Virginity Obsessions

Advisory notice: hymen chat.

I hate stories like this. 

There are two abiding myths about reproduction that have made countless numbers of women miserable:

1. The sex of a baby is determined by the genetic contributions of his or her mother, so if the baby is a girl, it is the mother's "fault."

2. Every sexual active woman who ever lived bled the first time she had sex.

No and no.

Some women are born without hymens. Some hymens get broken during physically strenuous athletic endeavours. Some stretch instead of breaking. Therefore, there is no physical way of proving that a never-pregnant woman has had sex in her life. Been pregnant, yes. Given birth, yes. Had sex, no. And yet women are murdered for the crime of "not being virgins."

I understand that men-in-general feel competitive towards other men. I also understand the impulses of sexual jealousy. People in western countries, possibly because the Sexual Revolution forced us to do this or go crazy, put a lid on that kitchen fire with "it was a long time ago/it was before we even met."

I also understand the high value of virginity for traditional cultures, and I recall that St Ignatius of Loyola almost killed someone who doubted that the Blessed Virgin Mary retained her physical virginity after giving birth. One of the few times I have been so angry I actually saw red spots was in theology school when a dirty-living classmate spoke slightingly of Mary as an unwed mother. (The eyes of the young Hungarian across the table bulged with fury, and my gentle Jesuit friend looked at the ceiling and imagined it crashing down on the classmate's head.)

However, whatever virginity is---and Saint Augustine forever linked the concept with a free decision to retain it--human dignity does not depend on it. Whether or not you have had sex (or sex has been done to you), you have same rights as anyone else.

In some respects virginity is merely an accident, by which I mean both a characteristic and a historical circumstance, belonging solely to the person to whom it applies unless the person has consciously dedicated their virgin state to Almighty God. We talk about virginity as something that we own or give or consectrate or give up or have stolen, but actually it is not some "thing" but a state.  It's like priesthood.

St. Thomas Aquinas was a virgin AND a priest. St. Augustine was a priest but not a virgin.  Therefore, according to a vision seen by Reginald of Piperno, Aquinas was the greater saint. Virginity freely chosen and dedicated to God--which applies to men just as much as to women, thank you very much--is what is important. Obedience to God by not seeking sex before you are married is important, too, of course.  The freedom from sexual diseases is plus. However, that's about it for the benefits.

That you never had sex with anyone else before you got married may be a wonderful testimony to your obedience to God, but it is not in itself a golden ticket to a happy marriage. In fact, the young marriage will have to cope with the strain of one or both people's sexual initiation and that is not always pleasant.

Meanwhile God alone knows how many children and teenagers, let alone 20-something women, have had sex forced upon them. That someone is a "physical" virgin--which is to say, has never experienced sexual intercourse--on his or her wedding day may be as much a sign of his or her very good fortune as it is of his or her conscious chastity.