The Social Pressure To Lose Your Virginity
By: Abina George
We are a nation obsessed with losing your virginity. We have countless movies centered around this concept of purity and the necessity to rip it away, which in turn has created a social pressure to lose your virginity. It’s the only way to purge the innocence and ignorance of childhood and begin to enjoy adulthood in its entirety. Or so the media programs us to think.
According to the media, adulthood is this magical time when a child matures and is finally able to enjoy the freedom and whims of adulthood. Movies like the 40-Year-Old Virgin feed on the fear of many that their life will be unfulfilled without intercourse and enforced the idea that those who aren’t sexually active are social outcasts.
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Many have an abrupt realization that adulthood is not as glamorous as many would like you to think. The cost of a few intimate moments can result in STIs and possibly even pregnancy. Many women’s magazines encourage sexual prowess but neglect to list the dangers or the steps one needs to take to stay safe. Then connections with possible partners can be taxing. Some people just don’t mesh well together, and some are just out for conquests.
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American culture dictates that one stipulation of happiness is to be sexually liberated. A person’s desire to prolong the beginning of a sexual life or pickiness of one’s partners is deemed prudish and bizarre.
Respect for a woman’s choice to keep her body to herself is scoffed upon. Many seem to view a woman’s body as a tool to be used by others. Sex is expected after receiving minor niceties. Physical labor such as housework is often understood as the price we pay for a relationship with a man. Overall, a woman’s body is commonly seen as something to be had and used by men.
Women should have the same rights as men. The problem is that most people don’t take seriously the mental and physical dangers involved in sex. A woman should not be ridiculed for making the same sexual choices as a man and more importantly, women should not be pressured into such a huge decision with various possible negative results.
A person has as much right to abstain from sex as those that chose to engage in it. Virgins should not be pressured into such a large event in their lives. For those who decide waiting until marriage is the right decision, that choice should be supported and accepted by peers as much as being sexually active already is.
Enjoy life without the pressures others place upon your body. Your body is yours alone and only you suffer the consequences of these decisions.
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