Far East Cynic

Since it’s Valentines Day.

We should talk about what should be the most important part of the holiday. The post dinner/flowers/movie/carriage ride in the park/romantic walk in the park sex. Sex is always, ALWAYS, the perfect ending to any holiday.

So over at The Atlantic, they had a nice article about the myths about that most dreaded of conditions-virginity.

Laci Green grabs a thin sheet of latex, stretches it over the end of an empty toilet paper tube, and starts cutting away with a pair of scissors. “I’m makin’ a hymennn,” she sings before holding up the finished product to the camera, where, on the other side, more than 700,000 subscribers now await her every upload. “Ta-da!”

Since 2008, the 24-year-old YouTube sex educator has been making informational videos about everything from slut shaming and body image to genital hygiene and finding the G-spot. This particular scene comes from a clip called “You Can’t POP Your Cherry (HYMEN 101)” which explains, with the kind of bubbly, web-savvy humor that makes her a popular vlogger, that the hymen isn’t a membrane that needs to bleed or be broken during intercourse—it’s actually just small, usually elastic folds of mucous tissue that only partially cover the vaginal opening and can, but don’t always, tear if stretched. A year and a half after it premiered, with well more than one million views, Green’s video debunking one of the most enduring misconceptions about virginity is also one of the most popular segment she’s ever recorded.

So maybe the ex was not really lying to me that it was her first time-right?

Actually I have been with two women who said it was their first time, this was a long time ago-and I was quite ignorant on a lot of things, and furthermore I was trapped as a slave to a lot of really, REALLY , screwed up ideas about what was “moral” when it came to sexual activity. Now some 30 years later, my thinking has radically changed. All sex is good, and people deserve to have as much guilt and consequence free sex as they can get. ( With, of course, the usual caveats about consent, incest, age of consent etc…..).

So it was kind of interesting to read about the actual let down the “first time was for a lot of people”. My first time was great-except for the naggging voice screaming “SIN” in the back of my head.  This voice was competing with the one going, “pussy feels great, don’t you want to know for yourself?”. The latter voice won out-and for what its worth, 30+years of experience have proven him right and the first voice wrong.

So anyway, I found the article interesting as it told the women’s point of view:

When Therese Shechter lost her virginity at age 23, it wasn’t the firework-spouting, momentous occasion she had come to expect. On the contrary, it was kind of unremarkable given the hype. Now a filmmaker, Shechter spent much of the past six years working on her new documentary How to Lose Your Virginity, which revisits her experience—including the basement apartment where it happened, now, funnily enough, a flower shop called Bloom—and explores the “myths and misogyny” behind one of society’s most institutionalized rites of passage.

Through interviews with historians, abstinence advocates, sex educators, and self-described virgins and non-virgins alike, Shechter learned she’s not the only one who had certain ideas about what sex is supposed to be like. There are a number of pervasive and loaded myths about virginity: That having sex for the first time will be an irreversible transformation that changes your body and mind; that there’s a “right” way to lose your virginity, and how you lose it will affect the rest of your life; that it’s going to be the most pleasurable, magical feeling; that it’s going to be the most painful experience of their lives. These myths persist in part because of a lack of information about what happens to the human body, specifically the hymen, during sex—information that’s often not taught in schools, that’s not always found online, and that’s not always available from medical providers.

“I’ve spoken to lots of women who are just terrified of having sex because they think it’s going to be this horrible pain and [they’ll] bleed gallons of blood,” says Shechter, whose documentary makes its broadcast premiere on February 8 on the Fusion Network and is airing in cities across the U.S. and internationally in coming months.

After spending a good deal of time overseas, its clear Americans and others have some really screwed up ideas about sex. Muslims of course have the worst ideas about the doing the deed, many that have been passed down to them through their history. Asia, in my experience was so refreshing because of the matter of fact attitude I found in so many women about sex. ( The S.O. used to have a very matter of fact attitude about sex-she liked it. Until she stopped liking it or worrying about her hormone levels. That it might leave me more than a little frustrated never enters into her equation. But she knows when to use it to get what she wants still. )

For evidence of just how strongly these ideas about virginity and sex are rooted in popular culture, Shechter points to the number of businesses that profit off them. Genres of pornography fetishize virginity and frequently depict the moment innocent school girls are “corrupted.” Hymenoplasties, or controversial surgeries that “reconstruct” the hymen to induce bleeding during sex as proof of virginity, have become an established practice around the world (stories about the trend have appeared in Time magazine and The New York Times, which, it’s worth noting, called the hymen “the vaginal membrane that normally breaks in the first act of intercourse” in its reporting). In her film, Shechter meets with a wedding dress vendor who markets a dress’s virginal qualities as a selling point.

As Susan Sarandon said in the movie Bull Durham, women all deserve to wear white-and as I get more mature-I have come to agree with her fully.

Seriously though-these time worn and completely silly ideas about sex have bad ramifications. They keep both men and women from seeking out needed counseling and contraception. Everyone, yes I said everyone ( even the fat chick) is entitled to lots of completely wild and orgasmic sex. Anything that stands in the way is just plain wrong.

Because hymens vary greatly from person to person, they’re not reliable indicators of virginity—How to Lose Your Virginity even features a film clip from the 1940s saying as much—but the myth that looking at a hymen can reveal whether a woman has had sex can still discourage women from seeking medical care. “The biggest question we’re asked is, ‘Can a doctor or a boyfriend tell if I’ve had sex before?’ Zeldes says. “Many people think they can, so they’re scared to go to a gynecologist or a GYN exam because they’re scared, one, that it could make them not a virgin, and, two, someone would be able to tell.”

But what Blank and Zeldes say is one of the most widespread consequences—and the one Green says convinced her to make her video in the first place—is simply fear. Myths about virginity cast a shadow of negativity over young people’s attitudes toward sex. They keep can people from taking ownership of their sexualities and bodies through informed decision-making. They can turn what could be a pleasurable and fun experience into an event that’s scary, stressful, and needlessly traumatic.

So hump away boys and girls-its the greatest sensation there is and you don’t get near enough of it, and life is short. Here is to hoping your Valentines Day is a good and erotic one.

Happy (Slutty) Valentines Day!

So when and where was your first time?