By George I Think I Figured It Out - Emily Martinez 2/29

Or part of it, at least. While reading this week’s excerpts about virginity and reminiscing on the video we watched (that did not help my blood pressure, mind you), I began to wonder. Why are all of these men so obsessed with virginity? What about it makes them pitch fits and throw purity balls for their daughters who probably haven’t even hit puberty? I thought about it and I thought about it, and it hit me. It’s not about the virginity, it’s about them. Think about this: what is a virgin? The definition these men are using is ‘A virgin is a woman who is not sexually active and saving herself for marriage’. As in, a woman who has not been intimate another man. This would make her husband her first intimate experience, meaning she would have no point of reference as to how it should feel. I thought about how it’s common to hear about women rarely achieving orgasm in bed, and not thinking anything of it because, well, they weren’t taught any better. They’ve only been with their husbands to that must be how sex is, right? That’s what the man wants her to think at least. I went back to the articles on Masculinity, and I found a pattern: in both Kimmel and Powell’s articles, it is made clear that these men are insecure. They want to be seen the best at everything, they hate having their masculinity called into question and hate being compared to manlier men. This carries over into the bedroom and why virgins are so vital. If a woman has been with a man before, then she has a frame of reference and the man she is currently with has to live up to the expectations of all the men she’s been with (some possibly better) than he is at pleasing her. Because, despite not giving two hoots about the female orgasm, no man wants to be called out as disappointing in bed. So they shame women into saving themselves for marriage.

Does this make sense?