First things first, a social construct is something that doesn’t exist in objective reality, but as a result of human conversation. It exists just because humans say that it exists.
In Greek mythology Artemis, Athena and Hestia were well depicted virginal Goddesses. It’s intertesting to note that there were no explicitly virginal Gods. The idea of female virginity being sacred was very common in ancient Greece and Rome. Virginity was seen simply in the physical form as the presence of the hymen. Women that were virgins were worth more than women that were not. If a woman were to lose her virginity before marriage she was at risk of public shame, getting kicked from her home or even death.
The second king of Rome created the institution of Vestal Virgins, whose primary duty was to tend to the sacred fire in the temple of the Goddes of the hearth, Vesta. Vestal virgins were selected with serious standards. According to one contemporary, “It is unlawful to take a girl younger than six or older than ten, or to take girl whose father and mother are not living, or who has a speech or hearing defect, or any other bodily imperfection.” The Vestal virgins had to spend the next thirty years being chaste and tending the eternal flame. To break the virginity requierement was punishable by death. Sex wasn’t a privilege or expectation for the Vestal virgin. It was a corruption of her purity that made her unable to purify Rome in the sacred religious rites of Vesta. A special power of the Vestals included the capability of playing God with life and death. When a Vestal crossed paths with a condemned man on his way to execution his life was spare if she chose to pardon him. This theme of virginity being so sacred that it is powerful, magical or transformative, continued in other historical eras.
In Alice Schlegel’s “Status, Property, and The Value on Virginity”, she explains how elite members of various societies like daughters of royalty, had stricter expectations of virginity because of their powerful value in marriage alliances. During medieval times, virgin’s blood, urine, and hair were considered to be potent substances for alchemy or magic. The mythical unicorn. Which we tend to characterize today as a sweet creature in children’s fiction, was then known as a ferocious beast that people actually believed could be found in forests somewhere, ready to destroy men. Unicorns were powerful, but could be tamed by virgins. Legend said that it would lay it’s head in the lap of a female virgin allowing a warrior to sneak up and kill it. But legend also said that a unicorn would plunge it’s horn through the heart of a woman pretending to be a virgin.
Perhaps the worst pre-modern abuse of virgins comes from the Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory, a rich and bored wife who got into occultism and alchemy. She began bathing in the blood of virgins to recapture her lost youth and alleged beauty. She sometimes drank their blood, and before she and her accomplices were caught, she killed an estimated 600 virgins. Unfortunately, the superstitious beliefs in the power of female virgins is not a long lost concept in the modern world.
Virginity became a expected yet brief and transitional period of a woman’s life from childhood to wife status, demonstrated by the uptick in deregatory spinster and old maid stereotypes in protestant culture. This kind of attitude would continue well past the protestant reformation, when in the 1830’s Richard Carlile declared that “It is a fact that can hardly have escaped the notice of anyone that women who have never had sexual commerce begin to droop when about twenty five years of age. Their forms degenerate, their features sink, and the peculiar character of the old maid becomes apparent.”
Staying a virgin, even when faced with tremendous obstacles or adversaries, is a celebrated theme in the story of 11-year-old Maria Gorgetti, an Italian saint. In 1902, she was attacked by a 20-year-old, who demanded she submit to him or he would kill her. She was refused and stabbed to death. On her deathbed she forgave her murderer, and her bravery and compassion netted her a canonization by the Catholic church in 1950. This speaks to the Catholic churchs stance on rape constituting a loss of one’s virginity, which is generally how many cultures see it. In the bible, after Tamar is raped by her half-brother, she is ashamed and marks her forehead with ashes. In many cultures, the families of raped women have tried to regain the woman’s honor by having her marry her rapist. This signifies that virginity more often than not has been based on physical experiences, which means there have been a lot of virginity tests.
