Defining queer virginity

Photo via The New Gay
Keeping with the Queer 101 theme for pride month!
One topic with definite overlap in the queer and feminist communities is the question of virginity. Feminists have done a lot of work trying to debunk the idea of virginity, breakdown the often oppressive connotations it carries.
Jessica wrote a book about it, that you might have heard of, called The Purity Myth.
But virginity still has a big influence on us, and for most people, virginity means penis-in-vagina sex.
But for queer folks, the boundaries are less defined. When two women have sex, when have they “done it”? What about two men? What about two genderqueer or trans folks? Is it about penetration, or about orgasms, or nudity, or oral sex? When you expand your ideas of sexuality beyond the confines of straightness, things are more open.
For folks who’ve had both straight and gay experiences, it can be kind of confusing. I for example find myself using different standards when deciding whether what happened between me and a guy I dated was sex, than when I’m determining the same thing about a girl I dated.
Imagine if instead of being about penetration, virginity (and sex) was defined by orgasm? There might be quite a few people out there who have never done it by those standards. My first time definitely wouldn’t count then.
This article over at Brightest Young Things (warning: NSFW content) asked this question about queer virginity to a bunch of young folks. Check it out to see what they had to say about how they define virginity and when they “lost it.”
It can be pretty exciting to write our own rules and make up our own definitions.