#prude-shaming

[sexedplus]

This piece is about prude-shaming and compulsory sexuality. It's sort of a companion to this other piece, which is about slut-shaming and how wanting to have lots of casual, unconventional sex doesn't make you a bad person. Follow SexEdPlus or check out SexEdPlus.Com for more stuff like this!

[myriadofcolors3]

A Rant on Virginity and Virgin-Shaming

Okay, so I don't really rant on here, I usually save that for close friends on Skype, but something is bothering me and it has for quite some time now.  There's an awful tension built on young women/girls to lose their virginity. We've seen it on Supernatural, Teen Wolf, and a medley of shows. Everyone wants to lose their v-card super quick, like it's an honest shame to be a virgin at such an advanced age of sixteen. And it's an attitude held by a lot of teenage girls. Blame the patriarchy, blame enlightened sexism, I don't know, but it is an awful shame. And it's all inward. Girls assume that something's wrong with them because they haven't had sex yet, haven't been propositioned yet, and then they turn all of that shame of being still a virgin to themselves. (This rant doesn't deal with boys, or with trans* people, so I'm sorry, but I don't know very much from that side of the gender binary/spectrum.) 

Now, I can remember in high school, having a friend who once told me that if she was still a virgin when she was twenty she'd have to have a good long look at herself and ask "What the hell is wrong with me?" I dated one guy in high school, and broke up with him three months afterward. I didn't feel ready or even particularly interested in sex, with him or with anybody. (The jury's still out on whether or not I'm asexual.) My third and very last date was a few years ago, and I seriously hated and blamed myself for not being well-versed in dating. More importantly, I can clearly remember myself blaming myself for still being a virgin at the old age of twenty, and googling something to the effect of "am I still desirable?" What I found both comforted the awful side that depends on everyone else's opinions too much, and disgusted me. Somewhere, I found a yahoo question posed by a twenty-two year old virgin. "Am I okay? Would anyone want to have sex with me?" The answers were "YES I WOULD DO YOU!"  Why? Why would I need a man's answer of whether or not I was desirable to prove that just because I hadn't "popped my cherry" I was worthwhile? Who the hell had taught me that by being a twenty-year-old virgin cisfemale, who is often very selective with her friends as well as her romantic interests, who spends a lot of time writing and dreaming instead of doing and speaking, who, okay, still plays Neopets and watches shows meant for much younger audiences, that I was unworthy for the male gaze and thus for existence? Who had taught me that I'm an old woman who should be mocked on every goddamn show because I haven't done the do with anyone?  I'm not in any way saying that slut-shaming isn't bad. It is, but the effects differ. Slut-shaming occurs outside, filled with derision from audiences. Virgin-shaming? That happens inside, and tears you the fuck up when you google "am i still a good person even if I've never had sex" at 2 in the goddamn morning because at that point you're not sure and you can only wonder if you should just get it over with to be part of the rest of the single, 20-something, cisfemales.  Now, as a 21-year-old cisfemale who has not had sex yet (the word virgin has become disgusting to me, and I don't know if I want to claim it again), I can see past it, a little. But it still stings--because there's no positive reinforcement of "it's okay, your worth isn't between your legs" or "you know, eventually you'll find someone, or maybe you won't, but that doesn't mean you need to be fixed in order to have worth" or even "it's alright." That there are other things to me that doesn't revolve around who I do and do not have sex with. YET, I think about my inexperience in sexual activity every time I speak to a man I'd like to consider taking out on a date, or when younger people discuss their sexual partners, or when I consider sexual advances in fanfiction and whatnot. I still feel affected by it, even though technically I shouldn't. 

But the fact of the matter is, is that other girls in this position of "well I'm not really ready" are making the same mistakes, are feeling bad about themselves because they're not like their friends who've been having sex, not like the girls on tv who "don't want to be a seventeen year old virgin." (Thank you, Teen Wolf, you continue to make me feel bad about not being gorgeous and a prudish granny to boot.) Say what you want about the sex positive movement, I agree with many of the aspects, but I feel like the movement would also have to consider in people who just don't want to have sex and not shame them for the disinterest. (See: asexuality.) 

It sucks. I don't have any answers. Only complaints, and maybe some messages to other virgins/people who have never had partnered sexual intercourse: you're okay. Your body is yours, and you should not be ashamed of it, or your inexperience. You are great, and beautiful, and you don't need to be "fuckable" in order to have worth. You are so much more than the numbers of partners, you are intelligent and kind and creative. You do not need to have anything done to you in order to be considered mature or an adult. You are perfect the way you are. 

[onemanbombsquad]

slut-shaming is a two way street.

Don't shame people for having sex.

Don't shame people for not having sex.

Got it?

Good.

You are just as much of a gaping, bleeding asshole if you mock and belittle someone for being a virgin/prude as someone who mocks and belittles sexually active people.

It's that whole idea of caring what someone does with their genitals. Except I keep seeing it disguised as ~opening people up to the idea of sexual freedom~ and not what it is: an assault on someone's personal decision. 

Believe it or not, not everyone makes sex the center of the universe. Not everyone wants to have sex or enjoys sex. People honestly want to have one sex partner in their life and wait for marriage. This is ok. If it is a conscious choice, it is not sexual oppression. Why is it so unforgivable for someone, especially a male, to attach a personal value to sex and only want to share himself with one person?

You don't get a free pass on being an asshole just because you're ~sexually liberated~.

So just stop it. Stop caring what people do with their respective genitals. It's not your life, get over it.