Muldoon's Question Inspires a Question of My Own

[Jay Bee]

So. I was on the subway today thinking about What Was Stolen From Us and a word suddenly popped into my head, "VIRGINITY". My first reaction was, "Of Course!" My second was, "Wait a minute, let me ponder this some more."

I consider having the right and opportunity to consciously and wholeheartedly choose when,where, and with whom we have our first sexual relationshiop, encounter, experience very precious but I found myself suddenly ambivalent about how this relates to CSA. On the one hand, there is certainly some form of sexual activity involved in CSA. On the other hand, I did nor consciously and wholeheartedly choose for it to happen then. So, does having it happen first in a forced, coercive fashion rob us of the value of our first mutually desired healthy sexual experience?

Thinking about this made me think back to my high school days. I told my peers I was a virgin then up until the point I decided for myself to engage in sexual activity with another for the first time even though I had experienced CSA at around ten. I think I had an inkling of such around high school age. As I became older and had more sexual partners, questions of sexual history and what age was my first sexual experience would come up and I would begin with that same first time I decided for myself to engage in sexual activity with another and continue on from there. In an odd twist sometimes this question would come up with people whom I had already confided in with what happened to me and when I would go through my standard sexual history, they would "correct" me asking What about the CSA experiences. Gee, thanks(rueful LOL) I had forgotten about those(sigh).

SOOO, I ask how did you all relate virginity and sexual history to your personal experiences of sexual abuse?

 

[onlyakid]

Technically probably yes, but if anyone asked I don't think I'd tell them I lost my virginity to my brother.

But to answer your question, I still think of my self as a virgin. I save those people who are now going to look up my age in my profile, I'm 28.

 

[roadrunner]

I think it's perfectly okay to consider virginity as something we give willingly to another person. In fact, I think it's a healthy thing to exclude abuse from this equation. Abuse isn't about us having sex; it's about us being violated physically and emotionally by someone stronger and older.

One of the first threads I started, last summer I think, was on the subject of virginity. There was a lively discussion then, and it has been refloated once or twice since. I'll see if I can still find it and bring it up again.

Much love,
Larry

 

[ARW]

Agree with Larry. I've never even contemplated that what the perp did to me constitutes loss of virginity. That feels like a grotesquely statistical way to ponder what should be a beautiful moment in one's progress as a human being. I had several sexual experiences in my teens, post the SA. none totally consumated and I've always considered myself losing virginity at 19, when I had my first complete and satisfying sexual encounter. It honestly never occured to me to think otherwise. It was my true sexual awakening. And while there were plenty of sexual issues up ahead for me due to the SA, it was an irrefutable moment. This to me is what losing virginity means.

I think to view virginity in the literal view of being "unsullied, pure" and/or "not having experienced intercourse" is archaic. In this day and age, with the amount of sexualization in pop culture as well as the great strides in the psychological ideas of personal actualization and individual ownership, virginity is more about the conscious decision of the individual to become a sexual being in the world. That implies that you think of yourself as having replaced your virginity with an act of consensual sex that is fully consumated. Not that your innocence has been taken from you. That to me is not loss of virginity. It's just rape. Someone could easily argue with my definition I suppose. But I think we live in an advanced enough society that one can define something like this less by outmoded tribal concepts of "purity and defilement" and more by the needs and beliefs of the individual.

Alex

 

[reality2k4]

I think they call it r*pe, they snatch away your innocence and leave a massive void of hurt and confusion.

My virginity was stolen, or ripped away from me, and I felt dirty and worthless, constantly looking for validation because I was different from most of the other kids.

I built a personality which was made out of looking at the other kids laughing and playing.
I wore a very complex mask, and still wear it today.

That mask has taken far too much of my energy, so now I have to find ways to drop some of my hypervigilant ways, difficult when you cannot get at the source,

ste