Virginity is a social construct

I’m telling ya, things are getting more weird by the day. Our language is being mangled to suit the agenda of some very loud people. First it was pronouns and the 150 genders, now virginity.

Folks, what is your definition of virginity? Better yet, what is Planned Parenthood’s definition? Can a person have sex with hundreds of people and still be considered to be a virgin as we currently know it?

The below sign is posted on Planned Parenthood’s Twitter account.



https://twitter.com/PPFA/status/1674462837425446912

 

The question is...why does it matter to you if someone who's had sex wants to claim they are a virgin? I've had two women lie to me about being a virgin back when I was in college. When I found out I couldn't have cared less. I got laid...I was happy

 

I don't think that is the best use of its advertising dollars because, unless there is some local issue, to which this refers, I can't tell you, for sure, what Planned Parenthood intends this to mean. Hopefully, though, it will be of some benefit to pass along that "virgin," formerly referred to just any unmarried young woman; that is, the element of expecting that a woman should not have sex before marriage, is certainly a social construct, just as "marriage," itself, is an even older one.

 

It is less about the definition of virginity and more about how society's beliefs regarding virginity affect people. I mean would Jesus be the son of God today if Mary had been the town whore 2000 years ago?

 

I'm really not concerned at all about what a person claims to be, I'm curious about PP's intentions. Are they trying to change the definition of a word that pretty much only had one definition for a long time?

 

In all fairness to PP, they might not have sponsored that sign, in fact, I could Photoshop that picture to say anything. I'm curious as to why PP decided to post this.

Edit: BTW, I now think that sign is photoshopped. Take a look at the dimensions, the perspective is off, the left side is far too small compared to the right side. I think someone pasted a meme over the existing sign. @Talon would probably know better than me.

 

Evidently, there’s a lot of hymen confusion. I’ll just say some people have some weird notions and are utilizing their ignorance against their daughters. Freaky and gross.

 

Eh... I kinda agree. I mean there is sorta a physical/objective aspect to it for women, but that can be lost by just playing rough sports or taking a hard fall.

Who's more of a virgin- a woman who's never touched a man but rides horses a lot, or a woman who takes it from the entire football team in every hole except the babymaker cuz she's 'saving herself for marriage'?

 

@Steve N i do not know what that sign is about, but men's insistence on their wives being virgins is an artifact of aristocracy and paternalism. purely social construct.

i almost see a connection between thus insistence on virginity with our society's sick fixation on pedophilia and the elite behavior of discarding older wives for younger "trophies."

 

You misunderstand. They are talking about the double standard of expecting girls to remain virgins, and shaming them when they aren't, while no such unrealistic expectations are placed on the boys. That's what is meant by social construct in this context.

 

Like everything else, count on our Liberal friends to distort what otherwise was a breakthrough in social sciences. When the phrase 'social construct;' was used, it originally only specifically was designed for the theory of race and any other concept that had no scientific or factual basis behind it.

So as an example, Mardi Gras in New Orleans is a social construct(well, more of an event rather than a construct, but same thing) something we invented for various purposes. Race was invented as an ill conceived way to identify ourselves as an example.

Virginity cannot be a social construct, because there is an actual physical evidence of not having engaged in sexual activity lol. It's not a theory or a philosophical idea. It's a fact. Even the idea of "born again virgins". If people want to feel at heart that they've disowned a promiscuous past and want to turn the page, that's awesome. But the born again concept is far more of a social construct than actual virginity. Because they're not virgins, that past did exist. They just want to turn the page.

TLDR my philosophical rant: Virginity isn't a social construct because it physically exists.

 

Didn’t google this did you

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/teens/sex/virginity

But let’s start with define “virginity” e.g. if a woman has only ever engaged in oral sex are they still “virgins”

 

Hm, from the standpoint of using the vagina as a matter of intercourse I'd say they're still virgins but oral sex does give them a more nuanced understanding than someone whose done nothing.

 

Virgin means never having engaged in sexual intercourse, so engaging in oral sex would in no way take away their state of not having had sexual intercourse.

This is not that difficult. There is no benefit in unnecessarily complicating it. If somebody wants to convey that the notion of needing to be a virgin before marriage is a social construct, then say just that. Hell I agree with that statement. There is nothing gained by changing or at minimum ignoring the dictionary definition of virginity so that virginity can be argued to be called a social construct.

 

And yet risk from disease transmission is nearly the same. Can you see that only accepting vaginal sex as being a “mark” of a virgin can be misleading?

 

Already we have more than one definition on this thread? Neither of you read the link either

 

I doubt they’d understand it anyway. The binary mind is rather rigid. Everything is either black or white and it’s always ‘me against you’ in their heads.

 

yeah, I have seen those Churches that promise born again Virginity... weird

Churches must be desperate to get new members

 

Why does anyone even care about 'virginity' in 2023? Provided everything is consensual & legal why does it matter if someone is or is not a virgin? Of course, if you are obsessed with controlling female sexuality then it matters, but why should anyone listen to backwards people like that?

 

If they lied about it then it isn't the social construct is it?

I don't think that the complaint is that people lie about it because people can lie about anything. It's that we're making the language more and more useless.

 

I don't think anyone cares about virginity this is more about the meaning of words or they care about language if the language means nothing you can't communicate.

 

Think about people's reaction to this.

They want to change the word because believe it or not there is still some social stigma regarding particularly women that aren't virgins.

The aim is to try and destroy that stigma with claiming that it's a social construct.

I will agree with them it is a social construct but so are many things. Traffic safety code for example is a social construct. Was regarding consent are a social construct. The entirety of human language is a social construct.

Being a social construct that is not mean that it's meaningless or can have any meaning you want, it means it's constructed by society for often times the benefit of society sometimes we hang on to things that are old that we don't necessarily need.

 

Well a broken hymen can't be the only threshold for Virgin because all men are virgins even if they're banging 50 women a month because they're hymen hasn't been broken.

I tend to like the original meaning of the word untouched. This can apply to men and women lesbians gays and straight people. And we actually use the word that way. We don't use it for someone who still has an intact hymen.

 

@AmericanNationalist the technical, i suppose "anatomical meaning," of virginity is dependent on an intact hymen. a hymen can be penetrated in many ways, most NOT involving sex.

a slightly different definition of "virginity" might be the cultural baggage ("social construct") surrounding the "expectation of virginity" as a contractual condition of the "bride price." ("i ain't paying 50 sheep for used merchandise")

 

I don't agree with your initial statement and I don't think your point about meaning is relevant here. Whoever wrote that was clearly addressing the significance of the term rather than having a debate about what is in a dictionary. The only reason this thread exists is because some people still care about the significance of the term, not the dictionary meaning.