Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences (12 page)

The most potent obligation is reciprocity, that is, if someone gives you a gift, you are expected to give that person a gift in return, usually one of roughly equal value.
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That gift will, in due course, inspire another gift from the original giver, which must in turn be reciprocated, and so on into the foreseeable future.

Gift giving fosters social solidarity in two ways. Slight variations in the type or value of gifts ensure a continuing balance of debt between part- ners, which in turn promotes an ongoing relationship.
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By exchanging presents on a continuing basis, two people tend to strengthen the bond between them. Solidarity is also fostered by the emotional and symbolic value that gifts carry in addition to their material worth. As French soci- ologist/anthropologist Marcel Mauss noted, gifts are “often personified,” imbued with the spirit of the giver. Insofar as this essence is transferred along with the gift, it helps forge a “sort of spiritual bond” between the giver and recipient.
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Givers today can seldom force unwilling recipients to return their gifts and therefore are always somewhat beholden to re- cipients.
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This uncertainty encourages would-be givers to assess the wor- thiness of potential recipients with great care.

As just one of the latest, and most famous, episodes in the social con- struction of virginity as a treasured possession, Britney Spears’s story is emblematic of the experiences of many of those with whom I spoke. Her views on virginity seemed to be most influenced by her gender and reli- gious background, her parents’ and peers’ beliefs, and her commitment to her first serious relationship. As I will show throughout this chapter, for people who conceive of virginity as a gift—or “gifters,” as I will call them

—each of these factors plays an important role in the decisions that cul- minate in virginity loss and in retrospective evaluations of virginity-loss experiences.

Of these factors, gender is perhaps the most important. Whether they celebrated Britney’s virginity or scoffed at her claims, the public’s fasci- nation with her sexual status underlines the enduring salience of women’s virginity in American culture. Similar speculation has dogged other at- tractive young female celebrities, notably Brooke Shields some twenty years earlier.
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Such running commentary about virginity status does not seem to attach itself to comparably young and attractive male celebrities, however, and if it did, it would likely involve speculation as to their het- erosexuality. The belief that women’s virginity is a gift, which informs the classic double standard for sexuality, can probably be traced back to women’s historic status as property transferred from fathers to husbands

at marriage.
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The young bride was expected to be a virgin on her wed- ding night, though her groom was not.

Although women are no longer literally “given away” by their fathers, ideas about “saving yourself” and “waiting for the right one” still figure prominently in many women’s approach to virginity loss.
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The women I interviewed were considerably more likely than the men to have com- pared their virginity to a gift at the time they lost it (or ever).
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However, more than a few of the men, especially the youngest ones, also described their virginity as a gift. This chapter explores how women and men used the metaphor of gift giving to guide their early sexual careers and to con- struct their gender and other identities.

“Whenever You Find the Right Person”

Kelly Lewis describes losing her virginity as one of the most romantic episodes in her life. A 24-year-old office assistant by day, Kelly spends her evenings studying to become a certified physical therapist. Her peaches- and-cream complexion, dark shoulder-length hair, and bright smile give her the look of the pretty girl-next-door. She grew up in a small city about 2 hours’ drive from Philadelphia, where she now lives with her boyfriend. When I asked Kelly what virginity meant to her, she replied:

[Virginity is] supposed to be something special and cherished and won- derful and something to keep and you give to someone who is . . . I don’t know if lose is the right word. . . . I’ll say you give to someone, whenever you find the right person.

While she describes virginity as a valuable gift, she is quick to point out that she and her high school friends hadn’t seen virginity as intrinsically precious, but as special because of what happened when you gave it to someone.
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“We valued it . . . not that you should keep it forever,” she said. “Like, we saw value in sharing it, having sex with someone.”

