Does your first time have to be special?

"I had vaginal intercourse for the first time when I was 15. It took place after school in a teenage boy’s room and was altogether very unromantic and uneventful. When I was researching virginity and writing about it for my thesis, I was astonished by how much pomp and circumstance people expected from their first time. 

While I don’t think there’s anything inherently harmful about wanting a special experience, I do think it’s dangerous to perpetuate the idea that losing it under unspectacular circumstances somehow compromises your dignity. It’s simply not true that the “magic” of first-time sex is irreplicable nor is it easy to delineate what even constitutes sex when you have purity pledgers engaging in rousing games of Just The Tip."

- Writer Lena Chen, answering a reader's question about how she lost her virginity. The reader recently had intercourse for the first time with someone she wasn't in a relationship with, and she's not sure how to interact with him now. 

Read Lena's full response at her wonderful blog The Chicktionary. You'll see and hear more from her in our film!

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!]

Only Virgins Need Apply

From the June 1974 issue of Ms. Magazine, who doesn't think we've come all that far since then.

Cross-Post: A response to “30-Year-Old Virgins on Oprah Winfrey”

Note: We're so glad to be running this cross-post from the awesome blog "The Accidental Virgin" in response to a recent Oprah show. I'd recommend checking out the video and comments on Oprah's show page. Many people wrote about their own lives as older virgins, thankful for the show's focus on experiencing pleasure and feeling good about yourself. But there seemed to be just as many comments quoting scripture and sending shaming messages about the lifelong damage caused by pre-marital sex. The debate continues...

As I mentioned in the last post, Friday’s episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show centered on two women in their 30s who haven’t had sex. After watching it tonight I thought it was okay. The show acknowledged that people remain virgins for various reasons — many of whom are fine with it — but the two guests on the show were not.

For Shayla, after watching her father sleep around only months after her mother died, she realized she didn’t want to be used and “thrown away” like the women he’d bring home. She didn’t like that after 20 years of a wonderful marriage that her mother was replaceable within months after her death.

“So your dad, who was your best buddy, this great dad, the ideal father, if he can betray your mom, and they had the perfect relationship, what can I count on?”

“Me,” Shayla responds. “That’s it.”

Carmen’s insecurity about her weight, on the other hand, seems to stand in her way. At almost 300 pounds she says she would rather be alone than to have someone look at her the way she currently is. In the show, when questioned what would be the worst thing that could happen, she responds it’d be getting to the point where she’s about to have sex and being rejected by her partner.

“I’ll have to be naked and… it would just turn him off. Like he would scream, ‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting.’ Then just kind of leave.”

Interestingly, my first thought after hearing both of these women speak about their fears was that I have the same trepidations. I can connect with Shayla’s admission above and, even though I’m not overweight (although no where near a size zero), Carmen’s statement as well. Their circumstances may differ but among their fears they both seem to share the fear of being vulnerable. One that I probably voiced in my blog a few times and can relate too. I remember the therapist on the show commented it was all about the fears; body image, being abandoned, having your heart broken, self esteem — universal fears that all women have. But that in this instance it was on the extreme.

So…this topic is getting (more) national exposure. Which is good. However, after having watched the show, I think that since this particular episode concentrated on two women who were seeking help with their particular situation, it tend to convey virginity as chiefly a psychological issue. I don’t know… rather than chalk it up to emotional baggage and “issues”, for me it felt more like these were just the cards these women were dealt in life.

Oprah commented that it goes beyond sex (or lack thereof). That it runs into a lack of intimacy and a lack of connection. Not having experienced these I for one can testify that it is something that can very well lead a person to feel isolated and unloved.

In the end, both women in the show were propelled into taking risks that threw them outside of their comfort zone (one was even urged to masturbate and talk about the experience…which I thought was amusing, given her ‘good girl’ views about the act itself). Eventually, they were comfortable enough to go on dates and the episode ended on a positive note; that “if you want to take the reigns in your life, you can create the love in your life that you want.”

Easier said than done. But still encouraging to say the least.

If only there was a Lame Movie Help Line

Seen this ad for this upcoming film?
Bored as I am of the horndog-guy-trying-to-lose-virginity-before-college storyline?
Tired of being told that only freaks are still virgins when they enter college, that every 'normal' guy needs to bang a hot chick before graduation, lest the shame of his sexual lameness destroy the rest of his life?
Feeling strangled by Hollywood's unchanging definition of masculinity?
Wish this storyline wasn't churned out a dozen times a year and that people like Will Farrell, who produced this film, could find something more creative to do with his gifts? Like make Elf II?
Then don't call this number.

As a public service, here's a rundown of what happens when you call the 'Virgin Help Line' at 888-743-4335 (which is part of an ad campaign for the new movie The Virgnity Hit). A teenage-sounding guy named Zack comes on, welcomes you to the hotline and presents some options:

Press 1 if you're a virgin.
Press 2 if you’re friends of a virgin and want to help
Press 3 if you don’t know if you’re virgin or not.
Press 4 if you want your virginity back
Press 5 if you want to stay a virgin.
Press 6 if you want to hear Matt say a pickup line that makes girls swoon
Press 7 if you like to party.

Press 3 and you get clichés about guys who like wizards and play chess. Press 5 and you get some shit over your life choices. Press 6 to get a line about stealing a car and going to Mexico. And somewhere in there are assurances that any girl can lose their virginity so long as she's willing to lower her standards to the level of the guys' (nonexistent). So don't call them. Someone is for sure keeping track of the hits, and we don't want to give them any more encouragement.

All that free milk is ruining it for the rest of us!

"This city, the internet and the world at large is filled with single women looking for relationships and not succeeding for many reasons not the least of which is the availability of casual sex. Shame and guilt have their place in this world, they are functional and who the hell are you to liberate anyone of those powerful and functional emotions[...]

If you have no interest in seeing a person in the context of a relationship, you have no business engaging in sex with them–end of story."

Irate comment left by Jill, a reader of Em & Lo's 'Negotiating a Night of Casual Sex' who was unhappy about the column's apparent promotion of one night stands for women. The theory being that an over-abundant availability of said casual sex would make it impossible for good women to find men to have relationships with.

I'm confused. I thought that all the gals giving the milk for free would never be in relationships anyway. Their slutty, slutty ways would surely disqualify them from consideration by decent men, leaving the path wide and clear for Jill.