The "Virginity Mystique." Were YOU ever a Pizza Virgin?

This was originally posted a decade ago, and is re-presented now in this blog, almost 100% free of changes, since almost nothing it contains has changed over the last 10 years. (Except, of course, for the fortunate aspect that society has significantly outgrown the described syndrome, over those years) --

Original posting: Wed, Dec. 31, 1997, to these Usenet groups: alt.teens.16-18, alt.teens.sexuality, and alt.abortion, as "The Virginity Mystique."

Has anyone ever given serious consideration as to why a significant portion of an otherwise fairly-enlightened society persists so much in regarding virginity to be something special?

Before I ever ate my first slice of pizza, I was a "pizza virgin." Before I ever bowled, I was a "virgin" in that respect. Likewise for sex.

But every time I left one type of virginity behind, the effect invariably was that my life had been enhanced, and my horizons had been expanded.

Putting virginity on a pedestal is precisely the same as ascribing value to ignorance. "Losing" one's virginity is to gain a new dimension in one's life, whether it be with pizza, sex, bowling, or anything else.

The only significance of whether one is a virgin or not with respect to sex is a totally artificial, arbitrary, and meaningless one. The only change that scrapping sexual virginity produces is to enhance one's life experiences -- unless you've been brainwashed into some primitive and pointless belief system. (Which you can just as easily scrap.)

In short, "virginity" is no big deal. It is not something that one "loses." It is something that one should willingly seek to get rid of, just as we so willingly get rid of other forms of virginity with first experiences of any sort. Pizza, bowling, or whatever.

Therefore, if you regard sexual virginity to have any special significance, all I can say to you is this:

Fer Pete's sake, get a life! And then enjoy it !!

(Please feel free to copy and distribute this to any and all who are hung up on that silly syndrome.)

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December 22, 2007 Update:

When this article originally ran, some people made the mistake of thinking that I openly advocated that virgins simply scrap virginity for the sake of getting that done. Looking it over again now, I can see how they got that impression. So now I'll clarify that.

What I meant then, and still mean now, is THIS:

Retaining one's sexual virginity for virginity's sake -- as though there were supposedly some "special" quality, or some sort of "purity" associated with it, is abjectly stupid. That said, however, there are some good and valid reasons for doing so. And the most valid of those is the fact that abstinence still is the greatest defense against catching or transmitting STDs. If such a reason as that is given for retaining virginity, that's good thinking. But... if a person does so because they've been conned into thinking that there's some sort of "purity" associated with virginity -- then that is about as dumb a reason as anyone could fall for. A person's life is exponentially more fascinating after he or she has become sexually-active. It's good to realize this early on, rather than to discover it years later, and then find yourself reflecting on all the wonderful opportunities that had been irretreivably blown and lost forever -- that could never be recaptured!