Glenden BrownYour virginity fetish is your issue, not a public virtue
Today’s D-News has an op-ed piece by Warren Throckmorton extolling the virtues of virginity. Full of slippery logic and the casual assumption that not having sex is better than having sex, Throckmortion begins with a recounting of the story of Saint Nicholas that includes this nugget:
I also discovered that Saint Nicholas is a patron saint of virgins. In the Catholic tradition, a patron saint is one who prays to God on behalf of a petitioner. So, if one wants to remain chaste, one may pray to Saint Nicholas who will then lift up the petitioner in spiritual prayer to God. As an aside, his patronage may explain at least one of the criteria for being in either the naughty or nice category when Saint Nick checks and rechecks his list.
Not content with saccharine sentiment about virginity, Throckmorton decides that the commercialization of sex is the wrong because we’re not virtuous enough. He also throws in a pointless jab at feminism.
Blending traditional gender roles has been little help here. Women today are not, nor should they be, as helpless as those three girls aided by Saint Nicholas. However, girls gone wild with sexual freedom most often leads to exploitation by men.
I think, like it or not, Throckmortion has used a phrase here the captures the entire conservative objection to contemporary sexuality - he sees the problem is girls having sexual freedom. You better believe there’s more! Throckmorton concludes:
We need Saint Nicholas today. We need his gifts of chastity and modesty. We need more respecters of purity and fewer of those who would sell young people into the brothel of commercialism.
I do not understand the fetishization of “purity” by conservatives. The idea that somehow being a virgin is a morally higher state than not strikes me as deeply flawed. It assumes that sex somehow sullies one, that it cheapens a person. When conservatives blather on about the supposed virtues of abstinence, they’re not talking about avoiding disease or unintended pregnancy. They’re talking how wonderful it is to not have sex. They’re indulging a fantasy that sex is a regretted and regretful aspect of adulthood. Throckmorton is free-associating his way through a witch’s brew of unmixed realities - defending purity doesn’t end the commercialization of sex and in fact seems to me to increase it.
Much of hype about Brittany Spears back in the day when she had a career was about the way in which she played with her image as a paragon of virtue - a pro-life virgin in the pop music industry. She and her manager’s successfully parlayed that image into sensational videos, employing salaciousness to slake the audiences thirst for a “virginal” blond girl. Obsession with virginity and sexual purity seem to mislead us into broken thinking about sexuality, starting with the assumption that it represents a fallen state out of which one must stay as long as possible before tragically falling. The oft-repeated claim, for instance, that certain Islamic clerics make that suicide bombers in a righteous cause will be greeted in heaven by 72 virgins strikes me as a related twisting of sexuality - at the risk of humor, exactly what good will 72 virgins do you? And let’s be honest, after 72 nights, you’ll be out of virgins. Then you’re (pardon the pun) screwed.
The fixation in Islam for separating the genders, for stripping women of most legal rights, of seeing female sexualty as a threat to male virtue, seem connected. The less aggressive, though no less toxic, traditionalist faith in separate spheres for men and women, for biologicial determinism in which women are destined as mothers and homemakers and not workers, seems at its root to see equality in the genders as harmful, and female sexual freedom a problem to be avoided.
The traditionalist view of sexuality and gender roles holds that men and women are engaged in a covert and ongoing sexual war. Girls are told “boys only want one thing” and boys are taught they must convince, wheedle, coerce and trick girls with regard to sexuality. He must ply her with flowers and candy, flattery and promises they don’t intend to keep to break down her resistance and to excite her dormant and weak sexual desire (what Fig Leaf at Real Adult Sex describes as the “sexless class”). She must be constantly aware of the tricks he’ll use to breach her sexual defenses and she must be ready to resist at all times. If she fails, if she gives in, the fault is all hers and she will be shamed and socially ruined. She’ll be a loose woman. In a pathological way, allowing more than a chaste peck on the cheek was almost as bad a being an actual whore. The sexual double standard still adheres today, though it seems to me in many places it is becoming less potent (yeah, I’m an optimist sometimes). This model of thinking, female virginity is inherently virtuous; women are expected to restrain male sexaul impulses. Hugo Schwyzer has talked about this dynamic quite a bit, calling it the myth of male weakness - that men are too weak to restrain their sexual impulses and women must do it for them. Not to put too fine a point on it, in this model of thinking, female sexuality is a precious commodity which must be preserved at all costs and once indulged, becomes cheap - transformed if you wll from gold to brass. Male sexuality is sitgmatized as harmful though beyond individual control. Boys, in this mode of thinking, will be boys and their misdeeds can be excused and accepted. The girl is shamed, the boy’s role is largely ignored.