Before the term hymen even came onto the scene, many cultures believed that there were ways to test a woman for virginity, often involving a stained bedsheet on the wedding night. In Deauteronomy, if a man accuses his wife of not being pure and drags out the unstained bedsheets as proof, “she shall be brought tot he door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death.” This, like most virginity tests performed on women, had no male equivalent, demonstrating how historically virginity has been a system that polices the behavior of women more than it does men. One medieval tekst, called De secretis mulierum, or ‘Women’s Secrets’ stated that “The urine of virgins is clear and lucid, sometimes white, sometimes sparkling. Corrupted women have a muddy urine.” One of the more mainstream notions about virgins is that the first sexual experience will be painful. From that same medieval text comes the quote “If a man has sexual intercourse with a woman and experiences no sore on his penis and no difficulty of entry, this is a sign that she was first corrupted. However, a true sign of the woman’s virginity is if it is difficult to perform the act and it causes a sore on his member.” A common refrain for men is that if a woman enjoys her “first time” too much, she’s not really a virgin. But modern experts have noted that a woman’s comfort levels, arousal and other factors can affect whether or not her first time is painful. Maybe we got the “women are supposed to bleed” notion because more often than not in history, the sexual pleasure of women hasn’t been a priority.
Because there were all of these tests for female virginity, there has been a companion industry of fake virginity for centuries. There are ancient recipes as far back as the third century for vaginal rejuvenation. This is still with us in modern times, as shown by the availability of things like China Shrink Cream or vaginoplasties. The premium placed on virginity in many cultures is reflected by sex work and sex trafficking. Because many women have been expected to be virgins in history and men were usually held to looser standards and even encouraged to indulge in sex, lower class and/or foreign women have typically been characterized as having looser morals or being prostitutes. During American slavery, the exploitation of Black women was excused along these lines.
The black market for virgins in the sex trade continues today. Gold rush miners in Peru were reported in 2018 of raping underage girls because it is believed to be good luck, with the most expensive girls being 12–13 years old. The girls are often sold by parents and relatives on false promises of being domestics. Columbian girls as young as 10 are auctioned off to a largely American, Mexican and Japanese clientele. Many of the men seeking virgins believe that sex with them gives magical powers to stay young and ward off illness. The disgusting trade of virgins in Cambodia is permitted not just because of the economic challenges, but because of the premium placed on virginity. But the premium on virginity is in consensual sex work too, evidenced by the ever growing list of stories about women auctioning off their virginity tot he highest bidder.
In the genre of virginity porn and it’s closely related cousin, “barely legal” porn, there is an emphasis on small hips and breasts and childish hair, and the first experience being painful. The fantasy in virgin porn is that the experience awakens the dormant slut in the virgin. This reflects a more modern attitude about virginity, that every woman needs the right man to awaken the passions within her.
Predictably, rates of female virginity were changed by the sexual revolution, birth control pills, and the widespread availability of contraceptives. This was impacted by the AIDS epidemic. For instance, the belief that sex with virgins cures people of HIV/AIDS has been linked to the rape of children and babies in sub-saharan Africa, India, and Thailand.
In 2017, the University of Minnesota analyzed 1269 studies of virginity tests and found them to not be useful and “physically, psychologically and socially devastating to the examinee.” That same year, the Russian Investigative Committee instructed medical professionals to “inform police about all cases when virginity was lost as well as about cases of pregnancies and abortions involving girls under 16 years old.” Doctors were ordered to check the “integrity of the hymen” and look for signs of damage.This shows how the concept of virginity is still being used to control women and based on completely false notions about the importance of the hymen.
It’s also worth noting that narratives about losing one’s virginity is a common trope in teen movies and tv, though there are differences in the representations of the genders.
For example. the “final girl” has been a staple of horror since the slasher films of the 1970’s. The final girl has a few common traits, including these: she’s usally a virgin or otherwise doesn’t engage in sex, which often dooms her peers. In Scream, Randy Meeks says “There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie. For instance: 1. You can never have sex. The minute you get a little nookie — you’re as good as gone.”
