Scarleteen

I know the “virginity is a societal concept yadah yadah” stuff, but it’s still important to me. If I were going steady with a guy in the future, would it be lying to him if I told him I was a virgin? I’ve not done the deed or had sexual relations with anyone, but I have struggled with reading explicit fanfics and consuming porn in the past, and I’ve masturbated. Does that count as losing your virginity?

Hi stormyiam,
I want to start by offering a loose explanation for what a social construct is. A social construct is something that isn't rooted in material reality, but instead, by common agreement. Trees having roots and leaves is not a social construct. Fashion is a social construct. Social constructs tend to change over time and usually end up meaning different things across different cultures, classes, religions, locations... etc. This doesn't meant that those ideas don't matter or are just nothing- time and money, for example, are social constructs.

So when people, including sex educators, say that virginity is a social construct, what we are speaking to is that virginity doesn’t have a specific material definition. For a lot of people, maybe most people, the agreed upon definition is that virginity is “lost” when someone participates in vaginal intercourse. I bet you can see some reasons why that definition is problematic- both problematic in a sense that it just plain doesn’t work for most people, and problematic because of what it might imply about value of bodies. I’ll offer myself up as an example: I have only had sex that involved other people with the same reproductive anatomy as me, and I have never had intercourse. But I’ve certainly been sexual with other people.

I would really like for you to read this article: https://www.scarleteen.com/read/culture ... -virginity, which is about the idea of importance around virginity in general. I think this is probably more what you are thinking about and contending with. I would say very few people would consider reading erotic media or watching porn as “losing virginity,” but if you are part of a culture or environment where you’re getting the message that experiencing arousal, pleasure, and masturbation is not ok, I can see how that would be confusing.

But for a future situation where you were dating someone, and your sexual history came up, and you wanted to share that with them, that conversation could go far beyond one word. Does that make sense?

Another great article: https://www.scarleteen.com/read/culture ... ty-context