Mother if you’re reading this, cover your eyes.
Ever since I was a kid, I was always taught how a woman’s virginity is sacred. Picture the scene from Jane the Virgin where Jane’s grandmother describes a damaged flower as your virginity. Most times I wish I was told of this, instead of my great aunt telling me don’t let any man touch you down there it’s very special. Even now she reminds me to “protect myself”, virginity is a funny word.
I remember when I went to catholic school and there was a overdramatic shock other girls had already lost their virginity. We all were judging them because they chose to sleep with someone, and it was scandalous.
Even now we judge women for choosing to sleep with someone else before marriage. Isn’t it a funny thing when girls choose to wait until marriage to have sex and she gets mocked for this choice too.
There are pressures of being celibate and it is a challenging one, you have friends all around you who already had sex and share their experiences of any Tom, Dick or Harry they’ve been with. If you lose your virginity now you can be in the same league with your friends, but if you wait you would have missed out on your own experiences. It’s a dilemma, the worst is religion teaching you it’s a beautiful thing to wait and you and your partner will only have each other for the rest of your life, it’s the whole romanticism of being a female who is a virgin. One that films like to describe, including the bible as something sacred or special.
The thing is that yes do it when you’re ready, do it with the right person and you will have shared a great memory or enjoyed yourself, however losing your virginity is not candles and rose petals on the bed, it’s far from that- it’s human pleasure.
We women have been presented with a fantasy that it will blow your mind on the first time, and I’m sure it’s the same with men too. We all have an expected fantasies that doesn’t become reality and so the best thing is enjoy yourself. We need to stop romanticising a woman’s virginity, she won’t be wearing white in her first time that’s for sure.
I know there are women out there that are in fact tired of waiting for sex after marriage that they just want to get this done and get on with their lives.
If you want to sleep with someone then do it, if you want to wait till marriage then do that, but do what you feel is right not what society expects of you.
The irony is society celebrates when a man loses his virginity, funny enough they encourage it and emasculate them if they choose not to sleep with anyone. However it’s the total opposite for a woman, we shouldn’t be enjoying our sexuality we should withhold sex and be celibate if we have sex now then we are not new we’re used and it’s not attractive to a man.
I remember when an article came out that T.I. would still get his daughter checked to see if her hymen was intact. As he says, “I will say, as of her 18th birthday, her hymen is still intact.” This is an extreme example of how society sees fit to socialise us from a young age, but I’m not surprised a man still has to find a way to control us, although it isn’t just men trying to invoke some sort of control through sex. Many other women have been conditioned to believe that a woman is “clean” and “innocent”, and “respectable” if she doesn’t give herself so easily for a man.
Moreover what T.I. said is damaging, this affects women being able to have no control over their own body, and it raises another issue with women’s reproduction rights. Can I also just say that just because a females hymen is not in tact does not mean anything, it’s not always to do with sex.
Even now when a woman chooses to have sex on the first date she is seen as easy. In fact whenever a woman wants to have sex she is judged so easily, I remember girls and boys labelling this female a slut because she’s being honest about her sexuality, and wanted to have sex with a guy, most of them thought she was looking too eager.
The whole point of feminism is equality for both sexes, however when a female wants casual sex and “acts” the way a man behaves, she is punished for her actions, unlike males they are given hi fives and rewarded for their actions. It’s difficult to manoeuvre in a man’s world.
Sex is how you want it to go, choose who you want to do it with, do it safe and create communication.
“ I will not be judged by you or society, I will wear whatever and blow whomever I want as long as I can breathe- and kneel” - Samantha Jones
