First Person: Sarah "Sexual experiences don't have to fall into the categories of 'right' or 'wrong' or 'mistake.' They are simply expressions of myself."

This week's First Person interview comes from 25-year-old Sarah, who talks about where her sexuality is rooted and why she doesn't want others to define it for her. Please send us an email if you'd like to tell your story.



Tell us about yourself:

I am 25 years old and studying creative writing in New York City.  I grew up in Texas, and until a few months ago, I was a virgin.



How do you define virginity?

I know the definition I grew up with: that a virgin is someone who has not had penis-in-vagina sex. Now, I find that definition unsatisfactory for lots of reasons. It is not just that this definition applies only to heterosexuals, but I'm not sure that it works for heterosexuals either. When we talk about virginity loss we are not simply talking about a physical change, but something far more complex, an intangible, filled with deeply symbolic meanings. The categories of "virgin" and "non-virgin" fail to take into account the richness of sexual experience. It invests so much in one single moment (the moment in which a penis first enters a vagina) as this moment of profound change in our lives–when we pass magically from girls into women.

We are taught that this moment will somehow determine the rest of our sexual lives and it's a decision we take cautiously, because (as women especially) we are told that when and how we lose our virginity has a lot to say about the people we are.



Why did you wait and why did you stop waiting?

As a girl, I grew up hearing that for women sex is profoundly emotional. We must be careful, we must protect ourselves, and we must be very, very certain that the decisions we make about sex are the right ones. Why? Because the emotions that accompany sex for women might be too difficult or overwhelming if not shared with the right person at the right time.

When I did finally have sex it was with a guy, a friend of a friend, who I knew for about twelve hours.  They were a significant twelve hours in my life, and they were not devoid of emotion; in fact, they were full of emotion–excitement, aliveness, and loneliness too–but I did not fall in love as I knew I would not, nor did I fall apart (as had for years been subconsciously told I could).

Recently, after hearing I had had sex, the a male friend said of the guy: "I am not sure this guy was deserving of that." An older friend said to me, "Well, you are still emotionally a virgin." My younger sister, outraged at my one-night-stand said: "Sarah, if a guy is worth it, he shouldn't care about your past."

These comments, though meant well, have a somewhat disturbing message underpinning them: that my sexuality is somehow not my own.  That I threw away my virginity too easily.  That somehow the sex I had was meaningless because it was not shared with a partner.  That I had sex for my future partners or just to get it over with.  When in fact, I had sex because I wanted to.

I found a deeper truth I had known for a long time but was finally giving power to: Each sexual encounter is an expression of my sexuality, but my sexuality has to do with so much more than who I have sex with, or how much sex I have, or if I have ever had sex before. It has to do with my own relationship to my body.  My sexuality is deeply rooted in me.

I can trust in my own desires, my own emotions and move with them. Experiences don't have to fall on the categories of "right" or "wrong" or "mistake".  They are simply expressions of myself–among  many I will make over the course of my life–some of which will feel more authentic than others but all of which matter and are important and true.



Any thoughts on virginity in our society?



Perhaps the most lasting message girls get is that sex is powerful, scary, and has the potential to hurt you if you are not ready for it.  I think back to my brother and the messages he he received. Decide when you are ready and be safe. Boys hear, in essence, that they are able to make their own choices; that they should trust in their own intelligence and are aware enough of their desires to make responsible decisions about sex.  What a girl hears is very different: That her emotions and desires are not to be trusted but that she should be protected from them.  That she is fragile and could make a bad decision that will leave her harmed.

It perpetuates this notion that our sexuality is defined by external factors. I think of sexuality differently; as something internal whose movement outward takes many forms of expression and sex itself is only one of those.  In this I find great freedom and confidence and joy.

Talkin' virginity with Lena Chen and the Gurls

Lena Chen is definitely on our radar these days: she writes the blog The Chicktionary and is now the Health, Sex and Relationships expert for gURL.com, a community for teenage girls. Lena and I had a great conversation over at gURL about virginity, chaste pop stars and whether you can tell if a guy's a virgin by checking his penis (don't worry, you can't). Here's a just a little snippet:



Therese: Let’s start with something simple like how do you define virginity. Which actually isn’t at all simple, so never mind.



Lena: I defined virginity in previous posts on gURL (“The gURL Guide To Virginity Through History“), and there’s so little consensus on the definition of sex that it’s surprising that anyone attributes any significance to their “purity.” There are a lot of people who still think (incorrectly) that you can “test” for a girl’s virginity. But guys just don’t have the same anatomy, so they don’t have to deal with the same crap.



