Losing the V-plates
Virginity! It’s what Australia’s talking about right now – and whether teens (read: teen girls) should regard it as a “gift” to give away lightly. Writes Alexandra Adornetto (a 17-year-old virgin whose pro-virginity opinion piece is accompanied, ironically, by a somewhat come-hither photograph):
My recommendation would be to wait [to have sex]. Wait for the right moment, the right person and the right situation. Becoming sexually active is not to be entered into lightly. I have seen too many girls damaged by a decision that was not carefully considered.
Assuming you’re safe and responsible, is sex itself actually what’s damaging? I reckon it’s certain attitudes to sex that are damaging, not the act itself. For starters, virginity’s not a “gift”. Blergh. Sex isn’t something you give. It’s something you have. This is an important distinction, because “sex = gift” implies an imbalance in the sex, and/or that you’re losing something of yourself if you “give” it away. (Not to mention that “sex = gift” typically translates to “gift given by women, who must guard their sexuality and moral fortitude, to men, who have no impulse control and demand/need sex always”. Double blergh.)
My advice to teens: have sex, or don’t, but don’t reduce your identity to sex. You are more than someone who has or hasn’t done it. Believing otherwise leads to trouble – if your self-image is rooted (no pun intended) in whether you’ve lost your virginity, of course you’ll feel you’ve lost something if you’ve “given” it away.
I actually agree with the fundamental proposal of Adornetto1 and Tony Abbott, the Catholic Australian politician whose comments kicked off this whole virginity brouhaha: Teens shouldn’t have sex willy-nilly (again, no pun intended). It’s not something to rush into.
But at the same time, sex isn’t that big a deal. You’re still the same person after you lose your virginity. So don’t stigmatise it. And you know what? At some point you’ll probably Do It with someone you’ll wish you hadn’t. But this won’t make you a bad, immoral skank. It won’t somehow spoil you.
Be responsible. Be safe. Think it through.
- I disagree, though, that there are teens who would actually use the phrase “Did you sex him?” [↩]
Tags: Australia, politics, sex, soapbox, V-plates, virginity
