How do you lose Virginity?

While talking with Lakshita, a friend of mine, pop out her fear of losing her virginity and the consequences of losing it. It clouds my mind with much disappointment where does that even come from? “Losing virginity” how does one describe it? Is it really a matter of concern? Knowing stories and thoughts of others; about the idea of virginity makes me feel like it’s just another weapon used against women to limit and control their lives.

I’ve been hearin’ about virginity and Hymen stories since I was in seventh class. As I grew up, I started reading about it, and now crystal clear in my head. What’s majorly thought about virginity is that it is a hymen placed in a woman’s vagina and disappears after intercourse. And then the story goes like — it bleeds when you have sex for the first time; you can know if blah blah and blah happens. It’s tiring to even think about the social ideas attached to it, like, a woman with hymen in place is pure, it tells her character, or you won’t get married, or marriage will fail if a woman doesn’t bleed on the first night of wedding because it’s all nonsense and still is believed. The only thing that’s true about it is that women have vaginas in which they might or might not even have a hymen. So how the hell do we measure virginity with such things? Another big misunderstanding is that losing virginity is a bad biological process whereas it is a socially-damaged term that is widely used.

So we don’t need a biology class here to understand what’s going on here. It plays social and cultural roles in our lives. It is associated proudly with a man having sex without a timeline but a restriction on women to have it before marriage. A possibility of that happening might be the fear of responsibility that comes with sex going the other way. But a woman’s virginity is always questionable just like her every other choice. Many of my friends have a fear that if they get involved in sexual activities with someone and their parents or family gets them tested and get to know them as it’s a kind of deception to their family. The fear that rules our thoughts, and body our whole life.

What I learned is fear either comes out of knowing nothing — we are scared when we are standing in a poolside and have no idea how to jump in. We are afraid of jumping till we don’t know about water and what/what not to do it is natural to feel that way and is good to not jump inside stupidly. That’s the first step only, the problem arises when we don’t push ourselves to learn to swim, instead opt to live with the fear of drowning in water. Same way, problems aren’t with having sex, issues are not understanding the responsibilities that come along. If I understand, what is sex, what my sexual urges and my body are, and know the person I’m involved with, makes me aware to take responsibility for every possible outcome and take decisions. Then what’s left to be afraid of? So when Lakshita talked about it, my first and only question was did she ever try to google about virginity? She didn’t and that led to fear and then all negative feelings. I got the same answers repeatedly from different people. Hence, the only issue lies in being afraid of wild dreams.

Secondly, on what grounds is virginity known as losing? Is it having sex for the first time? What kind of first time? Maybe someone had it while being drunk, maybe someone got raped, someone got abused in childhood, maybe someone was pressured by their narcissistic lover, who knows the possibility? Could it be even counted as sex while all these situations might have affected the hymen, the vagina, all the bodily reactions, and the person? Should the people and their families who have gone through these phases be worried about not being virgins and pure? The hell NO! It’s the patriarchy that made this social construct worshipped. That is not a healthy end to the practice. So why narrow it down and have stereotypical fear and beliefs? With whom you should share your mind, body and life is your own decision as well as your right. Every decision comes with responsibility. Speaking of which, I’m learning to fulfill it and wanna help others with the same. To sum up my emphasis with this and every other writing piece — Is to live, learn, grow and fly together as a woman and a person.