Therese: Right. Checking the condition of someone’s hymen gives you as much information about someone’s sex life as checking the tip of someone’s penis. None. Why is it that guys and gURLs are judged differently for the same behavior?



Lena: I think the even more interesting thing is that girls are fetishized. Male sexuality isn’t commodified in the same way.



Therese: It’s true. We talk about giving away your “precious gift,” like your virgin status is really all you have to offer someone. When Taylor Swift (left, with Demi Lovato) sings in her song friend ‘gave everything she had’ to a boy, it means she gave him her virginity, doesn’t it? And it ended badly because, well, if all you have is your virginity, then you’re left kinda worthless.That was EVERYTHING SHE HAD! Really, she has nothing else of value to offer this world? Like being a kind person or being good at math, or being able to run really fast? There are a lot of very excellent reasons to wait to have sex, but the fact that your virginity is the only thing of value you have to offer the world is NOT one of them.



Read the rest of our conversation at gURL.com...

Fromt the archives: What's this film all about? A bounty of Q&As will answer all your questions (except what color dress Therese finally wore at her wedding)

As we work though the tough process of boiling down 70 hours of interviews and Miley Cyrus videos into an hour-long film, I've been looking back at some of the things we've been writing about. This is a pretty good distillation of the things that have driven me batty enough to do this film. So for those of you just joining us, a little distillation and review:



I want to thank a group of fantastic bloggers who have spread the word about our project far and wide. A few of them did Q&As with me, and their questions were so good, they made my brain hurt. Here are some of the hopefully smart-sounding answers I produced in response.



From Amanda Hess's The Sexist who asked about the different meanings of virginity in the contexts of abstinence pledging, porn and the wedding industry:



Therese: I think they’re remarkably similar in that they all work within the fantasy of female sexual purity as something to be fetishized. They have different props—the Big White Wedding Dress, porn’s white panties, and the purity ring—but all use a sort of ritualized process whereby a symbolically virginal female is offered up to a male for deflowering. I say symbolic because the porn actress is definitely not a virgin, we’re pretty certain that most modern brides aren’t either, and given our shaky definition of the V-word, we might not even consider some purity pledgers to be totally chaste. But it’s the fetishization of all three that really fascinates me. For whose benefit is it this being played out?



From Australian journalist Rachel Hills' Musings of an Inappropriate Woman about mainstream media coverage of virginity and female sexuality:



Therese: There’s still a lot of alarmist hand-wringing about so-called ‘hookup culture,’ the evils of young women having casual sex, and the death of relationships. It’s exhausting trying to keep up with it. I think most of us find ourselves in all sorts of sexual situations in our lives, some good, some bad. Instead of talking about how many partners someone has had, it’s more important to talk about consent, doing things because you want to, not because you’ve been coerced, or you think all your friends are doing it so you have to as well. I’ve read that about 1/3 of college students identify as virgins, which is a far cry from the media portrayal of college as one big scary female-soul-crushing orgy.



And from Kyna Morgan's blog about women filmmakers Her Film who asked about the origins of the film from a personal perspective:



Therese: I was planning my own wedding at the time of the shooting, and was getting a little freaked out by all the chastity-based wedding rituals and coded wedding accessories. What would it mean for me to embrace the white dress, don a veil, and be ‘given away’? What would that say about my own sexual autonomy and identity? It echoes the narration of I Was a Teenage Feminist where I refer to myself as “a woman who feels incredible pressure to conform to an ideal that I don’t even buy into. Is it possible to be who I want to be without judgment, or apology or compromise?”



And this post written by Melanie Klein at Feminist Fatale on why the film is important amidst our culture's contradictory messages about sex:



Melanie: These manufactured, one-dimensional images of heterosexual sexuality constantly shoved down my throat (no pun intended). Running parallel to the cultural obsession with sex (and nude or near-nude ladies that grace countless magazine covers, billboards and populate advertisements), is the obsession with female virginity (so much so that many women opt to have their virginity restored via plastic surgery).

Clearly, with all this sex out there, the important issues regarding sex and sexuality are glossed over and given little media coverage. What remains in the public eye remains a vapid, one-dimensional image of sexuality and a perpetual reinforcement of the good girl/ bad girl (madonna/whore dichotomy)



[With thanks to superintern/editor Sara for her help!]

First Person: AllieWhen I Decided Not To Be A Virgin

This week's First Person originally ran on the blog Happy Bodies. Thanks to Hanne Blank for letting us know about it, and a very special thanks to its author Allie for letting us cross-post it here! Send us an email if you'd like to tell your story.



