desertvixen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
desertvixen) wrote2008-03-05 08:24 pm
desertvixen) wrote2008-03-05 08:24 pm
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23254178/
Here's the headline:
Born-again virgins claim to rewrite the past
Through spiritual or surgical routes, women give their first time a do-over
Victoria Watts, a 23-year-old single mother of two small children who lives in Canton, Ohio, lost her virginity at 16 with her high school boyfriend.
She was the granddaughter of a Pentecostalist pastor and the daughter of an assistant pastor, and she believed sex outside marriage was wrong. “I felt really bad from a religious standpoint,” she recalls of the experience. “My thoughts were really clouded because I was so emotionally bonded with my boyfriend. That overshadowed my religious world.”
Though the relationship lasted for seven years and produced two beautiful children, a part of Watts always felt guilty. She wished she could step back in time and recapture her lost virginity. Thinking of how “I could have ruined one of greatest fulfillments of my life,” the first time having sex with a husband, she wanted to “have that opportunity again. I know my [future] husband deserves a whole person.”
So Watts engaged in a lot of prayer and thought, and now declares herself a virgin once again. “The most important thing was to realize what my values were and what I want in the future and the bigger goals in my life," she says. "That’s why I can call myself a renewed virgin.”
I have nothing wrong with a woman (and I am going to talk about women because this is what this article focuses on) who has been sexually active deciding, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants to be sexually active. I just don't get why one has to invoke the v-word. I mean, obviously men are going to know she has had sex - she has children. Shouldn't what she wants include a man who believes she is worth caring about, sexual status aside? I mean, she's not losing all her sexual knowledge, so it won't really be like a first time. You know, with the usual awkwardness? What kind of gift is that?
Across the country, "revirginization" appears to be gaining steam. Spiritual efforts to reclaim virginity emerged back in the early 1990s and now, prompted by abstinence-only school courses taught to thousands of girls nationwide, and by religious teachers, there are reports of more and more young women like Watts attempting a sexual do-over.
Again, nothing wrong with becoming sexually active, and then deciding not to be. I'm not going to buy that you're a virgin. You have had sex. Your virginity is over. (I DO NOT apply this idea to women who did not choose to become sexually active, such as rape victims.)
"Have you already unwrapped the priceless gift of virginity and given it away?" asks the Web site for the Pregnancy Resource Center of Northeast Ohio, where Watts began working part-time after she reclaimed her virginity. "Do you now feel like 'second-hand goods' and no longer worthy to be cherished? Do you ever wish you could re-wrap it and give it only to your future husband or wife? Guess what...? You can decide today to commit to abstinence, wrapping a brand-new gift of virginity to present to your husband or wife on your wedding night."
I have a problem with this idea. A woman should not be made to feel like "second-hand goods" because she has had sex. And yes, this is a concept applied to women far more than to men. Women who have a lot of sex are sluts, men who have a lot of sex score.
“The first time we are aware of that muddling, the first explicit mention or discussion of what people called ‘technical virginity’ that I have found is in 1920s,” she says. “It referred to people who were doing ‘everything but sex,’ and what was defined as losing your virginity for most people was having vaginal intercourse.”
Technical virginity is another thing that annoys me. Sex is more than vaginal penetration with an erect penis. If you're performing/recieving oral sex, you are having sex. If you're having anal sex, you are having sex. Fooling around, to me, is exactly that - fooling around.
Many of Dr. Red Alinsod’s patients are not looking for a new state of mind, they want a new hymen. They come to his clinic in Laguna Beach, Calif., and pay $5,000 because their honor, and sometimes their lives, depend on it.
This idea, while the necessity of it disgusts me, is one that I can understand.
Alinsod’s typical patient may have been born and raised in the United States, but with significant family in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, India, the Middle East. Without evidence a new bride is a virgin, she risks being rejected, or, worse, the victim of an “honor killing.”
one patient gave her virginity to her husband in the Asian country in which they lived and then came to the United States to study medicine, staying for several years. Though she remained faithful to her husband, when it came time for her to return to her country, she felt as if their lives were about to begin again. She wished she could be revirginized, too.
This is just nuts to me.
Once in awhile, Baker says, she’ll get a patient who just wants to give a present to her husband. “One patient of mine gave it to her husband as an anniversary gift," says Baker. "She was not a virgin when they got married so we re-attached her hymen to reproduce that experience.”
I think this is actually more nuts. A hymen for an anniversary gift? What the hell?
When Carpenter did a study about what she called “secondary virginity,” she found wide disagreement not only about the plausibility of secondary virginity, but also about whether “virginity loss should be understood as a physiological or an emotional-experiential phenomenon.” Interestingly, of the 61 women and men interviewed, “three-fourths of men adamantly declared secondary virginity to be impossible, compared to about one-fourth of women,” though men sometimes declare that they are born-again virgins, too.
While we may not agree on what virginity means, or even how we lost it and if we can get it back, it does have meaning, Carpenter insists. “If virginity did not mean anything, we would not have movies like 'American Pie.' It does matter. The content or the definitions may change, but the need or desire to mark the transition to being a sexual adult persists.”
