Virginity?

[dannieyankee]

I understand it was popularised by religion. What keeps it alive today?

[InfiniteNow]

My conjecture is that it's the concept of spoilage. Much like we don't like to eat off the plate of a stranger, or wear someone else's dirty underwear, we don't like to follow into the vaginal canal where another man has already deposited his seed (and potentially some STDs too).

 

The female is the vehicle to pass on my genes to the next generation. I don't want that vehicle being driven by some other guy ALSO trying to pass on his genes to the next generation.

 

A virgin essentially guarantees that it's mine, and is not being soiled by some dirty smelly diseased other guy. Also, I believe the "suction" effect will be greater.

 

 

I apologize for the extremeness and short hand used. It's not my intent to be offensive with this, just clear and straight forward... sincerely. I think that the basic point is one of cleanliness/disease, unwillingness to share, and tightness.

[Turtle]

My conjecture is that it's the concept of spoilage. Much like we don't like to eat off the plate of a stranger, or wear someone else's dirty underwear, we don't like to follow into the vaginal canal where another man has already deposited his seed (and potentially some STDs too).

 

The female is the vehicle to pass on my genes to the next generation. I don't want that vehicle being driven by some other guy ALSO trying to pass on his genes to the next generation.

 

A virgin essentially guarantees that it's mine, and is not being soiled by some dirty smelly diseased other guy. Also, I believe the "suction" effect will be greater.

 

 

I apologize for the extremeness and short hand used. It's not my intent to be offensive with this, just clear and straight forward... sincerely. I think that the basic point is one of cleanliness/disease, unwillingness to share, and tightness.

 

:D There is some scientific evidence to challenge your view.

 

http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/ep021223.pdf

Semen Displacement as a Sperm Competition Strategy in Humans

Abstract: We examine some of the implications of the possibility that the human penis may have evolved to compete with sperm from other males by displacing rival semen from the cervical end of the vagina prior to ejaculation. The semen displacement hypothesis integrates considerable information about genital morphology and human reproductive behavior, and can be used to generate a number of interesting predictions.

 

I understand it was popularised by religion. What keeps it alive today?

Virginity is not universally an issue/meme, through either time or place, and while religion may have a part in some circumstances, that does not preclude secular concerns from having a say in the matter. Given the slow rate of human gestation, perhaps the idea of virginity originally came from observing procreation in livestock. :) Today it may serve an individual as positive feedback regarding self-control, and regardless of what the instigator is for adopting the meme.

Not to ignore the 800 pound religions in the room; well, you know religions and their propensities to shame folk. :hihi: :eek: :doh: i hear Baptists are allowed to dance these days, so maybe there is hope yet that the virginity meme in humans will die out. :hihi:

[InfiniteNow]

There is some scientific evidence to challenge your view.

 

http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/ep021223.pdf

 

That doesn't challenge my view at all. In fact, it only reinforces it. You bring up the concept of male sperm competition, and how our physiology/morphology is in large part a result of this competition. Well... it logically follows that... if we are competing with other males to deposit our sperm inside of a female... the single best way to "beat them" is to ensure they never even get to play the game at all. ... or, more specific to this thread topic... that no other male has ever made a deposit inside of your chosen "vehicle" ... the aforementioned virgin female.

[dannieyankee]

I have always regarded virginity as a useless waste of time - when you get a really cool instrument, do you wait for the right time to play it? Or do you use it as soon as possible, possibly even 'testing' it out at the store before you buy it?

 

When you get a new computer, do you wait for the right time?

 

When you buy a car, do you wait for the right time?

 

When you learn how to read, do you wait for the right time?

 

When you are learning to walk, do you wait for the right time?

 

I believe the entire idea of a woman keeping her virginity is based completely on a male-chauvinistic idea that men should be the first, that they have priority to a woman and thus owns them - to which is an unfair advantage, as women are not supposed to complain when their man is not a virgin, thus making them susceptible to disease that men so hate - and I have heard of a more perverse version, in which men have that desire to defile a woman's purity.

 

I honestly believe the entire purity scheme is - mind my french - bullshit. Again, purity comes from religion.

 

Poke some holes in my argument to keep it going, please :hihi:

[InfiniteNow]

Not to mention that virgins are really bad in bed due merely to the fact that they have no practice. You don't pick up a golf club and immediately hit like Tiger Woods. It takes practice.