Feminism holds more profoundly that men and women are equal, that women have sexual desire, that women’s sexual autonomy is a good thing, that men aren’t after only one thing and that sexuality is a good. In this model, men and women are partners and peers in sex - sexual behaviors are about one side resisting the other, instead, conversation, communication and mutuality are the primary concerns. The sexual freedom that so concerns folks like Warren Throckmortion, is a good thing. (Throckmorton’s deliberate use of the phrase girls gone wild is intended to make us think that the video series is the same as female sexual autonomy when in fact it is NOT.) To put it another way, feminism offers a profound insight about sex - that the right to say no and have it respected creates the freedom to say yes. Remove the stigma from female sexuality, acknowledge female sexual desire, empower both women with regard to reproductive freedoms rather than leaving them at the mercy of biology, and you level the playing field. You free men of the constant role of wheedling, conniving, convincing and seducing. You free women from the constant role of resisting, and the genders are no longer at war. (There’s some social science research that shows feminist couples have better sex lives than their more conservative peers; in addition, some research how also shown that feminist couples have more stable relationships because they allow freedom from gender roles and partners are able to embrace the tasks they like in the relationship.) Men are freed to seek emotional fulfillment, as well as sexual gratification; women are freed to seek sexual gratification as well as emotional fulfillment. The traditionalist model sees women as the caretakers of emotional wellbeing. Feminism rejects assigning that role based on gender.
The Virginity Fetish strikes me as a misplaced attempt to control sexuality. Abstinence educators glorify abstinence as the way to the promised land of sexual happiness. Praising virginity as morally good is a hollow attempt to make people think that virgins are happier than the rest of us. It’s a one size fits all approach to sex. It pathologizes something natural and good. It is the ultimate mixed message - “Sex is dirty, shameful and wrong and you should save it for someone you love.”
Holding on to one’s virginity does no one any measurable good. Idealizing virginity strikes me as a dangerous attempt to idealize childhood, it suggests to me an unhealthy view of both childhood and youth. It implicitly rejects the inherit attractiveness of maturity. IOW, a mature lover, who is secure in his/her identity, who understands that good sex is mutually pleasurable and pleasurably mutual strikes me as a far more satisfying lover. In the traditionalist model, sexual inexperience is a virtue and sexual experience a sign of depravity. That seems tragically wrong-headed to me. Maturity brings with it greater self-awareness, deeper empathy. Virginity it seems to me is no virtue and sexual experience no vice.
December 24th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Another great piece Glenden!
I remember buying into the “guys will do whatever to get it and it’s your job to stop it” as a teen — I was raised LDS and the phrase I remember learning was “My body is a temple and you don’t have a (temple) recommend.”
The big problem came when I found I wanted just as much as the guy did. I felt betrayed that it was my job to stop it when I felt unable to stop it because I wanted it so much myself. It’s really unfair to put that burden on women. So is society’s elevating female virginity as a virtue while acknowledging that male virginity is something to be avoided.
December 24th, 2007 at 11:05 am
What a blow job.
Conniving, wheedling? Where in the hell did you guys grow up?
Girls are given the advice not have sex as they, and their parental families will bear the burden of the child and pregnancy. A womans anatomy makes them more prone to sexual disease. Pretty simple why not having sex is recommended at an early age, like drinking and drugs, you need to be ready for it. Way to go, complicate what is pretty simple, with more stereotypes and mindless myth.
December 24th, 2007 at 11:12 am
I never felt confortable as guy having to start sexual advances (steal the bases if you will). I may just not be good at reading the “signals” but there seems to be a fine line between making advances that are wanted and those that are not. No body want to be “that guy.” This it seems to me comes from women having the responsibility put ontheir shoulders to deny it even when they want it. In my mind this is most disfunctional way to start a relationship.