Now that I’ve explained the history of virginity and mentioned one of the most famous tropes in film and tv I’ll discuss why virginity is a social contruct.
Keeping the hymen intact before sex is a myth and medically inaccurate. The hymen is a membrane surrounding the vaginal opening. Hymens are thick when we are first born, but that thick lining wears over time. It is believed that intact hymen determines someone’s virginity. In reality, you can’t tell if someone has had sex by looking at their genitalia. The shape and size of the vagina doesn’t change size with penetrative sex, nor does the hymen change from penis-in-vagina sex.
Virginity is based on patriarchal concepts and is not a medical term. Katie Brookfield, an expert in this area gave School of Sex Education her thoughts. “Virginity has long been a key factor in determining a ‘woman’s worth’ and therefore their bodies are heavily policed. The emphasis on virginity emerged as our ancestors moved from communal, hunter-gatherer communities to land-owning societies. Keeping land meant having (male) heirs, and therefore it was imperative that there be no question of parentage. The solution? Ensure that a wife or concubine is a ‘virgin’ to secure a pure lineage, land and, ultimately, power.
My particular area of study is around the relationship between religion and sexuality. From Abraham to abstinence pledges, virginity has been a focal element of a woman’s purity and, consequently, their value. Whilst sexual purity has long been associated with religion — in many ways because of the link between holiness and asceticism — it is in recent years that it has taken on a whole new dimension. Pervasive within the conservative Christian community, ‘purity culture’ has infiltrated not just churches, but schools, healthcare providers and even governments.
Proponents of purity culture are concerned with both physical and emotional purity, only allowing for two rigid, contrasting gender roles. There is a heavy emphasis on the purity of women and their responsibility to keep male counterparts from ‘stumbling’. They are both controlled by and the gate-keepers of this concept of purity. Physical appearance is heavily monitored, with strict rules on modest dress for young women who have to be aware of their hemline, neckline and even their eyeliner, to ensure men do not look at them lustfully.
Young people are told to flee from the hypothetical ‘how far is too far’ line, yet this again is the responsibility of the woman. Men are painted as uncontrollable creatures who rely on a pure woman to keep their raging sexuality under wraps until the wedding night — an idea which contributes significantly to rape culture, FYI. Women, on the other hand, are taught nothing of pleasure and desire, but are instead told to ‘guard their heart’. They need to be as vigilant about guarding their emotional virginity as they are their physical. Why? Because whether physical or emotional virginity, a woman gives away a piece of her heart each time. She becomes damaged goods; a used, impure woman unable to give her whole self to her future husband. This ‘purity myth’ controls every aspect of a woman’s body: what they wear, what they think, and what they let between their legs.”
Virginity is also completely heteronormative. It’s assumed that unless you’ve had a penis in your vagina, or put your penis into a vagina, then you haven’t really had sex. There is an assumption that engaging in heterosexual sex is the standard (and should be) for your sexual activities. Virginity erases the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and other nonheterosexual people, it assumes that you are heterosexual and doesn’t take into the account the lived experiences of any other types of sexual expression. So, virginity is stuck into a heteronormative box, it doesn’t leave room for those who do not fall into the gender binary or other so-called “conventional” forms of sexuality. It is dependent upon being a heterosexual, cisgender man or woman and doesn’t include any relationships and people that fall out of this.
The patriarchy wants you to commodify sexuality and hold sexist attitudes about it because that is how they can keep the status quo in tact.
Dear reader, I ask you to start questioning your thoughts on virginity and sexuality. Social constructs are just based in how we tell ourselves and others how these things are. Imagine if we changed the narrative. Let’s all lose virginity, for good.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX4pPg2DO5E&t=884s
https://womeninantiquity.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/6799/
https://schoolofsexed.org/blog-articles/2020/04/2/virginity
https://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/losing-virginity-for-good/
https://medium.com/@lbetros1101/5-reasons-why-virginity-is-a-social-construct-f8cc36333127
