Jennifer Geinosky

From virginity to marriage, we’ve historically witnessed the displaced ownership of women’s sexualities. Girls across the country participate in “purity balls” where they dress to the nines to pledge their virginities to their fathers. I wanted to write a piece critically assessing these purity balls, since they are an important part of our discussion of sexuality.

To deconstruct the concepts that fuel the purity ball, we must first assess them independently. The first aspect I want to discuss is virginity. The concept of virginity has no scientific grounding or basis in reality beyond its place as a social construction. Virginity has historically been a concept attributed to females. The idea that women “lose” something – their virginity – during their first experience of vaginal intercourse is problematic. First of all not all women engage in sexual intercourse as it is heteronormatively defined. In a more general sense, “losing something” implies accidental or forceful misplacement, in which both cases the owner lacks control.The language also implies that something is lost forever, never to be recovered or shared again.

The physical act that has defined losing one’s virginity is the breaking or tearing of her hymen, which can occur at anytime between birth and death, and can also never occur regardless of sexual activity. While one’s first sexual experience can be a very special occasion, it can also be very awkward, confusing, or traumatic for some. We’ve evolved to expand the definition of virginity to both males ...