One of the things that I’ve seen come up over and over again in the aftermath of the Elliot Rodger shooting is the number of men – men of literally all ages – talking about the shame and pain of being a male virgin. They talk about feeling broken or unworthy, that they’ve missed some sort of open time frame where they could lose their virginity and now they’re (metaphorically) screwed. It feels like everyone knows – like you’ve been branded by a giant V.
Of course, because they’re so anxious about being an “older”
virgin – where “older” can range anywhere from 15 to
50 - that they can’t bring themselves to talk about it. The
fear of being “ousted” as a virgin becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. They
so fear rejection for being virgins that they can’t bring themselves to
approach women. They can’t bring themselves to approach women, so they don’t
have opportunities to lose their virginity. They continue to get older,
becoming even more anxious, and so the cycle continues,
leaving them feeling ashamed, lost, even bitter and resentful. Sex goes from
being something to be enjoyed to a giant monolith of titanic
proportions that casts a shadow over everything they do and who they are.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
So let’s talk a little about the problems with the way we think
about male virginity… and how to fix them.
“Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me”
It’s incredibly easy to feel as though you’re the Last Male Virgin.
We live in a culture that seems to go out of its way to imply that everyone is
having sex and you aren’t. Stories of blowjobs being traded as casually as
handshakes in high-school, and the hang-wringing over college hook-up culture
make the world sound like a never-ending bacchanal for those who are lucky
enough to take part; When you’re focused on your identity as Virgin with a
capital V, it can feel like everybody else is at a party that you’ve been
left out of, even as it’s going on all around you.
Virgin Anxiety and The Standard Narrative
One
of the reasons why men tend to freak out about the idea of being a virgin –
especially being a virgin past college – is that we’ve grown up in
the shadow of a cultural narrative that we believe to be law.
The
Standard Virginity Loss Narrative tells us that men are supposed to lose their
virginity by a certain age – sometimes by age 18, sometimes by 21. The earlier
you lose it, the better off you are (no matter how unhealthy that act
may actually be), but you should be actively trying
by high school. According to the Standard Narrative, the ideal time is at some
suitably momentous occasion: the “big game”, at prom… by graduation
if you possibly can manage it. If you can’t manage it in high school, then
you need to accomplish it in college… otherwise you’re
well into Terra Incognita and 40 Year Old Virgin territory
and nobody wants to be there because here there be
dragons. We get the Standard Virginity Loss Narrative burned into our
minds early on, reinforced over and over again by pop-culture until we
start to believe it’s the TRUTH, carved into stone tablets delivered to us at
the base of Mount Sinai.
Losing My Virginity
Speaking
of stories, I want to tell you the story about my first time. Not the details –
although I’m fairly certain that losing it on Halloween means I’m secretly Goth
– but the drama that surrounded it.
I
was 19 before I finally lost my virginity, a sophomore in college, not too far
off from the average age of 17 actually, but even had
I known it wouldn’t have made me feel better at the time. I was convinced I
was the last male virgin on campus. And like many of my
friends I was bitter about it. As far as I was concerned, it was profoundly
unfair that everybody else had gotten lucky. I resented it when my more
experienced friends would talk about sex and compare their various exploits; it
felt to me like they were bragging, showing off in front of someone who
couldn’t possibly understand. I was so embarrassed about being one of the great
untouched that during my Freshman year, I made up a story about having gotten
laid during Spring Break just to feel like I was one of the “normal” people.
I
don’t know if my friends actually believed me, but they had the good grace to
at least pretend that they did. But my fictional deflowering
didn’t make things any easier. I was focused like a laser on
getting laid; forcing myself into relationships with women I didn’t even like that
much in hope that I might hit that metaphorical home run. And believe me; it
wasn’t much better for the women I tried to date, either. I hurt a number
of people in my quest to get my dick wet and, at the time, I didn’t
care. My bitterness and resentment made me a prime, self-pitying asshole who
was focused on only one thing and one thing only:
losing my virginity at all costs.
Well,
not all costs. I wasn’t quite ready to, say, find an escort.
Like many virgins, I was convinced that doing so would be a cheat or would
render it invalid. It only “counted” if I were able to seduce someone with my own
skill and charisma. Y’know, if I had any.
Long
story short I slept with my first “serious” girlfriend after an off-campus
Halloween party.
