing" has happened. :D :D :D

Well, sure a woman looses something, but having been raised in the church, I was taught never to consider the needs of the women.

How about "finding ones groove."

I agree with your sentiment. In my own head, for fun, I'm thinking, "I had my vagina pierced before I had my ears pierced." LOL

(And I had a really lousy first lover, so the piercing analogy is pretty accurate. Unfortunately. :P )

Also, the 'losing your virginity' concept implies 'penis in vagina' sex as the pinnacle or pivoltal or crux of human sexuality, when really there is a full range of sexualities and sexual behaviours and each person can decide for themselves where and when their own sex lives begin. IMO.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2012 02:11PM by spaghetti oh.

I prefer, "popped my cherry" anyway.

"pre-boinked" doesn't have quite the right ring to it.

Just thinking... I usually don't reply to these kinds of threads... Old Mormon hang-ups even though I'm a technical Nevermo...

That's how I always referred to it, that's what I encourage people to use.

Losing something implies a value that you no longer have. Sexism is deeply rooted in these little sayings. If people want to cotinue using "losing," that's their decision, but I prefer a different phrasing.

WTF? It's a phrase used, live with it. Might be just as stupid as "take a $shit", when we all know we actually "leave" one.

Ron

Tabula Rasa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WTF? It's a phrase used, live with it. Might be
> just as stupid as "take a $@#$%&", when we all
> know we actually "leave" one.
>
> Ron


Agree. It is just a phrase.

I use the phrase first time I had sex. I don't admit to gaining or losing anything, and it is an accurate description. I guess I could say the first time I had penis/vaginal sex, but most people don't need the clarification.

Men could use "baptized". That way, spagetti oh's objection could be accomodated.

"I finally got baptized last night, it was just a papist sprinkling, but she was really into it. Hopefully next time it'll be full immersion."

That would give new meaning to "high baptizing missions." :o)

That and other "bothersome" phrases like "protecting one's chastity". I was raped by the 13-yr-old who lived across the street. I grew up believing/totally convinced that gawd didnt' love me. Hell, how could he? I was damaged, unchaste, impure, (all that other bullshit) before I understood what any of it meant.

Oh, the temple marriage head-trip the old lady used to lay on me. No man would ever want me. I was unworthy, 'cause I wasn't a virgin. Boo-fucking-hoo.

I "lost" my virginity, my chastity, my innocence . . . no, what I lost was my childhood.

I'll give you "live with it." What other choice did I have?

Sicce

Yes, since men never "lose" anything when losing virginity, not even reputation, some of the dudes posting are letting their majority privilege show, and are completely unaware of it.

The term losing your virginity reduces what for many is a huge beautiful moment in their lives down to just "the act".. when it is so much more for so many.

It is a right of passage and deserves a more fitting marker. You're right, it really should be "finding sensuality" because nothing is really lost under the right circumstances.

Just another negative from religion.

Maybe those young girls,then, who were forced, could look at it as still having something beautiful to find. I can't even imagine how difficult it is to come to terms with that, but I know they are "no less" and I hope they all learn that too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2012 03:24PM by blueorchid.

Quit telling people how to talk, asshole.

Thank you for telling him that. Someone needed to tell him not to say things like that. Good work.

yeah.... and why do I have to call today thursday, when I dont believe in thor?

and do I have to call it an 'escalator' when it's taking me down?

I thought of it more as "casting off my inexperience".

I call it "finding my balls."

Very relevant to the hang-ups of mormonism.
It's the old "pine box" dogma popularized by Spencer W. Kimball in "Miracle of Forgiveness".
I was instructed to read this book by a well-meaning young bishop as I was returning to the church from teenage inactivity. I had had inept sex with a few partners, but more significantly, my GF at the time had "given it up" to me, and we had decided to repent and I was going on a mission, and we were gonna get married.
Well I was shocked to find out, in that book, HOW bad a thing we had done...the sin next to murder...and that a true saint would rather see their child dead than to lose their "virtue", and that you might as well be dead because you can never get it back.
I drove her away by guilting her (she was reluctant to confess to her bishop, I egged her on). Her bishop guilted her too. Well, she wised up and dumped me. It took me another 18 years and a near-suicide from the guilt I heaped on myself to figure it out.
The virginity complex is just a form of sexism, misogynism to be precise. It's a total hang up that virginity is somehow virtuous in itself, and that "losing" it is a sin except on your wedding night.

And so my fellow Americans, ask NOT when did you lose your virginity, ask when did you start your sex life.

Or maybe ask, when did you start banging your 19-year old intern?