quotations about virginity
For women especially, virginity has become the easy answer -- the morality quick fix. You can be vapid, stupid, and unethical, but so long as you've never had sex, you're a "good" (i.e. "moral") girl and therefore worthy of praise.
JESSICA VALENTI
The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Virginity can be lost by a thought.
ST. JEROME
attributed, Virginity in Young Adult Literature after Twilight
Virginity ... is the image and practice of perfection, the highest form of life, an imitation of the angels.
SARAH SALIH, ANKE BERNAU & RUTH EVANS
Medieval Virginities
Virginity as integrity of the flesh and freedom from sexual experience is natural to human beings from their birth. But virginity as a virtue is that virginity which is freely chosen for the purpose of serving God more completely, of giving the mind to the contemplation of divine things in the absence of family cares and with the sacrifice of family joys.
PAUL J. GLENN
A Tour of the Summa
Purity culture teaches young girls that they don't own their bodies and that virginity is far more important than intelligence, self-confidence, humour and kindness. If you tell a girl her body is inherently shameful, she'll grow into a woman who hates herself and feels supremely uncomfortable in her own skin.... The irony is that purity culture is anything but pure. It is inextricably intertwined with oppression, lies, fear and mistrust. It breeds shame, sexual dysfunction and pain.
JEAN BALCHIN
"Enough of the shame game", Otago Daily Times, April 20, 2017
Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.
JOHN MILTON
Comus
People have ascribed significance to sex for ages. It's human nature to create meaning from the seemingly meaningless; we search for purpose. There is nothing wrong with having many partners, waiting for just one or having none at all. However, I propose we cut out this virginity bullshit. Virginity is coded in certain ways that perpetuate heterosexism and make sex shameful. I believe that "the first time" is special and important, but it doesn't signify a reduction in human value or a loss of innocence. I propose that we move away from purity language and towards a new word/phrase and a new consciousness. Perhaps sexual debut is a more appropriate term.
ALLISON DANISH
"Virginity is a social construct", The Rocky Mountain Collegian, March 8, 2017
There is an unnecessary, perhaps even counterintuitive, relationship between virginity and procreation. A commitment to perpetual virginity, or even a fetishization of the value of virginity, conflicts with a procreative mandate. The Virgin Mary, who combines the inherently opposed values of virginity and maternity, stands as an exception to this rule, a fact that accounts, at least in part, for her iconic status.
CORRINNE HAROL
Enlightened Virginity in Eighteenth-Century Literature
I have a secret no one has probably ever told you before: Losing your virginity doesn't have to be a big deal. I know. Everybody remain calm. Society and sex culture has hyped up losing your virginity to be like, OMG, MAYBE THE BIGGEST F***ING THING YOU CAN DO IN YOUR LIFE. And, while YES, it is totally bizarre and something that absolutely demands responsibility, communication and lots and lots of consent, the actual having-sex-for-the-first-time part is pretty ... meh.
JAMIE LEELO
"Why You Should Lose Your Virginity To Someone You Don't Love", Elite Daily, February 16, 2017
Maybe the act of love came too late. As a career move, I should have lost my burdensome virginity at thirteen or fourteen, when there would have been no question of lasting attachment and no desire for one. As it was, I shook when I removed my clothes and I cried after it was done, not out of pain or disappointment but out of an up-rush of muddling emotion which twenty-four hours later I was ready to call love.
HILARY MANTEL
An Experiment in Love
I had begun to think my ripening body would wither untasted on the vine.
JACQUELINE CAREY
Kushiel's Dart
Your old virginity is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats drily.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All's Well That Ends Well
To me, losing your virginity is a necessary evil to get to all the good parts, like actually enjoying sex instead of dwelling on having sex.
JAMIE LEELO
"Why You Should Lose Your Virginity To Someone You Don't Love", Elite Daily, February 16, 2017
The "teacher" used a piece of tape to symbolize a girl's virginity. She would go around and stick it to all the football players, which was hilarious now that I think about it, and point out how the tape got less sticky over time. I think the lesson was suppose to be that the more sex girls have the less likely they'll be to find a husband because they'll turn into a slut or something.
ASHNEIL RANDHAWA
"Sex Ed? Still Inconsistent", The Pacifican, April 2, 2017
I know this sounds incredibly lame, but I don't want losing my virginity to feel like I'm losing something. I want it to feel like I'm finding something.
SONYA SONES
One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies
Nature abhors a virgin -- a frozen asset.
CLARE BOOTHE LUCE
The Women
It is regarded as normal to consecrate virginity in general and to lust for its destruction in particular.
KARL KRAUS
Beim Wort Genommen
Which people desire to lose what they possess? A sick man his fever, a tormented husband his wife, a gambler his debts, and a girl--her virginity.
FRANZ GRILLPARZER
Notebooks and Diaries
Virginity is a complex conjunction of social, cultural, and psychological limits. It does not mean the absence of sexual activity so much as the restriction of certain culturally agreed-upon sexual activities.
CATHERINE DRISCOLL
Teen Film: A Critical Introduction
Virginity is a paradoxical condition, both perfect and monstrous, defined by both absence and presence. It is often visible only insofar as it is under threat.
SARAH SALIH, ANKE BERNAU & RUTH EVANS
Medieval Virginities