From childhood women are taught to cherish their “virtue” and to be extremely selective about who they sleep with, while men get no such speech; and while women should be selective when it comes to partners, simply for sexual health sake, men aren’t taught the same ideology. Women are taught that your virginity is something special and sacred and should be given to someone you love. Once you’ve finally found who you trust with a humungous task you start to wonder; and when women start wondering about sex, and exactly how it feels to lose your virginity, they turn to other women and hear all types of scary sex stories. People are told a variety of tales when it comes to female virginity, but unfortunately ladies it’s all a lie. The pain you felt was very real, however, virginity doesn’t exist.
LET’S TALK ABOUT THE HYMEN
So if you’re a lady I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of this cool thing called the hymen, now popular misconceptions are that it can be broken and that it is supposed to break or tear during sex. However, this isn’t the case. If properly lubricated the hymen should stretch perfectly fine for a woman’s first time. To describe the hymen let’s imagine the vagina is a toilet paper roll, and the hymen is a stretchy piece of fabric with a hole in it fitted to one end. The hymen stretches and retracts, it will return to its original form. Many people think that something in a woman’s body changes forever once she ‘loses her virginity’, but virginity isn’t anything that’s tangible. So medically, there is no way to tell if someone is a virgin or not.
THE CONCEPT OF VIRGINITY
Society has placed such a value on female virginity and not men’s. This results in women not being able to express their sexuality. Many women are taught abstinence, however, some people are a bit too liberal these days for that. Back in the day, all women had to offer their husband was their virginity. So when a woman was sold off and her husband went to lay with her that first night, if she didn’t bleed they would call off the marriage, return the dowry, and sometimes kill the bride. However, when women got their rights why didn’t the concept of virginity die off as well?
WHY VIRGINITY SHOULD DIE
The concept of virginity was only meant to place a value on women. Many women are born without a hymen or with a disorder that makes sex incredibly painful for them, Sex should be about pleasure and not just about pleasuring your partner. Women should be able to claim their sexuality, sleep with whoever they please, and not get any flack for it. A man isn’t referred to as a hoe or slut if they have multiple partners, but as soon as a man deems a girl a slut –for whatever reason he chooses– men and fellow women will listen to him. If we release the significance virginity have over women, maybe then women can finally gain the equal ground they deserve when it comes to their own sex life and sexuality.