Love the purity of those cherries. ;-)

Interesting article. I would have liked to finish it, but the Americal Apparel ads (tank...thong?! WTF!) were making me ill.

What fruit do we men get to loose when we loose our virginity? ;)

Hello! 28-year-old male virgin here. Still waiting until it feels like a good decision.

Cheers,

TH

I, uh, really like ice-cream sundaes...

*chuckle* Okay, so that wasn't QUITE the brilliant conversation-starter I thought it'd be...

Cheers,

TH

Virgin at 28? Tell us about that Tom.

What fruit do we men get to loose when we loose our virginity?

Perhaps you get to crack open your nuts? (That's not meant to sound as painful as it looks.)

So why should it be an issue if someone's a virgin at 28 ... or 48.

Okay, I'm not a virgin and haven't been one for a long long time. And I don't see anything wrong with the way I did away with my virginity (well, in retrospect, it might have served me better to find an experienced, sensitive lover rather than a self-centred fellow first-timer). But if someone wants to not have sex, why should they face censure any more than I should face censure for not watching TV.

Unless they're Dawn Eden, of course. She deserves censure for fuzzy logic, crimes against feminism, and sanctimomiousness, among other things. Her chastity, though, would be her own business if she didn't keep making it everyone else's.

"The case against having sex"? Why? Sex is healthy and enjoyable. It doesn't even have any calories!

I'll be honest and say I haven't read the article, so if it's something totally other, then forgive me, but I'm tired of conservatives making sex out to be some kind of nasty, dirty, deathly thing.

As long as you make smart choices (read: safe sex, people), sex is definitely one of the best things out there, IMO.

Personally, I don't like virgins much simply because they don't seem very in-touch with the world. "Child-like innocence" is great in a child, but very annoying in a thirty-five year old man. And the last virgin I slept with got REALLY weird on me and wanted to marry me the morning after. So I don't sleep with virgins. But, hey, that's just me. It takes all kinds, I hear.

Okay, I had this fabulous post written out and then lost it. Basically I just said that EJ just demonstrated some of the prejudice talked about in the article. It wasn't a sex-phobic article - it was against prejudice towards virgins. People who are simply uninterested in sex are often misunderstood by people who have a strong sexual drive. (Sexual drive, btw, varies greatly, so don't assume chastity is always a sacrifice.) I'm a virgin, but I'm not against sex. Sex is a healthy, normal, essential part of life, (On that note: did you know that sex actually burns calories?!) and I strongly disagree with anyone who says that it's dirty or should be repressed. I just don't have the desire for it at the moment. What a horrible person I must be! *note: this is sarcasm*

Virgins aren't weird. We're just doing what feels good to us. Just like you're doing what feels good to you. So don't put us down or pressure us into anything we don't want to do. My body, my choice.

~J

EJ writes:
So I don't sleep with virgins.

If you did, they wouldn't be virgins anymore, would they?

And I definitely don't have "child-like innocence" (I don't get where the article comes up with that)... I just don't fuck. I mean, it isn't very dramatic.

If people don't have a socially acceptable option to abstain, then we're basically creating a dynamic where everyone has sex imposed on them. Not quite rape, but certainly not optimal consent.

Cheers,

TH

And I gotta agree with Jes.

I, frankly, feel assaulted by other heterosexual males in my age group on the issue of sex--which is probably one of the reasons why all of my close friends within 10 years of my age are women or gay men. I'm very pro-sex, but the question becomes what's wrong with me for not having it. How dare I.

Ironically, the people who understand my decision best among heterosexuals tend to be the folks who have no sex or who have lots and lots of sex with a variety of different partners. It's the folks in between I have to worry about.

It's sort of like how if you don't go to college at all, or if you graduate college, you're more likely to vote Democrat; but if you go to college and don't do the full four years, you're much more likely to vote Republican. The marginalization--reverse puritanism, I guess--seems to come into play primarily with the folks in the middle. Not sure why that is.

Cheers,

TH

...and I'm glad to hear you "don't like virgins very much," EJ. God, the friends I've got on this site. It just gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all around.

Cheers,

TH

Just to make sure we're being fair and considering all aspects of the question, it should be noted that sex can have calories. But if you're taking in more calories than you're expending, you're probably either doing it wrong, or you might want to rethink your erotic relationship with hollandaise sauce.

I dunno, EJ. Tom's the only virgin (or at least, the only person who's admitting to being a virgin!) that I've known since...well...I lost my virginity at a rather later age than my peer group, and he seems like good people to me!

I don't know about "a case against sex," but I can of reasons why someone might opt out for a while.

Heraclitus, ha!

I read the article thinking, "This is a problem?" I have friends who have had lots of sex, and I have friends who are virgins. I have friends whose sex lives I know nothing about. I honestly don't care, beyond wanting them to be happy and comfortable with their decisions.

Tom's childlike innocence lolz

This is the obligatory "sex is overrated" comment. Reader discretion is advised.