December 24th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I had been thinking about the secular ethical analysis to this problem of this “virgin fetish.” Considering that the religious moralist always press this as a moral issue as opposed to a health issue.
What stuck out the most virginity crusaders forget, is that the negative consequences of sexual relations are drastically minimized with safe sex. It is true that unwanted pregancy produces negative consequences for the family of the girl, but this only happens in the case of a pregancy. STI’s are a problem but they to can be minimized. It is possible to negate or drastically minimize these potenital consequences by taking the appropraite measures, i.e. birth control, condoms, spermcide, etc.
Red Dog, you are right sex is no different than any other adult activity - one should be prepared for the consequences. But it is illogical to infer from that premise that the tradionalist position is ethical and benifitial to society as a whole. Furthermore, properly educating children as to the consequences and ways to diminish the consequences is necessary and would lead, I would argue, to a better situation than indoctorating women, esp. young women, to believe sex is bad and is all a man will want them for.
December 24th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
My food fetish is more than satisfied by watching the shows on the food network. I’m blessed that never will a real eclair pass my lips.
December 26th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Jenni - “My body is a temple and you don’t have a recommend” is a really funny line I’d never heard before. The whole scenario in which women play “defense” while men play “offense” seems a perfect way to cause nothing but trouble between the genders. It sets up a whole host of expectations that are guaranteed to not be met.
Red Dog - I would agree with you if women and girls simply got the message that pregnancy could be a problem and to take precautions, you’d be right that it’s simple. But our society stigmatizes female sexuality while valorizing male sexuality. A woman who has sex and who enjoys it is likely to find herself called a slut, treated as if she is beneath contempt. Female rape victims in our society must still contend with the idea they were “asking” for it. Female sexual desire is treated as problematic, something to be contained and controlled. Male promiscuity is often treated as a joke, excused as “boys will be boys.” A woman who dresses in attractive clothing will find herself subject to comments on her appearance whether she wills it or no, and she’s likely to be told if she doesn’t want that to happen, she shouldn’t wear attractive clothing. So, the message our society sends women is not one of “you shouldn’t have sex because you run risks” it’s “only have sluts have sex and if something bad happens it’s there own slutty whorish fault.”
Rob - The pressure to make the first move puts a lot of men in an awkward position, playing a role they don’t want to play and they aren’t comfortable with. The whole “sex as baseball” metaphor is problematic for reasons I’ll delve into in a soon to be posted blog.
J - Historically, contraception in the US has been promoted for health concerns rather than birth control. In Devices and Desires, Andrea Tone charts the introduction and common acceptance of condoms following WW1 - originally encouraged unofficially by the US Army in Europe to manage epidemic rates of STIs among the doughboys (which were many times higher than those of European troops who were issued and encouraged to use condoms). The birth control side of the equation was often handled with a wink and nod. Interestingly, many of the groups and individuals who conduct virginity crusades oppose widespread distribution and use of contraceptives in the mistaken belief that access to birth control will encourage sexual activity.
December 26th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Cav - trust me the real deal is always better.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Pregnancy is an issue, no doubt — all the more reason that comprehensive sex education for young women and men is important, as is easy access to birth control. I too have seen that those most in favor of making girls solely responsible for saying “no” are also the ones most against the use of birth control.
As for STDs, actually the safest group are made up solely of women - lesbians. By Red Dog’s logic we should be training our daughters to become lesbians (although I’m rather doubtful that would be possible ) and don’t forget that lesbians are also the safest group from unintended pregnancy.
It’s also rather hypocritical for society to force the role of keeper of morals on young women when they may want it almost as much as the guy does.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
I’ll agree that sex education needs some serious revamping in Utah, but I don’t feel (for me at least) that it’s accurate to say that there’s anything wrong with teaching young people to master their desires.
I’d say that controlling your desires and using them in appropriate settings (whatever that may mean to you) is certainly virtuous, and sexual experience may very well be a vice if it involves behaviors that risk health and futures (”futures” referring to teenage girls who have a very rough start to adult life because they are raising children of their own).
