Hot Topic: Keeping (Or Losing) Your Virginity

I read an article my friend shared on Facebook about the difference between purity and virginity in a spiritual sense. Of course, religious reasoning does not ring true to many people, and I found my eyes glazing elsewhere when I read the word 'God' amidst the otherwise interesting paragraph. But it's the proposition that purity and virginity is not interlinked that tickled my interest in the article. I never really thought about it, but maybe I should.

Let's get to it:

I was never taught to keep my purity, but more so my virginity. And in the teenage world full of sex, drugs and alcohol, they were one and the same to me. I regarded the hymen as the holy grail of my body. I thought that my value as a woman depended on the membrane located in my vagina. But over the course of the last few years, I have learned that there is so much more about me then the absence or presence of an internal lining no bigger than a quarter.

Girls with their hymens still intact would call themselves pure because they regarded their hymens as a sign of their chastity. Never mind the fact that their mouths have tasted the bitterness of their male counterparts. Or that their backdoor have been entered by someone for the sake of 'keeping their virginity'. These girls would parade their self-restraint and piety when just the night before they were reaching nirvana with the index finger of a man twice their age. 

The word virginity in the dictionary will bring about a plethora of synonyms, one of which is the word virtue. Virtue, by its very definition, is behavior showing high moral standards. The fact that the word virginity and virtue can be selfsame says a lot about how society perceives one's physical virginity. As if by losing their V-card, they have lowered their moral standards and made themselves worthless. This is exactly why so many teenage girls opt to have anal sex instead of vaginal penetration; because people seem to venerate chaste women regardless of whatever else they do.

Foreplay is simply cheating the system. It is copping out. When people say, "I did this but at least I didn't have sex!" it makes it seem like the female body can be and should be used as a sexual object and it is permissible to do so as long as their hymens are left untouched by a man's penis.

At this day and age, the temptation to cross the boundary between 'third base' and a 'home run' is as thin as paper. "I will save myself for marriage," you say, and yet you compromise your purity for either your own pleasure or out of guilt for not putting out for your boyfriend. Abstinent girls are met with many sighs from men, most of whom believe that sex is an integral part of a relationship, which is most definitely not true. Physical intimacy can compliment emotional rapport, but it is not at all inextricably linked with each other. 

In a relationship, you either choose to be pure and refrain from going 'too far', or you let go. Both, from an atheistic standpoint, are completely fine. You all were taught to resist the pressure to have sex, but no one ever talks about the pressure to keep your innocence. If you want to have sex, then do whatever you want to do. You shouldn't let other people's subjective opinions keep you from doing what you feel is right. It is your body after all. And if afterwards you get dirty glares from people who see you as someone inferior because of it, walk away. Because no one should regard you as a lesser human being simply because you have made a personal decision about your own body.

However, it's important to know that either you stay pure, or you don't. It is black and white.

Many of you use religion to stop yourself from having sex yet you push the boundaries; teetering over the edge and patting yourself on the back for not tripping over. That can only go so far. Keep your purity from your mind to your body, if you wish to do so. If you have a decision to keep yourself chaste until marriage, then don't even test the waters. Because one day you'll be dancing on the edge of the cliff and you'll fall, and only then will you wish you never hiked that mountain to begin with.