 

Give me a dirty stripper any day... It's tons more fun since she's had practice and knows what the hell she's doing. :hihi:

 

 

I was just putting forth a conjecture in response to the question in your OP. :hihi:

[dannieyankee]

I thoroughly agree with you in that last statement - virgins kind of just sit there. :(

 

Strippers are sexy, and they actually have a clue at what they're doing. The only problem is that you know they just want your money, though I believe this is less of a problem for men, who are apparently less emotion-related in bed. Alas, another reason why I play for the opposite team.

 

I have heard the argument that men prefer virgins in bed because they have no clue whether or not their 'man' is bad.

[InfiniteNow]

I have heard the argument that men prefer virgins in bed because they have no clue whether or not their 'man' is bad.

 

Well, I've never had any complaints (except, perhaps, when I was a virgin ;) ).

 

I think that perhaps... with guys... it may also have something to do with their ego... the desire to be like a god... To "set the stage," to "blaze the trail." That same desire to scale Mt. Everest or to be the first to explore some new land... To be a part of history... a legend. After all, everyone always remembers their first. Maybe it's about wanting that "power," wanting to always be remebered, and have every future encounter that girl has be compared against you.

 

I dunno. This one surely seems less tangible than my earlier thread contribution, but hey... maybe... why not? :(

[Boerseun]

I think all the religious mumbo-jumbo we hear about the virtues of virginity stems from our innate desire for exclusive possession of the female, as stated in the above posts.

 

Whether this is for ensuring your lineage, or an unconscious attempt at rising in the hierarchy (as in hymadrias baboons, where the size of your exclusive harem determines your position in the hierarchy), is open to debate. I think it might very well be a mix of the two.

 

What is rather surprising, though, is the willingness amongst human males to bring up, care, and even love stepchildren. This probably stems from group selection, too - and in the face of predators on the open savannah, it might just be to your benefit to have more members of your species around, regardless of them not being necessarily your direct descendants.

[enorbet2]

While I am confident that there have been many reasons from the ridiculous to the sublime in the past for valuing virginity in females (hmmm I wonder if ancient Greeks and Roman males cared if their "boy toys" were virgins?) the entire concept certainly received a huge boost in western civilization due to the concept of Primogeniture. Females were inspected before the wedding night to insure that any possibility of a first-born son was actually that of the husband's lineage and not some recent lover's. Technology being what it was or wasn't, the hymen was the only reliable indicator.

 

Considering the width of cars is due to long-lasting Roman roads which were due to Roman chariot design, it is not surprising to me that something rooted in ancient medicine (disease), sociology, status and property as well as religion has carried on blindly. Personally, I have never had an interest in virgins. Enthusiasm does not make up for experience and enthusiasm can be created and recreated, while experience has no substitute.

[alexander]

What about using virginity as an excuse? Seriously saying that you are a virgin is like telling me you have found the equation that unites all the forces together and explains them all in terms of one another...

a) i don't believe you

:( i still wanna check out the proof

and

c) it does not matter

 

Virginity is just a weird concept of a word to me... we dont have a word for a person who has never flown a plane or fired a weapon, we dont have a name for a person who has never eaten raw fish, who has never cooked, or swam... So it's just a concept invented by people throughout history, as it has been said here, that made sure that your wife would have your baby, especially in civilizations where marriage was not preceeded by dating but was more contractual, though certainly not the case with Russia in the 1900ds, that was more of an honesty system, deriving from the old tradition. The role of virginity was down played in many historic societies, like ancient Egypt, Greece and the early Roman empire, i mean the pharaoh used to take his boat down the Nile each year for a festival, and the determination of how plentiful the season will be came from the amount of the pharaoh's ejaculation (into the river). That said there have been plenty of societies in which virginity played a rather large role, like Mongolian empire, Russia (through the communism (advanced socialism) era actually), and early US, and many Arab countries.

[freeztar]

Has anyone ever met or spoke to a Consecrated virgin? I'm curious as to how such people come to the decision and how difficult, if at all, it is for them to maintain it. I would guess that it would be somewhat common for people to later change their mind.

[pamela]

sure Freeztar many of them:) I was raised catholic and would often visit the monasteries. The women that were cloistered were very quiet, yet friendly. The general consensus among them was that they had received a "calling". Loosely translated, they believed in their heart that god had called them to be his bride. Apparently though, its not for all of them .I had a teacher in grade school that had broken her vows and opted for the mainstream life, including all the fringe benefits. Her demeanor was very different from those that were cloistered.She was a tough one and had a twinkle in her eye when she taught us about the evolution of the peppered moth.

