For many co-eds, when college isn’t about trying to catch your professor saying something offensive on your phone’s camera, posting Facebook statuses complaining about how busy you are, and sledding down hills on a tray you stole from the dining hall, it’s about sex. Lots of sex. In bars and frats and dorms and cars and quads and empty classrooms and library cubicles and almost anywhere that provides some semblance of privacy for 3 to 9 minutes.
Yet an admittedly smaller population of collegiettes attends parties, suffers through long lectures, leads clubs, and, yes, sleds down hills on trays they stole from the dining hall, without the sex. In fact, some vow to get married without ever touching a man.
They’re “extreme” virgins—women whose celibacy extends beyond baby-making and permeates every aspect of their interpersonal lives.
Some draw the line at a handshake or a hug, others are comfortable with anything above the belt. Most cite religious faith as a motivation for their virginity, many note secular advantages to their abstinent lifestyle, and they all live their college lives without walks of shame and birth control alarms.
Hannah* is a junior at Columbia University. She’s studying to be a doctor, involved on campus, friendly, beautiful, and—as an observant Jew—completely, totally, and happily abstinent. Hannah observes a Jewish law known as “shomer negieh”—a practice that completely forbids any affectionate touching between a man and a woman. (Even handshakes and high-fives are off-limits.) She hopes that the first contact she’ll ever have with her husband—the first handhold and snuggle session, much less blowjob or sleepover—will be on her wedding day.
“I chose to be ‘shomer’ because I honestly believe it’s the proper thing to do under the Jewish law I follow,” Hannah explains. “I also believe that it fosters very stable relationships with members of the opposite sex and leads to an appreciation of who they are, not just based on physical closeness.”
While it might be “the proper thing to do,” it is certainly not the easiest. Between natural impulses, college parties, campus culture, and an over-sexed society, choosing to practice extreme forms of abstinence is hard.
Really hard.
“Anyone who tells you it’s easy is probably lying,” Hannah confesses, “In fact, at times it feels completely unnatural. Many friends and people I know don’t hold by [their “extreme” virginity] once they are in a serious, committed relationship. It simply becomes too difficult.”
Forget the restraint it takes to remain inches away from your fiancé until you’ve said “I do,” for extreme virgins, daily interactions—from shaking hands with a client to pushing up against strangers on a crowded subway car—are potential violations of their sexual code of ethics.
“Although everyone has their own rules, I always shake hands with men in professional settings and even if a fellow male student extends their hand, I always reciprocate,” Hannah explains, “And crowded spaces aren’t so much an issue, I mean the whole basis of the commandment is to avoid touch that is in ‘the way of love’ and these cases of incidental physical contact aren’t so worrisome to me.”
When it comes to hooking up, Abby, a Christian student at Baylor University, stays above the belt and out of the bedroom because she’s worried about natural temptation. “No we are not making out on my bed, no my shirt is not coming off, I’m not straddling you, and you’re not going to be laying on top of me or pinning me down,” she says. “This may seem prude, but it’s the seemingly small things like these that would personally tempt me into wanting and doing more. It’s not that I wouldn’t make out with a guy, but is a bed an appropriate place? No.”
But what about ambiguous situations that blur the line between appropriate and sexually suggestive conduct?
Abby didn’t always hold to such stringent standards of abstinence; she decided to make her virginity even more extreme after a hot hook-up with a summer fling.
“We were making out one day at his house, alone, and unfortunately it was on his bed. It was innocent at first, but then he got on top of me. His hands started to wander, and I wanted so badly to just blur the line a little and give in. But I had to shut him down and say no. I decided if I blurred the line that it would be even harder to say no to the next boundary. So we just sat there on his bed watching TV and kind of cuddling.”
They broke up shortly after the incident, and now Abby makes sure that her hook-ups remain vertical.
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Natalie*, one of Hannah’s religious classmates at Columbia, decided to re-evaluate her decision to observe the laws of shomer negieh when she started dating her boyfriend, a Columbia law student, for the second time.
“There are so many Jewish laws that in the best of worlds I would keep, but realistically I just can’t do it,” Natalie says. Although she plans to remain a virgin, and is still uncomfortable with public displays of affection and physical contact with men other than her boyfriend, she explains, “I do know people who have made it until their wedding night and I really, really respect and admire them. But shomer negieh is completely against human nature and, for the moment, it’s just not something I think I can keep. Plus a physical connection is so important in allowing for a strong, close relationship. ”
In fact, some college women think practices that completely forbid sexual intimacy can be sexually repressive. Alexis, a junior at the University of Maryland, says, “I don’t think sex should be treated casually, but I do think that some degree of physical intimacy can be important in a romantic relationship. I think the intention of saving sex, or even any physical interaction, for marriage is based in really beautiful principles meant to enhance all other aspects of relationships. But, especially in today’s society where almost everything is sexualized, the idea seems antiquated and repressive.”
The women who choose to abstain, however, disagree.
Rachel Wagley is a senior at Harvard and President of True Love Revolution (TLR), a student organization aimed at promoting abstinence.
“People say ‘no’ to premarital sex so that they can say ‘yes’ to being married,” Wagley says. “Marriage requires fidelity all through life – and that means faithfulness before the first meeting as well. Pre-marital promiscuity is already being unfaithful. Those who are convinced of the importance of premarital abstinence have a lifelong vision of marriage, one that doesn’t begin at the altar but begins in the heart long before.”
For students like Rosemary—a Catholic and a Harvard Junior—who believes that “people should avoid doing things that are sexually arousing,” everything from dancing like Shakira to dressing like, well, Shakira is under scrutiny. Pressures to drink, dance, kiss, and flirt—if not sleep with—members of the opposite sex can create a unique set of obstacles for extreme virgins uncomfortable with most (even peripherally) sexual contact.
When asked how she deals with college parties (and the PG-13 dancing that often defines them), Abby responded, “9 times out of 10, the parties I’m invited to don’t involve drinking, because my friends feel the same as I do. When talking about dancing, I think I’m also a little jaded from the Christian university. At Baylor it’s kind of frowned upon to be grinding at a dance party.”
Natalie expresses a similar mentality, explaining, “I’ve honestly never danced publicly with a boy so I don’t feel like it impacts my college experience. I generally don’t go to events where it would be an issue, and if it was, I’d have friends who were in the same position as me so it wouldn’t be so uncomfortable.”
Virginity, like most things, is made easier in numbers.
Although women like Natalie, Hannah, Rachel, Rosemary, and Abby are abstinent, they are, by no means, asexual. They’re constantly faced with temptation and are looking forward to the day when they’ll be able to shed their virginity.
“Don’t get me wrong: I sincerely look forward to having a sex life,” Cassandra, another abstinent Baylor student, admits, “But, because I’m a Christian and because sex without security is a terrifying thought, right now I am okay with not having one.”
Abby agrees, comparing losing her virginity to opening the best Christmas present ever: “Having sex before marriage would be like opening your Christmas presents before Christmas. On Christmas day, wouldn’t you be a little disappointed or sad? I’m excited to be married so I can enjoy [a sex life] guilt free. Maybe it will be awkward the first time, maybe it won’t. I don’t care. It’s exactly how I would want it to be.”
*Names have been changed to protect sources’ anonymity.