Having sex had nothing to do with it, because to this day I have not engaged in any kind of partner sex. My Catholic upbringing regularly impressed notions of chastity, purity, sexual repression, and guilt guilt guilt. I have been socialized with the idea that if you get to 22 and you haven’t had sex yet, there’s something wrong. I was sure being overweight had something to do with it. I was sure my personality had something to do with it. As I got older, I was sure my lack of experience had something to do with it. There’s got to be something wrong with me, or my body, or my way of life.



But here’s the thing: there isn’t.



The revelation of my not-virginity came to me in pieces. The first was while I was skyping with Becky. We were talking about me being a virgin, despite the fact that I know more about sex than a lot of people. Despite the fact that I am better than most people at talking about sex. Despite the fact that I am extremely familiar with my body, my desires, my needs. The second half of this revelation was a day later while re-reading Yes means Yes!, particularly in an essay by Hanne Blank about “process-oriented virgins”. I have subscribed to a transitional approach to virginity for a while, but in my brain claiming “not virgin” still required experience with some kind of partnered sex. Why is “virgin” a label people people can claim despite conventional evidence to the contrary? Why isn’t “not-virgin”? And of course, it is.



I still carry with me a lot of the implications virginity has on my life. Sometimes I am sort of terrified by the idea of flirting because it might lead to some kind of relationship (friendship or romantic) and I would feel weirdly obligated to reveal my virginity and they would scoff and leave me alone. Now I can start regularly thinking “I am not a virgin”, acclimating to the idea, and letting those words sink into my daily actions.



I am not here to stabilize notions of virginity or female sexuality. I am here to claim my body as my own and claim my experience as valid. I have never engaged in partner sex, and I might never choose to do so. I have decided, here and now, not to be burdened by the label of virgin.



And a note from Allie: This is one of my submissions to the ongoing series “When did you know?”, an examination of the intersection of labels and identity. Information on how to submit your piece to the series can be found on the Join Us page. To see all posts in this series, click here.

What's Right for Me?: Talking with "Normal Adolescent Behavior" director Beth Schacter

We suspected Beth Schacter was a kindred spirit when she wrote about our work on her blog. But we were totally sure of it when we read about her film-in-progress 'A Virgin Mary' and saw her 2007 film 'Normal Adolescent Behavior' (NAB). This film, a teen drama like nothing you've seen, depicts the complex platonic and sexual relationships between a group of 6 high school friends. We recently spoke to Beth about how teenagers choose to have–or not have–sex.

Can you tell us about Virgin Mary, and how it's similar or different than NAB?



Virgin Mary is a romantic comedy so in that sense it's a world away from the drama of NAB. But they are both about sexual politics. Virgin Mary is about a girl, Mary, who at 12 makes a deal with her best friend Alexander that they'll lose their virginity to each other on her 18th birthday.



Then he moves way and he comes back senior year a be-dreadlocked, Burning Man worshipping freak who seems a little too eager to collect on the bet. Mary isn't ready to have sex and she spends most of the movie trying to get out of the deal instead of just being honest and saying, "I'm not ready."



Her best friend, Allison, has a lot of sex but has never fallen in love. So it's really the story of two cherries - the sex cherry and the love cherry - and how these best friends each lose them. I really love the idea of making a romantic comedy about teenagers for a teen audience; we used to have a lot more of them and they are my favorite movies.



In NAB, you've set some of the conflict between a polyamorous group of 6 friends, and the other high school kids who seem randomly promiscuous. You're making a very sophisticated distinction here. Can you talk about the differences between the two groups?



For me, the thing with the 6 friends all sleeping with each other is that it isn't that different from what most of us experience in high school. We have a clique of friends and everyone dates everyone else and eventually you're dating your best friend's ex-boyfriend and it has this very incestuous feeling to it. These six just codified it. Which is ultimately their undoing.



It was definitely a choice to put the six kids in a world where they were the most moral and the most normal. To me the six are the least corrupted of the kids in the movie - they get good grades, they don't drink, they love, they feel, they emote, they have a sense of history and are empathetic. [The eventual boyfriend of one of the six] Sean is trapped by this need to play traditional roles without understanding them and the rest of the school is trapped by this need to make sex a competition about who can be the most provocative and dangerous.



I wanted to push people to rethink their own judgments of what is "right" vs. "what is right for me." The real problem comes when we decide we need everyone else to do what we do in order to feel confident in our choices. Being an individual in the face of plurality is far more difficult than being an individual and surrounding yourself with like minded people. I think the kids did okay until Sean showed up. I know for a fact they will all go on to be healthy happy adults.