December 27th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Allie - comprehensive programs include information on decision making and abstinence, helping adolescents articulate reasons not to have sex that make sense in their own lives as well as reasons to engage in sexual behaviors (the answers for both were interesting - for instance reason against included things like “not sure he/she is the right person”, “not ready for pregnancy” “no access to contraceptions” “not emotionally ready” and reasons for included “can feel really good” “help us be more intimate” and “I want to”). A mentor of mine says that your sexuality should be life enhancing. In that frame of reference making good sexual decisions is about making the kinds of decisions that will improve your life. So, that would mean using contraception consistently and correctly, expanding your definition of sexuality to include things like outercourse, actually planning your family rather than leaving it to solely to chance. It also sees sexuality in a context far larger than reproduction. I also think it’s important to really define our terms. Abstinence is often taught as abstaining from penile/vaginal intercourse. It then becomes a kind of game - is it okay to make out? Is it okay to take off your shirts? Her bra? Is it okay to make out in your underwear? Is it okay to make out naked? Naked in bed? Is oral sex okay? Anal sex? Mutual masturbation? The goal seems to be to do as much sexually as possible while stopping just short of actual intercourse. Teaching abstinence often seems to treat sex as a light switch - it’s on or off when in facts its more of dimmer switch - it can be all the way off or all the way on and there’s lot of territory in the middle that’s not really off and not all the way on.
Jenni - I think the sexual double standard is the primary source of problems in relationships. As a culture, we stigmatize female sexuality while valorizing male sexuality. I think it’s generally harmful to both genders, but it places an unfair burden on women.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Sure there’s nothing wrong with mastering desires. I might want to eat the whole box of doughnuts, but it’s really not a very good idea . . .one might not be bad though.
I’m not saying that there should be a “free-for-all” and comprehensive sex education (at least from the program that I’ve seen) does not encourage such a “free-for-all”. The program that I’ve seen, that Glenden is familiar with asks young women and men to look at sexuality in an honest and open way and to figure out where their own boundaries — versus those imposed on by society — lay (no pun intended).
What I’m griping about is the puritanical way in which many people view sex. The way many want to deal with it is to deny that sex is natural and that our sex drives are very powerful. Or rather, I’m upset at a society okaying that drive in males and denying it in females and making them the guardians of male sexuality.
My experience with the LDS religion is that they aren’t in denial about the power of sexuality — but their goal is to channel it to marriage and family at a really young age which I don’t think is very healthy either. I didn’t get married until I was 34. There was no way in he** I was going spend 16 adult years being sexless to satisfy some idea of purity imposed upon me. There was also no way that I was going to hunt for a man to marry me at 19 just so that I could have a normal sex life. I was told I could go to BYU to get my M.R.S. degree, or I could troll the singles wards for mates, but husband-hunting just didn’t appeal to me — if I was to get married, I wanted it to come about in a much more natural way. (Turned out for the best anyway, because if I had married at 19 I would have missed some of the most enjoyable years of my adulthood.)
There is a way to deal with sex in a responsible way that doesn’t deny reality and doesn’t force girls and women to roles that they may not be able to play. It may not mean that girls wait until marriage to have sex, but it also doesn’t have to mean that girls will do it anytime, anywhere with anyone if they don’t wait for marriage either.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Glenden,
Oops! Looks like we were answering Allie at the same time.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
The association of sexual behavior and morality is the problem.
In no case should a young person be taught that sex and sexual desires are immoral. If sex is immoral, than God fucked up.
Instead we should be teaching values like self-respect and respect for others.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Quote of the day, Cliff. Thanks. :)
I’m loving the conversation here, it’s not often that people will discuss such a “controversial” topic in such a good-natured way when there are dissenting opinions.
December 27th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
The goal seems to be to do as much sexually as possible while stopping just short of actual intercourse. It shouldn’t be that way, and I’d have no problem sending (or going with) my child to a sex ed class like what you described, it just seemed to me (and perhaps I was being a bit touchy (no pun intended)) that you were saying that there is something wrong with people who choose abstinence until marriage . Certainly, if teens or young people are trying to do everything but have sex, there’s a problem there.
Jenni- I’m sorry that you had a bad experience. It isn’t always that way. I got married at 21, which I think was a little on the young side, but it was what seemed right to me. I didn’t ever go “husband hunting” (I didn’t go to BYU either, maybe that’s why… :) ).
If I ever have daughters, I would hope that they would choose to wait until marriage like I did. That said, I’ve seen way too many teenage girls end up pregnant, and I worry about their futures, so I will make sure that my children (boys and girls) have enough information to act responsibly.