I agree that it is both physical and mental. It means something to lose it, but it does not and should not mean everything. It should not mean a diminishment of a person because they are "missing" something.
And we do have at least some baseline definition of sex. “We are not so flexible that we say masturbation or sex toys count,” Carpenter says. Her research has found that almost everybody agrees that sex involves genitals and another person.
Someone making sense here.
There is actually one thing I would count as a secondary virginity - and that would be if a person who has previously had relations with the opposite sex starts having sex with a person of the same sex.
DV
Here's the headline:
Born-again virgins claim to rewrite the past
Through spiritual or surgical routes, women give their first time a do-over
Victoria Watts, a 23-year-old single mother of two small children who lives in Canton, Ohio, lost her virginity at 16 with her high school boyfriend.
She was the granddaughter of a Pentecostalist pastor and the daughter of an assistant pastor, and she believed sex outside marriage was wrong. “I felt really bad from a religious standpoint,” she recalls of the experience. “My thoughts were really clouded because I was so emotionally bonded with my boyfriend. That overshadowed my religious world.”
Though the relationship lasted for seven years and produced two beautiful children, a part of Watts always felt guilty. She wished she could step back in time and recapture her lost virginity. Thinking of how “I could have ruined one of greatest fulfillments of my life,” the first time having sex with a husband, she wanted to “have that opportunity again. I know my [future] husband deserves a whole person.”
So Watts engaged in a lot of prayer and thought, and now declares herself a virgin once again. “The most important thing was to realize what my values were and what I want in the future and the bigger goals in my life," she says. "That’s why I can call myself a renewed virgin.”
I have nothing wrong with a woman (and I am going to talk about women because this is what this article focuses on) who has been sexually active deciding, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants to be sexually active. I just don't get why one has to invoke the v-word. I mean, obviously men are going to know she has had sex - she has children. Shouldn't what she wants include a man who believes she is worth caring about, sexual status aside? I mean, she's not losing all her sexual knowledge, so it won't really be like a first time. You know, with the usual awkwardness? What kind of gift is that?
Across the country, "revirginization" appears to be gaining steam. Spiritual efforts to reclaim virginity emerged back in the early 1990s and now, prompted by abstinence-only school courses taught to thousands of girls nationwide, and by religious teachers, there are reports of more and more young women like Watts attempting a sexual do-over.
Again, nothing wrong with becoming sexually active, and then deciding not to be. I'm not going to buy that you're a virgin. You have had sex. Your virginity is over. (I DO NOT apply this idea to women who did not choose to become sexually active, such as rape victims.)
"Have you already unwrapped the priceless gift of virginity and given it away?" asks the Web site for the Pregnancy Resource Center of Northeast Ohio, where Watts began working part-time after she reclaimed her virginity. "Do you now feel like 'second-hand goods' and no longer worthy to be cherished? Do you ever wish you could re-wrap it and give it only to your future husband or wife? Guess what...? You can decide today to commit to abstinence, wrapping a brand-new gift of virginity to present to your husband or wife on your wedding night."
I have a problem with this idea. A woman should not be made to feel like "second-hand goods" because she has had sex. And yes, this is a concept applied to women far more than to men. Women who have a lot of sex are sluts, men who have a lot of sex score.
“The first time we are aware of that muddling, the first explicit mention or discussion of what people called ‘technical virginity’ that I have found is in 1920s,” she says. “It referred to people who were doing ‘everything but sex,’ and what was defined as losing your virginity for most people was having vaginal intercourse.”
Technical virginity is another thing that annoys me. Sex is more than vaginal penetration with an erect penis. If you're performing/recieving oral sex, you are having sex. If you're having anal sex, you are having sex. Fooling around, to me, is exactly that - fooling around.
Many of Dr. Red Alinsod’s patients are not looking for a new state of mind, they want a new hymen. They come to his clinic in Laguna Beach, Calif., and pay $5,000 because their honor, and sometimes their lives, depend on it.
This idea, while the necessity of it disgusts me, is one that I can understand.
Alinsod’s typical patient may have been born and raised in the United States, but with significant family in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, India, the Middle East. Without evidence a new bride is a virgin, she risks being rejected, or, worse, the victim of an “honor killing.”
one patient gave her virginity to her husband in the Asian country in which they lived and then came to the United States to study medicine, staying for several years. Though she remained faithful to her husband, when it came time for her to return to her country, she felt as if their lives were about to begin again. She wished she could be revirginized, too.
This is just nuts to me.
Once in awhile, Baker says, she’ll get a patient who just wants to give a present to her husband. “One patient of mine gave it to her husband as an anniversary gift," says Baker. "She was not a virgin when they got married so we re-attached her hymen to reproduce that experience.”
I think this is actually more nuts. A hymen for an anniversary gift? What the hell?
When Carpenter did a study about what she called “secondary virginity,” she found wide disagreement not only about the plausibility of secondary virginity, but also about whether “virginity loss should be understood as a physiological or an emotional-experiential phenomenon.” Interestingly, of the 61 women and men interviewed, “three-fourths of men adamantly declared secondary virginity to be impossible, compared to about one-fourth of women,” though men sometimes declare that they are born-again virgins, too.
