Immaculate
It seems to me that virginity is one of those things that you pretty much get to define for yourself, like cheating or happiness. Other people, institutions, even laws may have their opinions, but when you break it down enough any definition of virginity seems arbitrary at best. Virginity is so confusing that some people don’t seem to know whether they’re talking about it or not.
I’m about to don my pedantry hat for a minute. Also my seldom seen, but very jaunty, theology hat. You’ve been warned. Immaculate Conception doesn’t mean what most people think it means. In common use, it’s become confused with virgin birth and used synonymously, but it’s never meant “conceiving a child while one is a virgin”. Immaculate Conception is an explanation by the Catholic Church going back to the year Way Long Ago A.D. as to why Mary (the mother of Jesus Christ) was good enough to carry and bear God’s son1. They decided that Mary, unlike regular non-god-bearing people, had been conceived without original sin (a legacy from Adam and Eve) and was thus pure, immaculate. Later Mary conceived a baby while she was a virgin2 and gave birth, but her Immaculate Conception was only a distant prelude to that virgin birth, and has very little to do with virginity whatsoever.
My personal theory is that people use the wrong term because it sounds fancier. People are suckers for fancy. Hold on for a second. Removing hats.
There. That’s better. Where was I? Oh, virginity. I don’t know what the fuck a virgin is. I don’t really know when I was one. My hymen broke twice, but neither of those were the first time I had an orgasm from someone penetrating me. And then it was still two years before I had a dick inside me. Except my mouth. Are we counting my mouth? Suffice to say I lost my virginity, if it was even a thing, but at this point I don’t really know or care when.
But when Laramy commented the other day that he’s never fucked a virgin, I’m almost positive he meant someone who’s never had penis-in-vagina intercourse. That seems to be the most common definition, although I can only imagine how gold star lesbians feel about that. Anyway, he’s mentioned it before.
“Is that one of your goals?” I asked him, curious, but smelling trouble from where I sat. Now, at our age virgins are getting a bit thin on the ground, so it wouldn’t be terribly easy to find one without actively hunting. And a casual, drama-free deflowering with one older, experienced partner who already has a girlfriend and one partner who doesn’t remember that pogs were once a thing can happen, of course. But it feels like it would be asking a lot of the universe.
“It’s not something I’m actively looking for, but it might be interesting.” One interesting thing about Laramy is that he says this about virtually all forms of heterosexual sex he’s not having at that precise moment.
“If you’re that interested, I’ll just get one of those fake hymens3,” I shrugged.
“That’s a thing!?”
Of course it’s a thing! Because sadly, some people still buy into one of the weirdest definitions of virginity: the intact hymen. And there are still places in the world where a woman’s future might depend on her ability to fake that, whether she’s a virgin by any other definition or not.
But I guess it could be a sex toy too. If you’re not too cautious with your mucous membranes.
- The later Protestant explanation is that she quite simply wasn’t, just like no one on Earth was good enough for a god to die for. This is probably why it took a Protestant to write “Amazing Grace”. [↩]
- Or as a young, unmarried woman, depending on how you like to translate ancient texts. [↩]
- Just for the record, I was in no way serious. I have no idea what’s in those things, but I can guess it’s not all medical grade silicone and hypoallergenic red lube. [↩]