The
next morning, I’d come to an astonishing revelation: nothing had
changed. I was the exact same person I was the day before. I didn’t feel different
(aside from “holy shit I had sex”). I wasn’t imparted any special wisdom. I
hadn’t been magically cured of all my ills and insecurities. And my first
thought – y’know, besides “let’s do it again” – was simply: “Shit! Now what?”
Losing Your Virginity is The Starting Line, Not The Goal
That
confusion I felt was directly tied to an issue I find a lot of
men have when struggling with their feelings about virginity: the belief that
losing their virginity is a major milestone after which everything will be
different and better.
It’s
not really surprising, to be honest. We fetishize virginity in men and women,
just in opposite ends of the spectrum. As I’ve said before: men are valued for the sex they have while women are valued for the sex they don’t have. Virginity is prized in women – it’s a
mark of “purity” and innocence. Virginity in men is
vilified; being a virgin past a certain point is a sign of flaws and weakness.
But losing his virginity on the other hand… that’s when the
world is supposed to open up for you. The coming of age narrative for men
inevitably links losing one’s virginity with becoming a man. Movies constantly
make sex either the reward for the hero or the goal, after which
they’re no longer the loser they were before. Sex becomes a way of taking a
level in man.
Except
life’s not a movie and that’s not how things work. The credits don’t roll
as your penis starts singing the score from the Throne Room scene in Star Wars.
Losing your virginity isn’t the end of sexual maturation,
it’s the beginning. You’re only just starting to
learn about sex, not proving that you’ve finally mastered it.
There’s
a zen koan that I like: “before enlightenment: cut wood, carry
water. After enlightenment: cut wood, carry water”. Life remains the same,
even after you’ve achieved what you think you’ve always dreamed about.
Imagining that sex is going to make you different is a mistake. When you start
to fetishize your status as a virgin, you’re setting yourself up for an
inevitable disappointment when you do have sex because
your life isn’t going to be any more fundamentally different than if you’d just
ridden a roller-coaster for the first time. You’re going to be the exact
same person you were, with the same issues, anxieties, fears and doubts. As
with other forms of external validation, it doesn’t solve any
problems and can actually make them worse.
Changing The Stigma Starts With You
As
with most issues, if we want to change the way that we treat male virgins,
especially older ones, then we need to start with ourselves and our own
relationship with our sexuality. And the first step is to quit letting you perpetuate
the stigma of male virginity and the fucked up narrative. When you cry and moan
about how awful it is that you haven’t had sex yet, you contribute to the
problem. You’re helping to perpetuate the idea that virgin = defect. Even when those complaints are turned
inward and you’re silently castigating yourself, you are continuing to
reinforce that there’s something wrong because you haven’t
had sex yet.
Let
go of the labels. Let go of the blame. Both of these only serve to
reinforce the idea something is wrong. Phrases like “incel” or “love-shy” just
serve as a form of self-othering, making you out to be something besides human.
I’ll
be the first to tell you: it’s not easy. Not in the slightest. You have to
consciously choose to throw off a cultural narrative that permeates just about
every aspect of our entertainment. It’s one more part of the traditional
masculine gender role that so many people will gleefully try to force you back
into and punish you if you deviate from. You have to learn to let go of being
defensive about it or feeling embarrassed, to stop responding
as though being a virgin means you’ve done something wrong or that there’s
something wrong with you. It means you have to consciously re-frame your own thought patterns, reminding yourself that not having had sex
yet has no bearing on your value as a person no matter your
age.
“You’re still a
virgin.”
“Yes, and?”
“Have
you ever even seen a woman naked before?”
“Not yet, so?”
The
people who will mock you and try to shame you are of no account; they’re
showing themselves to be assholes and why should you care about
the opinions of assholes?
Your
value doesn’t come from who you have or haven’t slept with. It doesn’t come
from where you fall on the bell-curve of starting sexual activity, whether you
were precocious or a late bloomer. Your value as a person comes from how you act and how you
make others feel. It’s about what you bring to
the table as a whole person, not how many vaginas you’ve
managed to talk your way into.
Don’t
spend your time focused on getting laid or getting someone laid for the first time;
spend your time on becoming a better person. Cultivate an
amazing life. Learn to connect with people, to build relationships. Don’t throw
your hands in the air and just assume you’re uniquely cursed, work to
fix things. Practice your social skills – getting good with women, getting
good with people, is a skill that you
can learn. Yes, you may have problems. You may have
circumstances in your life that make things harder for you. But harder
isn’t impossible, no matter how daunting it may seem.
Focus
less on being a virgin and focus more on being a person.
(Edited)
Your views are most welcome...
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