While we may not agree on what virginity means, or even how we lost it and if we can get it back, it does have meaning, Carpenter insists. “If virginity did not mean anything, we would not have movies like 'American Pie.' It does matter. The content or the definitions may change, but the need or desire to mark the transition to being a sexual adult persists.”
I agree that it is both physical and mental. It means something to lose it, but it does not and should not mean everything. It should not mean a diminishment of a person because they are "missing" something.
And we do have at least some baseline definition of sex. “We are not so flexible that we say masturbation or sex toys count,” Carpenter says. Her research has found that almost everybody agrees that sex involves genitals and another person.
Someone making sense here.
There is actually one thing I would count as a secondary virginity - and that would be if a person who has previously had relations with the opposite sex starts having sex with a person of the same sex.
DV
no subject
I'm with Robin Williams, who said of the "reward" of 72 black-eyed virgins, "Have you ever had sex with a virgin?!" I think experience and skill is one heck of a gift myself. Call me a pig, but the idea of being able to have to myself a talented lover is better than having to train up a virgin.
no subject
Yes, I remember the whole loss of virginity as something I wouldn't want to repeat.
Then again, if you can get them without your partner having had many partners, you don't have to worry about bad habits picked up along the way.
DV
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Saw it a few days ago, but it's been hiding in my inbox.
DV
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Ouch. That is just so wrong.
A hymen for an anniversary gift?
I'm with you on that one. Way nuts.
There is actually one thing I would count as a secondary virginity - and that would be if a person who has previously had relations with the opposite sex starts having sex with a person of the same sex.
I've heard of some sort of "virginity" being used in that context, which does make sense, I agree. Just as someone who has only had sexual relations with same sex partners and starts to have heterosexual relations.
no subject
I can't speak for sure, but it seems reasonable.
DV
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I knew a girl when I was in college who thought that way. She was a "non-denominational" Christian who honestly seemed to believe that oral sex did not do anything to her virginity. She was also deeply concerned for my soul, since I was Catholic, and believed I needed to be baptized (for real this time) as soon as possible. Anyway, I think it was just like that for her, and she literally could not count the number of dudes she had gone down on. I had to break it to her that such was not the case.
I think she was one of those, unlike the woman at the top, who just couldn't make her sexuality and her religion line up, so she found a sort of middle ground. Which I guess is a nice coping mechanism, but still has to come up against reality eventually. There's no "saving yourself" when you've probably seen more wang than a male piss test proctor.
no subject
I know there was a decent chunk of my male cohort that felt they were owed the oral in return for not being jerks about not having penetrative sex.
Which I guess is a nice coping mechanism, but still has to come up against reality eventually. There's no "saving yourself" when you've probably seen more wang than a male piss test proctor.
Very well said.
DV
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*shakes head*
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Not I, obviously.
I'm all for teaching young women that their virginity has some value, as in "think carefully before you decide to do it". But it's not like, a diamond or something that gets more valuable as you age.
DV
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What gets me is “If virginity did not mean anything, we would not have movies like 'American Pie.'"
Whaaaa?
If you're associating movies like American Pie with moral guidance, you need some serious help. That movie and the ones that followed it were not good, clean movies in my opinion.
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No, they were not.
I think what they meant in that part of the article was the whole "loss of virginity" = "rite of adulthood".
DV
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Except for the hymen-reconstruction people. Except for those who have good cause to worry it might cause them personal harm to be found out--that is just freakish.
no subject
But chastity isn't as special as the V word.
Yes, the whole anniversary gift thing had me going, "WTF?".
I usually just go with a nice shirt and tie...
DV
B.T. Barnum had it right
On the bright side, it's just deeply confused and possibly a bit dim women yearning after something they never really understood in the first place.
There's a market in some places for "re-done" virginities for women who fear being killed by their future husbands (and/or other male family members) if it's discovered they're not "intact"
Re: B.T. Barnum had it right
That women who NEED the surgery to possibly save their life, I have no problem with it being performed. I have problems with a culture that makes that a requirement, I have no problem with the surgery.
The others... I'm just sort of going, "What?". I mean, I really think most husbands would prefer a tie, or some tools, or in my case, a really spiffy book.
Not my hymen.
DV
Re: B.T. Barnum had it right
very true!
no subject
I clicked on your LJ via our lovely rockahulababy (i click through friends links on their pages when i have time to kill).
I"m with you 100%.
Further to this, what I'd also love to see is a reporter asking Creepy Joe Simpson and his awful daughter Jessica about no sex before marriage. They paraded her virginity until marriage status for ages, then she marries Nick Lachey then they paraded themselves on that awful "reality" tv show and now that they're divorced, I notice interviews where she talks about how shes "in touch with her sexuality" but really...if she was consistent with her earlier message, then she shouldn't or wouldn't be having sex again as she's not married anymore.
no subject
Yes, he's creepy anyway. Like her sexuality is his to profit off of.
DV