What’s This Obsession with Virginity?
Even today, girls fall into a binary:
the prude virgin or the sexual slut.
We live in a culture that bases women’s value on
someone else’s version of how they should be sexual.
Ask any young woman to recall times when she was
judged for participating in or refraining from sexual activity.
In modern society, girls fall into a binary
— the prude virgin or the sexual slut.
One woman told the story of how her dad called her
a slut after finding out she kissed a boy.
Another recalled being kicked out of a man’s
room for refusing to perform oral sex.
Historically, women were valued in terms of their sexuality.
In some cases, a man would purchase a wife but could
return her if he believed she was not a virgin.
The women accused of engaging in
premarital sex would be stoned to death.
Even though women are ridiculed for being prudes or sluts.
Yet both men and women are having sex for the same reasons.
“I was bored,” “to get a promotion,” “the person made me
feel sexy” or “I wanted to increase our emotional bond.”
Women Contribute to the Slut-Whore Divide
Although women suffer from discrimination,
they also contribute to their own oppression.
They’ve created a hierarchy which we are all
complaining about, and yet we contribute to it.
We need to look inside ourselves and come to terms
with the ways women contribute to a culture of sexual
oppression and then work on amending that behavior.
Male virtues are often seen as multiple and universal.
Yet those seen as relating to women are still tied to
outdated moral codes that assume our sexual behaviour
is the primary indicator of who we are.
While sexual prowess and multiple “conquests”
may be indicators of men’s approved masculinity,
women may lose legitimacy if they are deemed
promiscuous by having multiple partners.
