My Friends Don’t Know That I’m a Virgin
Yes, you read that right, no double takes needed. I am a virgin. I have never had sex. I am still inexperienced and have yet to know the pleasures or perhaps the horrors of being sexually active. Most of you are probably thinking, Oh come on, she’s probably in her teens. Don’t let sexual pressure get to you, little one! Which is fantastic advice, but I’m 24, which may not be a big deal to others, but it’s kind of strange to me.
I’m 24 with a decent job and a Bachelor’s degree under my belt. I’m 24 and every single one of my friends assumes that I have had the most fantastic sexual escapades because I look a certain way and don’t necessarily fit the “virgin” mold. I mean, come on, is there really a mold or a stereotype of a virgin? Okay, I answered my own question because a mental picture of a 12-year-old boy obsessed with Harry Potter (which I love to pieces) came into my mind.
This leads me to the question: when did being a virgin become the odd thing? Our parents lived in a world where everyone was hush-hush about their “experiences” and it wasn’t something worth bragging about but suddenly, it all changed. Suddenly, the girl that we all saw in poopy diapers has had sex before she even knew the Pythagorean theorem. It’s not a bad thing to have this be the norm, per say, but it sucks when there is a stigma attached to the word virgin in the first place. I mean, I know that personal values or religious beliefs are usually the blanket we cover ourselves in when trying to explain why we are still virgins, but I can’t really commit to that. I think that sex is a fantastic thing (I mean, as much as I can know despite not having it), so why hasn’t it happened yet?
Something always pushes me away. I have had some intimate “make-out” sessions with people that got pretty heated, yet I never could commit to “doing the deed.” Why, you ask? I just feel like I’m too old to be doing it for the first time. I’m afraid that men have these crazy expectations of what a female in her mid-twenties is supposed to be comfortable with, and I don’t have the heart to tell them that I have no clue what sex feels like.
It’s embarrassing when my girlfriends talk about their conquests or their Cosmopolitan-magazine-worthy sex stories and I have nothing to add because, “I like to keep my private life private.” The constant fear of being laughed at for still not “bow chicka wow wow’ing” is incessantly spiraling in my mind and I continuously shut down. I put on a show. I pretend that I’m not interested in pursuing a sexual relationship, even though my body is screaming for it. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” is the dialogue between my heart and my brain at all times. All because of a stigma, a stereotype of not fitting into the mold of an average 24-year-old American girl.
To that I say, WHO CARES! I am 24. I am a VIRGIN. I will no longer be embarrassed to admit it because it should NOT be an embarrassing thing to say. It shouldn’t even be something worth worrying about (I mean, as long as you stick to your values and whatnot, and follow your heart and make sure your brain is happy with your decision as well). It should simply be as unimportant as you want it to be or as important as you care for it to be. It should not be an insult nor an assumption based on what your appearance leads the world to believe. I should not be ashamed to still be a virgin into my mid-twenties because of my fears of rejection. And now, I refuse to have sex simply to cross that off of my “things a 24-year-old should be doing” list.
I will be awesome just the way I am.
Tasnia M. is from Canada. She thrives on being a foodie, a coffee junkie and an ‘expert’ IMDB addict because of her constant need to find out who “that actress in that TV show is married to.” She would happily binge on OITNB marathons any day.
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