[Mercedes Benzene]

Religion is the most likely source of the concept of virginity.

I spoke for a couple hours today with an Iranian woman. Besides getting her opinions on the current conflict, she spoke a lot about her life in pre-revolution Iran. One of the things she talked about was how men will generally not marry a woman unless she is a virgin. The man will have her examined by a gynecologist to ensure that she was still "pure." If the bride-to-be's family was fairly well-off/influential, they could choose a gynecologist themselves, and often they would pay the gynecologist thousands of dollars to say that she was still a virgin. All of this just because it allows the man to express his "dominance."

[Moontanman]

Personally I think virginity can be cured with the right amount of effort! So what is the difference between consecrated virgins and vestal virgins?

[pamela]

basically the religion is the difference. A vestal virgin is a priest who serves the god Vesta.After her service she is free to marry. In Catholicism, the virgin has a marriage ceremony, in which her husband is implied to be god, and is usually till death do they meet;)

[CraigD]

I understand it [virginity] was popularised by religion. What keeps it alive today?

As with any question, it’s important to start with a clear sense of what, precisely the “it” that’s being discussed actually is. In the case of words and concepts that’ve undergone centuries of changes in meaning and language, as is the case with “virgin” and “virginity”, this is even more complicated than for typical mathematical or scientific concepts.

 

An comprehensive history of the concept of virgins and virginity, or even a very trustworthy summary, would be a substantial undertaking of historical and sociological scholarship, but a few key outline points can be thrown up fairly easily.

 

The etymology of the words offers a good starting place. “Virgin” comes fairly clearly and obviously from an ancient Greek word “virgo”, meaning simply “young woman”, that is, a female older than a “child” but not yet fully mature. It conveys no connotation of sexual abstinence or naivety – those depend on the cultural norms and expectations of females of that age, which, for some females of some socioeconomic statuses in some ancient and modern cultures, may include very sexually experienced roles, such as child prostitutes. In later European civilization, the Germanic language origin “maiden” becomes somewhat synonymous with “virgin”, carrying a connotation of marital status. In this sense, any unmarried female may be considered a virgin. The concept of maidenhood and marriage is fluid across times and cultures. In some instances, maiden may mean a woman who has not had publicly acknowledged, licit vaginal intercourse with a man, or it may mean a woman who has never been pregnant or given birth.

 

The earliest concepts of virginity appear to apply only to females, but at least 2000 years ago, it was being applied to males. Ca. 95 AD, John of Patmos (AKA John the Divine) wrote in Greek in the Book of Revelation a reference to males “These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins.” At some point in world history, the concept became very generalized, the adjective “virgin” being applied to such things as olive oil (eg: “extra-virgin olive oil”) and metal obtained entirely from ore.

 

In some subcultures, such as present day nuns and monks, virginity is commonly understood to be synonymous with physical and mental chastity (refraining from sexual acts or thoughts). Present-day non-Catholic Christians, especially in the US, have related concepts called such things as “secondary virginity”, “revirginization”, “born-again”, and “renewed virginity”.

 

Although the concept of female virginity has in many times and cultures, including present day, been used to support the idea of women as the property (chattel) of men, it has for thousands of years in some cultures to explicitly exempt women from chattel status. From about 750 to 394 BC, a small number of high-status Roman priestess of the goddess Vesta, the Vestal Virgins, were exempt for a period of 30 years from contemporary Roman law that made women chattel of their fathers, then their husbands. In medieval Europe and Asia, Christian nuns owned property, locally governed themselves, and were not chattel to fathers or husbands, even when living within communities where this was the law.

 

The comments above just scratch the surface of the complicated sociological and historical concept of virginity, but hopefully they serve to disabuse readers of the belief that virginity is no more than a tool of oppression and/or moral condemnation.

 

Another interesting line of inquiry into the concept of virginity is to consider its biology, anatomy and physiology, especially various common misconceptions, such as the belief that its possible to reliably determine if adult woman has ever been vaginally penetrated by examining her hymen, or that one can estimate how many times or how often a woman has had vaginal intercourse by physical examination. It’s also interesting (and ribaldly funny, IMHO) to consider what sort of sexual activities various cultures and sub-cultures consider virginity-ending or not: oral-genital sex, anal sex, sex between women, sex between men, etc. I’ve know some intensely sexual and sexually active people who considered themselves, and were considered by many of their peers, to be virgins!