Kelly believed that being in love was an essential precondition for vir- ginity loss, but that being married was not. “Love—I guess that’s the rea- son why you’re supposed to keep your virginity,” she said. “Until you find someone that you love. You know, the specialness of it.” This stance was typical of gifters. Although every one of them emphasized the importance of love, barely a handful thought it would be ideal to remain a virgin until

marriage.
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By contrast, relatively few of the women and men who pre- ferred the process and stigma metaphors declared that virginity loss should be reserved for love, and only one advocated virginity at mar- riage.
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Envisioning virginity as a gift to be bestowed on a special love, rather than on a husband, helped Kelly reconcile her parents’ different beliefs about the meaning of sex. Kelly’s mother was the more traditional of her parents by far. A homemaker who remarried within a year of divorcing Kelly’s father (when she was 8), Kelly’s mother encouraged her daughter to think of sex as something special meant to be shared by married cou- ples only. In fact, one of the few personal sexual details Kelly could recall her “very quiet, close-lipped” mother disclosing was the fact that she’d had sex with, “only your father,” and her second husband.
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In contrast, Kelly’s father, an attorney, to whom she’d always felt closer, “Never re- ally had any ideas, like ‘Oh, don’t do it, it’s wrong.’ I mean, when you’ve been divorced three times, what can you tell somebody?” In his apart- ment, “there were images of sexuality all over the place, or of women. . . . He was into . . .
Playboy,
” and he was “very open to talk.” He spoke of sex primarily in terms of physical pleasure—the stereotypical masculine stance—leading Kelly to expect that sex would “feel good.” Faced with these contrasting perspectives, Kelly decided that she wanted sex to be about more than just physical sensation, but that she would never be as prudish as her mother seemed to be.

Kelly and her friends believed that giving your virginity to a special boyfriend would bring you closer and create a more intimate and lasting relationship. One reason this would happen, Kelly suggested, was that virginity loss involved sharing a unique and valuable part of yourself. “You’re giving it to someone, but it’s yours,” she explained. “You’re not really losing . . . possession of part of yourself, because it’s still a big part of yourself.” Two-thirds of gifters made similar claims; hardly anyone who saw it as a stigma or process concurred.
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Indeed, scholars have ob- served that, when people see a gift as comprising part of the self—as many see virginity—they often perceive it as part of an “extended self” which, when shared between giver and receiver, helps bind them to- gether.
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Not surprisingly, Kelly felt it was crucial to be choosy and to save her virginity for someone special. Remarks about waiting for the “right” or “perfect” partner, based on such criteria as love, commitment, and “spe-

cialness,” peppered gifters’ stories — but were virtually absent among people who viewed virginity as a process or a stigma. Many gifters also believed that it would be ideal for a couple to lose their virginity together. To their way of thinking, exchanging this most-precious gift would not only forge an especially strong bond between partners, but would also en- sure mutual reciprocation.

On the surface, reciprocating a partner’s gift of virginity with one’s own appears to violate social norms discouraging the giving of identical gifts. For example, if you give someone a ring for her birthday and then she gives you the same ring for yours, she has effectively canceled your obligation to reciprocate, along with the opportunity to continually strengthen the ties between you.
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Yet the high regard my interviewees had for mutual virginity loss suggests that virginities are not perceived as of exactly equal value, suggesting that virginity is seen as part of a per- son’s unique self.

But for gifters, the giving of one’s virginity in exchange for another’s is not enough. According to the men and women I spoke with, a deeper emotional commitment to the erstwhile virgin should also be given. Dan- ice Marshall, a 28-year-old heterosexual African American nurse practi- tioner (and evangelical Christian), drove this point home. In discussing her decision not to give her virginity to Roger, a “very handsome” boy she dated when she was 15, she said:

I knew I didn’t want to become one of his statistics. . . . I would ask him to give me a reason why I should have sex with you. . . . And, he could not give me a valuable, you know, like [he said], “It would feel good.” And [I said], “But you can’t guarantee me, give me something concrete.”

. . . And so I knew that I didn’t want to have my first experience with a guy that would view me [as] a notch on the bedpost. That . . . gave me another thing to look at when I decided who I was going to . . . choose to lose my virginity with.

Such vigilance was crucial in sparing Danice and like-minded virgins from echoing Britney Spears’s lament, “I didn’t think he was gonna . . . sell me out.”
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Kelly went on casual dates with a few boys her freshman year in high school, kissing all of them and letting one touch her breasts, “He un- hooked my bra and that was a big deal!” In her sophomore year, she

started dating Dave, and they fell in love. At 16, Dave was 2 years older than Kelly, but not much more sexually experienced. Kelly recalled their first, fumbling forays into heavy petting:

He took off my underwear. . . . He touched me and . . . [trails off]. But, I mean, I didn’t even know what he was going to be looking for. I had no clue. I mean, I had never used a tampon, I had no idea. And I don’t think he had any idea either!