How do you think your characters differ from other onscreen representations of teenagers in mainstream films?



I'm after the same thing a bigger movie is after - people being entertained and moved. I like a lot of what is out there, and my taste is really way more mainstream than indie. Anyway, I was a huge fan of Jennifer's Body which is about as radically third-wave feminist as a movie can be. I loved the girls and their friendship which had that perfect level of obsession and real love at its core. The ideas in that movie feel familiar and yet the tone and the size of the movie couldn't be more different from what I do. And I was thoroughly entertained. It helps that the movie comes from two incredibly smart women (Diablo Cody and Karyn Kusama) and that they made it on their terms.



A lot of kids don't have any sex in high school, for a variety of reasons aside from virginity pledges, so I'm wondering how NAB might speak to them.



It may not, honestly. But then Virgin Mary started percolating because of a girl at a screening who told me she felt like nobody talked about why people don't have sex, only about why they do. I loved that. The idea that we're so focused on the why and not talking about the why-nots. At the core NAB is about self-determination which for me is the only thing that matters when you talk about sexual choices. But it definitely has a narrower spectrum of choices depicted in the story.



Was it difficult to make a film about such unconventional teenage sexual relationships? Was there pressure to make it more mainstream?



I was at a meeting when we were first out with the script, before I even finished grad school. And an executive from a studio that rhymes with MGM brought me in and told me that she would be "more comfortable" if the girls in the movie were witches. Those were her words. "More comfortable." Like the idea that these girls were having consensual sex and had made informed decisions about their sex lives was so uncomfortable that they needed to have supernatural powers so she felt better about it. I stopped trying to make a studio version of it after that.



I was struck by the line "You want me to become a virgin again?" that Wendy says to Sean when they start dating. He wanted to somehow wipe the slate clean in a way that made me think of how brides are transformed into temporary virgins on their wedding day. Why is that something people want?



I love that she calls him on his shit. He's saying "I love that you are who you are now but can we pretend you got there without having sex?" And she says absolutely not. For Sean it's so obviously coming from insecurity - he can't stand the idea that he has to compete with something so dangerous. Ultimately he can't take it–he has to destroy any evidence of her past even after they break up.



Is the idea of one boy and one girl in a committed relationship a fairy tale?



I hope not! I think the most committed relationship girls have in high school is with their best friend and when you take sex out of the equation and look at the best friend relationship you can see a lot more committed relationships that work. Really work. But you add in sex and love and lust and hormones and it gets harder. Not impossible. Just not as easy. Not that it is easy after high school it just is harder in different ways.

Some highlights from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior

Researchers at Indiana University have just released the very large and very comprehensive National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (NSSHB). With responses from 5,865 people ages 14 to 94, the survey asked about frequency of sex, types of partners, paying for sex and even how much pleasure or pain they got from sexual activity.

The always-interesting Cory Silverberg at About:Sexuality spent the weekend with the report (bless his heart) is doing several posts on this gigantic study, the first of which includes some of the highlights (and the entire thread is here.) His posts explore both the good and questionable data, and he makes the point that some of this information has been known to health educators for a while now, but not to the general public.

Unfortunately, he hasn't done anything on age of first sexual experience or the number of non-sexually-active respondents, but that may come in later posts or papers. You can click here for a chart on different sexual activities by age. If you want to do your own research, you can download the first nine papers here.

Here are some of Cory's highlights:

Not all teenagers are the same. By collecting data from adolescents age 14 and up, the survey foregrounds the transition moment between the ages of 16-17 and 18-19, where teenagers show a huge leap in both kind and frequency of sexual activities. To offer one example, twice as many women between 18-19 report having had oral sex, vaginal intercourse, and anal sex as women who are 16-17. The data also let us see that condom rates also drop during this transition, in some groups by as much as 50% between the ages of 14-17 and 18-24.

53% of participants were with a romantic partner, 24% had a casual sex partner, and 9% had sex with a "new acquaintance"

Across age groups 6% of men and 30% of women reported some pain at their last sexual encounter. These percentages are striking both in terms of the sheer number of people they represent who are experiencing pain during sex, and the significant (but not surprising) gender discrepancy.

Overall 91% of men and 64% of women report having an orgasm at last sexual encounter. At the same time, 85% of men and 92% of women believed their partner had an orgasm the last time they had sex. These data can't be directly compared given the small group of people who have same sex partners, but the discrepancy, particular among men, is notable. Clearly more men think their partners are having orgasms than they are.

Read more at About:Sexuality.