December 28th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Allie - I overreact to the implicit idea that virginity is the standard to which we should all aspire because it is morally superior so I do sometimes come across as if I think there’s something wrong with people who wait till marriage. I think there’s nothing wrong with being a sexual being and (especially in Utah) I’ve run into far too many people who cling to abstinence before marriage as a way to hide from their sexual issues.
Researchers have discovered that graduates of abstinence only programs (such as those mandated by the federal gov’t and used in Utah) are in fact more likely to engage in risky behaviors in terms of STI transmission tha their peers who had no sex education; they are also significantly less likely to use contraception when they do engage in intercourse. These programs teach that virginity is a virtue, they ignore glbt folks, they trade in stereotypes and by and large teach that sex is on or off - either you’re a pure virgin or you’re a wanton slut and there’s middle ground; because these programs define sex as strictly heterosexual, penile-vaginal intercourse, graduates as often as not don’t define anything else as a sexual beahvior - hence, all kinds of risky behaviors are tactitly approved of. It’s too common to hear stories about “technical” virgins - people who have done everything but heterosexual intercourse. Such an outcome is inevitable from the pedagogy employed in abstinence only programs. In all fairness, I’ve heard a few of the abstinence programs are pretty good and cover a wide range of issues but most teach that adolescents are expected to remain abstinent and fail to address the needs of the majority of adolescents who don’t remain abstinent - or for that matter, the 90+ percent of American adults who don’t remain abstinent until marriage.
December 28th, 2007 at 10:24 am
I think if waiting until marriage is what someone wants to do, I’m in support of that. There can be some really valid reasons for that which I can understand.
I don’t think it’s for everyone — in fact I think it doesn’t work for the majority of us — and I don’t think it should be held by society in such high regard that girls are made to feel “sullied” or slutty or bad if they can’t live up to it.
First and foremost, I want my daughters to have all the information. Then it’s up to them to determine where they stand. I’d be perfectly happy if my girls waited until marriage to have sex, but not at the expense of marrying too young.
December 28th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Jenni - I couldn’t agree more! There are valid reasons to wait and equally valid reasons to not wait. Of my friends from high school, college and grad school, I think living together and not waiting till marriage to have sex were all but universal. In a society in which the average age at first marriage is the late 20s, there’s no reason to suggest that waiting should or must be the norm.
I think using marriage as the starting point for sexual activity made sense in the 50s and 60s when the average age at first marriage was 21 for males and 19 for females.
But those days are over. Even in the 19th century, among native born Americans who married in their mid to late 20s, premarital sex was frequent enough that it didn’t garner much comment (though the context was often within a long term engagement - a couple might be engaged for 3 years and it was rationalized as “we’re going to marry anyway” - so if something happened they could always marry earlier).
December 28th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Glenden,
I’m kind of fascinated with the idea of the best age to marry. When I was in my late 20s I really, really wanted to get married, but it didn’t end up happening until 34. I’m now 38, so looking back, I think it was good that I didn’t get married when I really, really wanted to — I was still pretty immature and need a few more years of life seasoning.
When we got married, my husband was 39, and hearing stories from his life before I met him, it seemed that it was good that he didn’t get married until later in life. All in all, I feel like our maturity level, the sum of our life experiences, and where we were in our lives at that time, I got married at the best age and probably so did my husband.
On the other hand, if someone wants to have a planned family they might not want to start at that age.
If I were to give advice to my kids I might say that 30 is probably the best age for a lot of people — that would give a good decade to finish school, start careers and have a lot of fun before settling down, but still leave some good child bearing years ahead. Of course life never fits that neatly. But I remember feeling the pressure growing up to be married by 21, so aiming for 30 seems a lot more reasonable age to shoot for.
December 28th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Like I said, I got married at 21. I never felt pressure to get married. I had actually started filling out paperwork to serve an LDS mission when I met my Mr. It was a tiny bit disappointing that I didn’t get to go on a mission. :)
I’m 29 now and I have 3 kids. I wouldn’t change how I did any of it. It was what was right for me (because that’s how I wanted it, not because I felt pressured into fitting some sort of mold).
Just to share a different experience.