That was the first time I ever heard that word used in the pejorative: that episode of Seinfeld that I watched in re-runs, at the age of ten, against my parents' wishes. Before that, I had only the vaguest notion of what it meant - something to do with that melancholy woman in blue on the walls of Mexican restaurants.

The second time was when I first saw Rocky Horror in the theater at thirteen. They marked me with a "V" as part of the traditional "virgin sacrifice", and I was terrified that someone might be able to tell that I actually was one.

By the time I got to high school, it was already a full-blown stigma, at least among my own counter-culture clique. Sex was the ultimate rebellion, since nothing scared the grown-ups more than the thought of us having it. On top of that, virginity was prized by the religious reactionaries, the militant abstainers, the straights, the normals - in other words, all the wrong kinds of people. And even those girls who did want to remain virgins took it up the ass.

Being unable to talk truthfully, or at least convincingly, about sexual encounters is still a major stumbling block socially. What options do I have? Make something up and hope no one finds out?

Or does it matter? It turns out that the feminist scholarly view of virginity is much the same view I have always held - or at least that I've held since I was old enough to play "Truth or Dare". That's the view that virginity is just another arbitrary, patriarchally-imposed system for valuing some female bodies over others. In fact, it's debatable medically whether or not the hymen even exists at all.

Some lesbian feminists countered the virginity system by declaring themselves "willful virgins", unpenetrated by penises and therefore unpolluted by male energy. Yet they still used that patriarchal V-word, and, most importantly for my purposes, they were still having sex.

So on that note, I give you myself, created in my own image: the asexual willful unvirgin, bodily unpenetrated, yes, but with a mind as wide open as the biggest pussy you ever saw. Fuck me in the ass? No. Fuck me in the head.

Elizabeth J. Anderson
December 2007

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