*Virginity in Pop Culture*

Virginity is depicted in many different ways throughout various forms of pop culture, in this blog I will explore a few ways in which virginity is seen in pop culture.

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position statement (;

I personally had a lot of fun creating this blog and exploring how virginity is portrayed through popular culture. I saw virginity as a tool used against women to dehumanize and belittle their worth, I learned how virginity and the loss of virginity in pop culture can help explain and shape consumers view and understanding of virginity and sex, I also explored the personal side of virginity and how it can be a major decision for americans reflecting values, traditions, social anxiety and even fear, I have seen virginity as a force that divides, those that are virgins and those that are not each having its own pros and cons depending on the people and situation. Virginity is seen differently in almost every piece of pop culture I researched, sometimes describing purity, sometimes defining a prude or an outcast. Yet, in my opinion too many times the idea of a virginity is hurtful to young americans whether it is teasing or social anxiety about being a virgin or slut shaming and taking a persons worth if they are not virgins. I think the social construct of virginity has morphed into something that negatively defines young men and women, virginity has created a hurtful divide and a reason to critique and judge one another, and in many ways I feel the media adds to this problem.

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Link

Click Here to visit Virgin Territory on Mtv to view the characters, watch clips and full episodes!

http://www.mtv.com/shows/virgin-territory/episode-guide

Virgin Teritories, A reality TV show on MTV, focuses on 15 young adults personal journeys with their virginities. The show follows the decisions on whether the participants want to keep or lose their virginities and the struggles associated with their virginities that play out in relationships and with family and friends.

The first episode begins with four young adults, Lisa a virgin bride staying abstinent until her wedding night, Kyle whom ashamed of his virgin status hides it from his friends, Mikaela who is dying to lose her virginity and Dominique who is too “picky” in partners to have sex with anyone yet. Throughout the season, new participants are introduced all with very different definitions of virginities and reasons that they are still virgins. The participants struggle with traditional authority, religion, and issues such as temptations in college, difficult relationships and one girl even setting an ultimatum for her virginity. One teen in particular struggles with his sexuality and coming out to his parents while another girl fears pregnancy, and for the season finale a girl finally turns to therapy due to her uncontrollable fear of sex.

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Virginity Loss + Using movies to Understand it

Carpenter describes virginity loss as major turning point in sexual life which is why it is such a common theme in movies and the media such as shows like “ Dawson’s Creek (1998–2003) and How I Met Your Mother (2005–present); movies such as American Pie (1999) and The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005); and magazines such as Seventeen and CosmoGirl! consistently juxtapose adolescents intent on giving their virginity to a “true love” with devotees of casual sex and youth who see first sex as a step in growing up” Overall Carpenter argues that there is “more than one understanding—or script—for virginity loss is available in U.S. popular culture today.”

For Carpenters research, 61 people were interviewed, 52 said they remembered seeing or hearing about virginity from the mass media, 28 of which said this media was in a form of a movie, 19 said this media was in the form of a magazine, 16 said in videos, 15 by televisions programs and 13 by books, 4 by advertising and 3 by games. In addition, five respondents did not think that media influenced their understandings of virginity.

Carpenter used people with very diverse social backgrounds to avoid biases, I think her research represents a wide variety of people and many forms of popular culture which I believe makes her research reliable and more interesting.

In addition, Carpenter provided a chart of the top movies that her subjects associated their learning of virginity with also providing the person’s interpretation of virginity loss at the time.

Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2009.01137.x/full

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Laura M. Carpenter wrote an academic article Virginity Loss in Real life: Using Popular Movies to Navigate Sexual Initiation. Laura examines movies that depict virginity and specifically virginity loss as a “tool for navigating early sexual life” Laura used a quantitative study and focused on 25 movies and 61 men and women, 28 of which admitted to using movies to make sense of the idea of virginity loss while taking into consideration age, gender, religion, race, class and interpretation of virginity/sex.

Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2009.01137.x/full

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSIPeSj_Xkk)

In this video, feminist author Jessica Valenti shows how virginity is seen as an object representing a girls virtue that must be kept safe at all costs and how this mindset is spread through various forms of American pop culture, negatively affecting young women's perceptions of sex, virginity and themselves.

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Virginity as seen through pop culture

The title of this post basically embodies the whole of my blog, I want to dedicate this blog to shedding some light on the social construct that is virginity and how it is portrayed in pop culture whether that be regarding purity, the double standard, "losing" your virginity or the virginity fetish.  Virginity is all over pop culture through movies, television, memes or social media, some shows even revolve around the idea of virginities and adults that are virgins. According to Jessica Valenti, author of feminist novel The Purity Myth the "unhealthy attitude towards women and sex" is seen through purity balls, politicians, and tv shows like girls gone wild insinuating women are out of control. This enforces  "traditional ideas about purity" along with  a double standard, shaming and demonizing young sexually active women. While certain shows depict the pressure men feel to lose their virginities in order to gain their masculinity. In Pop culture virginity is seen as a negative and positive thing, varying by circumstance, age, gender and sexuality.

Quotes taken from The Purity Myth, a feminist novel written by Jessica Valenti

#virginityinpopculture  #thepuritymyth #usfpop16