If having sex is a choice to which one consents, and a person opts out of making that choice, then what the freak is the big deal? Why does the group have to be unanimous in any action it takes? Why do the "outliers" get a bunch of flack for trivial things?

Seriously, I thought we've established that "all the cool kids do it" doesn't work when we hit the age of 35. :-p

u talkin' to me? i always forget the irony sign.

Tom's childlike innocence

/irony

From the article:

... realize that your virginal best friend or co-worker may be waiting not just for sex, but acceptance.

I don't want to know anything about my co-workers' sex lives. Really. This should not come up in any conversations we might have.

I do agree with the idea that we shouldn't try to impose a single standard on everyone though. That's the root of the problem, isn't it? No-one should ever feel pressurized into having sex, "just to be like everybody else" and no-one should ever be castigated for having pre-marital sex or whatever. I have to say that in Europe, it's the former rather than the latter. I lost my virginity at 22, which is not exactly early, but it is true that I didn't tell my student friends that I was still a virgin in my early twenties, because I didn't want them to think I was prudish/disgusted by sex/waiting for a knight in shiny armor. I was just waiting to meet the person I wanted to share that intimacy with so I could have a truly great experience. And that's exactly what happened. :-)

I try to be supportive of people regardless of their choices. Who you have sex with, when, and why is really no one else's business.
I'm pretty sympathetic to virgins who get this "You're still a virgin as ##? What the hell's wrong with you?!?" attitude because I was still a virgin when a lot of my peers were not, and like Scarlet, I didn't tell them. When the conversation turned to sex, I always felt uncomfortable, not because of prudishness, but because of the inherent deception--I felt like a spy for the enemy, pretending I was "one of them."
I don't think people should be pressured to conform to whatever the societal perception of "normal" is--no one should be made to feel ashamed of the amount of sexual experience they have, whether by saying they have too much, or too little.

Random observations:
While I would support anyone choosing to remain a virgin, I'm not sure I'd want to have sex with one--I think I'd be a little intimidated if they chose *me* to finally give it up to--talk about pressure!

I haven't been a virgin for at least a decade, but I have been celibate for most of that time. If you go long enough between encounters, do you get to re-apply for virgin status? ;)

I haven't been a virgin for at least a decade, but I have been celibate for most of that time. If you go long enough between encounters, do you get to re-apply for virgin status? ;)

Vervain, (and I know you're not asking that as a serious question, but I think the answer is interesting, so I'm going to answer as though you were, indeed, serious)

I believe that technically the answer is "no"; once that cherry is popped it stays popped. That said, high school health teachers who actually teach sexual health (as opposed to abstinence-only nonsense) frequently tell their students that they can "reset," if they feel that they "went too far" in their experimentation. Essentially they want kids to know that if they're uncomfortable with a decision they've made to become sexually active, they don't have to stay sexually active.

Some religions also allow people to re-affirm "chastity," acknowledging that sometimes people make sexual decisions that, in retrospect, weren't right for the, and that this doesn't consign them to an eternity with the scarlet letter branded on their foreheads.

I like that both of these notions allow people to decide "Okay, I tried that, but I'm not really happy identifying as sexually active right now, so I'm just not going to."

I like you, TH, so I guess you're an exception.

I'm not prejudiced against virgins, but I DO think that virgins have a VERY incomplete world-view. Sex is a huge part of the human experience and to be totally unintiated in it sounds pretty crippling. I know that I was a completely different person before and after my virginity loss.

And, yeah, after I sleep with them they aren't virgins anymore. Duh. I still don't sleep with virgins. They get really fucked up. Like I said, one asked me to marry him - another started crying afterwards. I don't need the drama.

Part of prejudice is judging an entire group from one or a couple of experiences.

Whether or not losing one's virginity alters a personality or one's look at life depends on each individual person. Believe it or not, not all people experience sex the same way. Not all people do a Jekyll and Hyde once they have sex for the first time. Did you, EJ, seriously think you were a better person after you lost your virginity than bofore? Even if yes, not all people feel the same way.

I admire you for your strong will and sexual freedom, EJ, but I don't think it's fair to judge everyone because one or a couple of guys freaked out on you.

No one has yet mentioned asexuality. Though the rarest of sexual orientations, it's just as plausible as heterosexuality or homosexuality. I just thought I'd mention it as one very good reason for someone to remain a virgin. Expecting an asexual man or woman to have sex is like forcing a gay man or woman to be with someone of the opposite sex.

I agree with Tom. Society imposing sex on us isn't quite rape, but it's pretty damn close to forced non-consensual sex.

As for virgins having an incomplete world view - well, I don't know if being a virgin will blind you to issues of war, AIDS, death, true love, genocide and the Holocaust, poverty and hunger, infant mortality in third-world countries, global misogyny, rape, and terrorism, but alright. If you say so, oh all-knowing non-virgin.

Oh, pitiful and crippled me!

*sarcasm*