Engaging in increasingly intimate sexual acts with at least one boy- or girlfriend was universal among people who interpreted virginity as a gift. In effect, these women and men treated each successive stage of sexual in- timacy as an increasingly valuable gift in an ongoing exchange, with vir- ginity loss representing the most precious gift of all. Taking a gradual or incremental approach to sexual activity allows virgins to assess their part- ner’s ability and willingness to reciprocate. Someone who responds to less-valuable gifts—such as kisses and petting—with deepened affection and commitment can be better trusted to reciprocate more valuable ones, including virginity. Gradually escalating sexual activity therefore helps virgins to minimize, though not to eliminate, the risk of having the gift of their virginity go unreciprocated.

Kelly had been dating Dave for almost six months when, after careful soul searching and consultations with her friends, she decided she wanted to give him her virginity. Choosy as she was, everything about him seemed “right.” They were in love and, over their months together, Dave had proven his ability to give of himself emotionally to her. Not surpris- ingly, since one of the few gifts deemed commensurate to virginity was a partner’s deepened love and commitment, almost everyone who saw vir- ginity as a gift opted to lose her or his virginity with a beloved, long-term boy- or girlfriend.
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They also tended to date their partners considerably longer before virginity loss than did people in the stigma and process groups—about 6 months on average, compared with one and 4 months, respectively.

As it turned out, Dave would also be able to reciprocate Kelly’s gift of virginity with his own. He shyly revealed this detail, much to Kelly’s de- light, when she disclosed her own virginity. Like every gifter, Kelly was very open with her friends and with the boys she dated about her virgin- ity and the importance she placed on it.
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Between romantic partners, such revelations served as reminders of virginity’s value and of the neces-

sity of reciprocity. In contrast, those who preferred the passage metaphor rarely expressed pride about their virginity, while many who saw virgin- ity as a stigma worked hard to conceal their status.

Dave and Kelly first tried to have vaginal sex during a party at a friend’s house, sneaking off into the nearby woods while the other guests remained indoors. But, she recalled:

It just wasn’t working. We had no idea what we were doing, it was dark

. . . there was no foreplay, no nothing, it was just like, “This is what we’re supposed to do, let’s just do it.” And, I think it was a combination of one, it hurt, two, I got scared. And so we stopped. And he was okay with that. And I was certainly okay with that. And so that was it. And we kind of like, laughed, you know, “Oh well.”

They tossed the condom they’d been using into the underbrush and went back to the party. One reason the encounter failed may have been its mo- tivation, for, as Kelly explained, she and Dave longed for the closeness they thought virginity loss would bring them far more than they felt in- spired by physical desire. Giving emotional considerations precedence over physical ones was typical of people who interpreted virginity as a gift. The desire for physical pleasure figured much more prominently in the decision making of people in the stigma and process groups.

Although Dave’s penis had been partway inside her vagina, Kelly did- n’t want to consider that night as the time she lost her virginity. She re- membered thinking, “‘This hurts, it’s horrible, this is not what it’s sup- posed to be.’ And so I don’t consider that being, like, the first time I had sex.” Close calls of this nature were quite common among — indeed,
unique to
—women and men who interpreted virginity as a gift.
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They serve as evidence of these individuals’ intense desire to lose their virginity not only with the “right” or perfect partner, but also under perfect cir- cumstances—that is, in relatively romantic surroundings and free from fumbling or worse. Whereas someone eager to lose her virginity (some- one who saw it as a stigma, for instance) might have interpreted partial vaginal penetration as virginity loss, Kelly emphatically did not. This wasn’t because she hoped to lose her virginity with a different boy—she intended to give her virginity to Dave all along—but because she didn’t want the special experience she expected to remember forever to be flawed. The intense desire of people in this group for “perfect” virginity- loss encounters was, I imagine, exacerbated by the cultural tendency to