Second-handed

Sexuality has always been an interesting subject to me, as you might have noticed. Recently I watched this documentary about virginity and it was mainly about young girls and sex-ed in USA. I think it wasn't at all that bad for a documentary made for American pre-teens. It raised good questions, though many of them are quite old already. But maybe we don't have answers yet so it's good to keep asking.

What is virginity?

Who is a virgin? Do you lose it having anal, oral or intercourse? Can a lesbian lose it with her gf? Can a raped woman be a virgin?

"Does it count?" -question is loaded with society's definitions of virginity. What is chastity?

Do men want to hold on to the image that your female partner is not experienced in the sexual field?

The documentary raised a question about sin and purity and the sanctity of a (woman's) body, provoking to think if any kind of sexual thought makes one a non-virgin. It also asked if virginity as a word has any place in modern society.

For me the most important thing was how it painted a picture of the history of virginity. The documentary takes the viewer back to the ancient times and tells that the word "virgin" comes from the word "virgo" which means a young woman. The root of highly valuated virginity goes way back to the patriarchal world where women had no rights and were considered property. The importance of virginity was to make sure all the children a couple had were the husbands kids and so the heritage would go to the rightful owner. Slaves were considered to be even more property than a wife and thus having sex with a slave wasn't considered a crime. It's like fucking a carrot you've bought; you own it, you can do what ever you wish to it. (But please don't fuck a carrot. I saw this silly show once where a woman died because of a carrot she had used and it had punctured something inside her, leading her to suffer a horrible and painful death because of infection.)

I found the term "second-hand vagina" a nice touch pointing out the problem. The documentary also asks who owns your virginity. For a woman from a Nordic country it's (kinda) obvious that it's my virginity. It's not so everywhere, even in the USA virginity of a girl can belong to a father, to a pastor or the future husband. Virginity is still property these days.

Are those who haven't lost their virginity missing out on something? I think this question is why sexual education is very important.

Does sex connect you to the other person? Do you get a unique bond with your partner? I don't know about that, but I know one thing: sex can complicate things very easily. If you don't have it at all, you wonder what it's like. Is it good, is it bad, is it going to hurt, can you get pregnant, can you get diseases, what's it like to be naked with someone and so on. If you do have sex, you can always wonder was it good for him/her, was it good for you, what becomes of the two of you now, did you do it right - and if that's not enough, you can always feel ashamed afterwards. You know, to add a certain spice to it.

Is having sex something special? Can you compare losing your virginity to not having it in a while and then doing it? Why do we value chastity still?

Does talking or writing about sex openly make you a target or a weirdo?

(source: the documentary is called "How to lose your virginity")