Yesterday, I wasted your time with random thoughts about monarchists (I’m equally disappointed by non monarchists and my wrath will eventually descend upon them with great fury). Today, I want to talk about virginity! Sorry folks, I won’t get into physical details as my goal is to go deeper than the hymen (no pun intended).
In this blog I won’t analyze religion because most religions declare fornication a sin. What kind of an argument can you make if God himself was born to a virgin?
In a pessimistic world view, lack of sexual experience, innocence, is central to how people are defined. In a world full of violence and rape where even a minimum level of personal security is a myth, virginity is a big deal. If one lives in constant danger and doesn’t even trust his neighbors…virginity is a big deal. It’s logical because safety and sexuality become unrecognizably tangled. They’re both territorial notions.
In an unstable social environment where a large portion of the population is wasted pulp, gossip is a tangible problem. When many bored young people don’t have easy access to education, women’s talents are overlooked or men lack a steady stream of intellectual challenges, what’s between your neighbor’s daughter’s legs is a big deal. Add gender segregation, fear and anxiety and you end up in societies that cloak their women head to toe (many places imprison women in various forms of “modest” attire).
In that fatalistic social order, everyone wants to protect their family’s reputation! Wouldn’t you? What else is there?
What about economic instability? It’s impossible to have a thriving global economy and leave half the population at home making polo. But when jobs are scarce, it’s only natural that men would have precedence. And if women don’t have economic power, their bodies don’t belong to them. It’s always been this way.
Aside from socioeconomic issues, it’s a historical fact that when human beings made the connection between sex and pregnancy, Goddess cults began to subside and women had to take the back seat. This is understandable because if a man can’t be certain about who has fathered his child; he has to control his wife’s sexuality. But I ask you, do we want to hold ourselves to that same level of biological ignorance and mistrust?
Let’s consider an alternate world view. Imagine a place where sexual relations are a personal choice and no one is punished for their preference. No one is called names, considered unmarriageable or considered impure.
I have to be fair, anti fornicators aren’t always religious zealots. Some men choose to marry virgins and hopefully there are an equal number of potential mates who willingly and consciously meet that demand. Shiny happy people holding hands. But it would be nice if virgin lovers would at least be conscious of their choices beyond traditional bounds and made decisions based on logic instead of outdated and morally reprehensible concepts. By the same token, I hope that everyone is fair and wise enough to extend their expectations to both genders. Holding genders to different standards is a sign of bigotry and ignorance.
In a positive world view, sex is seen as part of a healthy life style. Sex isn’t dirty (don’t be naughty, you know what I mean!) and people don’t want to control their neighbors’ activities. No one obsesses over curtains and rods and other body parts. A woman’s fidelity, love, respect and worth isn’t reduced to her virginity but her social and economic accomplishments (some of which could actually include past relationships).
Is it wrong to assume that some societies may have better sexual norms than Iran? Anyone who denies that Western societies have healthier sex lives (at least in terms of comfort and privacy) is being gheyrati and kidding themselves. New York might have more VD than Shiraz and teenage pregnancy is a real problem in some areas. But are those things worse than repressed sexual urges on a mass national scale? Nope. It’s noble and intelligent to learn from societies we interact with and teach them a thing or two in the process. I’m not apologetic for the positive things I learn from other people (which is mostly made up of immigrants anyway).
In these hours, my thoughts are with the women who have to carry the social dysfunctions and economic burdens of their societies on a frail little thing called the hymen.
To my Lover:
