WEBVTT

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- [Therese] I lost my viriginity

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at the age of 23 in this basement apartment.

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It\'s now a flower shop called Bloom

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next to a salon called Shagg.

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(soft music)

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I always felt like a late bloomer sex wise.

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I wasn\'t exactly waiting until marriage but I did buy into

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the whole bestowing my precious gift

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on a magical truelove special someone thing.

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I didn\'t pregnant or slutty so I waited

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and waited for the right man.

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When it finally happened,

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it wasn\'t so much because I had found Mr. Right,

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but because grown tired of waiting for him.

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So, I said, \"Screw it,\" and I had sex with the

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very unspecial guy that I was dating.

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Afterwards I realize the two things

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I believed for certain were totally wrong.

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I look or feel any different

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and I can\'t believe this is what all the fuss was about.

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Given all the build up, I expected, I don\'t know,

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something a little more momentous.

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But it was more like a guy put his penis into my vagina

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and poof I was no longer a virgin.

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- The erect penis enters here and rhythmic movements,

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a pumping back and forth causes

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an ejaculation from the penis.

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- [Therese] Virgin the word is

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loaded with cultural baggage.

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It colors our view of female sexuality,

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rights of passage, tradition, taboo.

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It\'s been 50 years since the sexual revolution

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and we\'re still being told that how and why the

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penis enters the vagina for the first time

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will somehow change and define us for the rest of our lives.

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Why do we give virginity so much value and meaning?

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What\'s behind the power of this elusive, mysterious,

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and not always so precious gift?

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- We hear girls talking about this idea of being

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technically a virgin so we wanted to kind of look at what

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is this obsession with being technically a virgin.

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Why? You know it seems like almost more important these days

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to be a virgin than it was 15 years ago.

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I don\'t know, the girls just see to be really conflicted

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about it so that\'s why we wanted

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to ask them what does this mean?

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And of course we got a million different types of answers.

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- Everybody get out a piece of paper

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and write a definition of the word virgin

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and we\'ll talk about those in a minute.

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- [Therese] Bronwen Pardes is a sex educator who works

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primarily with young adults.

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I asked her if she and her students

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could find virginity for me.

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- You know, it starts out simple,

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someone who\'s never had sex is a virgin.

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Okay, great, what\'s sex?

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- My definition of sex is

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- Vagina intercourse

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- Intercourse.

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- An exchange of feeling and emotion.

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- Intercourse.

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- Passion and bodily fluids.

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- No, not intercourse, I think I group in like oral sex.

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- Like the first time you first start

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to actually make love to someone.

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- I don\'t believe that a woman can

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lose her virginity to another woman.

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- If you play with yourself, you\'re not a virgin.

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- I feel like it has to be with someone else.

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- Any form of lust.

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- Or there\'s different type of virgins

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like an anal virgin, an oral virgin, and the three virgins.

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- [Therese] In my pre-Internet preteen years,

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I tried to learn about sex at the local strip mall

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reading Penthouse forums that

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a friend stole from her brother.

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There were four bases and going

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all the way meant losing your virginity.

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Today, it\'s called swiping your V-Card

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and you can find pretty much everything online.

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But is the information anymore accurate?

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How was doing the virginity thing right

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if I didn\'t exactly know what it was?

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- If I masturbated, did I lose my virginity?

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If I have sex with my girlfriend

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and I\'m a lesbian do I have a virginity in the first place?

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If I was raped, you know,

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that\'s a really big one, am I still a virgin?

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- [Therese] Heather Karina is the founder

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of the teen sex ed site Scarleteen

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which gets 30,000 visitors a day.

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- Almost every day, some variant of the question,

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you know it\'s either,

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he only put it in for a minute

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or it was only in like this much,

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like it was in like a half an inch, does that count?

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- If we\'re going to define virginity as heteronormative

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vaginal penetrative intercourse,

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then I lost my virginity when I was 15.

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- We have people signing virginity pledges,

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many of them feeling that oral sex and anal sex is not sex.

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- If I want to define virginity as a state of mind,

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as early Christian theologians did,

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then I probably lost my virginity when I was like seven.

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- It stops being about what choices you make

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and it starts being about what you call the choices you make

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based on what you want to say about your virginity status.

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When a boy grows up and is ready to be a father,

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he is able to put his penis into the vagina,

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that special opening that mother\'s have.

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- Penis and vagina intercourse is one kind of sex

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and most people if they\'re not thinking about it

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will define virginity as not having had that kind of sex.

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- From a queer perspective,

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if you\'ve got genitals rubbing against genitals,

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you\'re fucking and this idea that something has to be in

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and how far does something have to be in,

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especially when you\'re talking about lesbian sex,

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again that\'s fucking.

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- It\'s just interesting the idea of penetration is the

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definition of it and it just is obvious that it\'s because

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of the patriarchal society that that\'s was defined that

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way and I think that at one point

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it probably needed to be defined way,

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but it\'s just not necessary anymore

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and I think that\'s where there\'s all this confusion now.

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Like, what what does it really mean?

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- [Therese] Hanne Blank is a historian

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who used to answer virginity questions for Scarleteen,

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but she had no solid definitions for virginity either.

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Her search for one became the book,

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Virgin: The Untouched History.

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- You can\'t weigh virginity on a scale.

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You can\'t send in a virginity sniffing dog.

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You cannot take a picture of it.

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There are no stamps commemorating virginity.

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You know, it\'s possible to be a time in a person\'s life

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before which they have had no sexual experience with

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another human being and a time after

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which this has taken place.

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And we feel, well we have felt historically,

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a need to organize people, women specifically,

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on the basis of this before and after.

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- [Therese] This is modern-day America.

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Why is it so important to know if you\'re a virgin or not?

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What are we really talking about

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when we talk about virginity?

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Here are some of the basic messages.

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There\'s boy virginity and there\'s girl virginity.

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Take the word itself.

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The root of the word virgin is the Latin Virgo

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which also means young woman.

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When it comes to virgins, there is one burning question

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and that\'s about a vagina.

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Has this vagina ever had a penis in it?

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That\'s because issues around virginity have been

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overwhelmingly about women and intercourse.

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Historically, a woman rarely had any property

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or rights of her own and had

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to be attached to a man to survive.

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In fact, a woman was property transferred

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from father to husband when she got married.

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Her husband had to make sure her vagina was sealed in its

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original packaging so that when she had a child

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he\'d know he was the daddy.

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You don\'t wanna be raising someone else\'s kids,

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let alone leaving them your estate.

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The rape of a virgin was a huge crime,

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namely the destruction of property.

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In a very twisted version of you break it you buy it,

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the matter would be settled by having

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the rapist simply marry his victim.

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A woman who was even suspected of not being a virgin

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could be cast out or even killed.

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No one wanted to be known as

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the father of a slutty daughter or a secondhand vagina.

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While all women have value placed on their bodies,

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how those values were determined depended on the body.

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Female slaves, for example, were considered subhuman

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and hypersexual and not afforded the notion of purity.

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Their owners weren\'t charged with rape because sexually

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assaulting property was not a crime

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and because black women\'s virginity was worthless

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to masters who profited from the sale of their children.

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- The exercise of defining virginity is

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not at all a merely philosophical exercise.

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It is very much about real, palpable, tangible policing

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and control of bodies, specifically women\'s bodies.

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You always have to ask the question when you see an

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apparatus of control like this who is at the reins,

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who is doing the controlling and

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who benefits from that control being done?

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- I, like every good Southern Baptist girl does,

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made a promise that I would remain

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a virgin until I got married.

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Now, I do have an admission to make that at the time I made

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this promise, I was 15,

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I had no idea what any of the things were,

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but it sounded really horrible

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and it was gonna send you to hell,

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so I certainly didn\'t want it and so I took this pledge.

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- I commit to not have sexual relations with anyone

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until I\'m married and that is my personal commitment

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to God, to you, and to the man that I do not know yet,

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but I will marry.

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- [Therese] Shelby Knox was the subject

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of the documentary, The Education of Shelby Knox,

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which chronicled efforts to get comprehensive

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sex ed into her Texas high school.

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I first heard about abstinence pledges from her film

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and I\'ve been following Shelby\'s career ever since as

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she\'s traveled the country talking

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to young people about sex.

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- The pastor who would come into my public school,

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he would pull this girl up on stage

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and he would like have this really dirty, nasty

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toothbrush and he would say,

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\"Would you brush your teeth with this?\"

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She\'d look at it and go, \"No.\"

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And then he\'d pull out another toothbrush

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and it was in it\'s box and he would say,

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\"Well, would you brush your teeth with this one?\"

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And she\'d go, \"Yeah, sure.\"

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\"So, well, if you have sex before marriage,

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you are the dirty toothbrush.\"

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(audience laughs)

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Your sexuality belongs to your male God,

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to your male pastor, to your male father,

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to your supposed future male spouse and

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there\'s no sexual autonomy in there at all.

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(calypso music)

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- [Therese] Growing up in Indiana,

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Ellen Westbrook also took a virginity pledge

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and she kept it until her wedding day.

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- My dad is an assistant pastor at our church

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and were in church all time.

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I remember going church Sunday morning,

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Sunday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night.

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One advantage of Christianity,

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especially fundamentalist Christianity is,

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I always felt safe and I think

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that\'s because of that bubble.

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I remember being given a chart that kind of gave you this

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timeline for a relationship and then based on that timeline

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like where the body could be touched

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and it was like week one,

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the first three or four weeks, you just held hands.

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When you\'re raised in that mentality

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of don\'t have sex before marriage,

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it inadvertently makes sex this huge thing.

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Everything is toward that point.

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I really believe that the only reason

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I got married so young was for sex.

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- [Minister] Who gives this woman to be wed?

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- Her mom and I.

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- I was 22 and he was actually 21.

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We are technically virgins when we got married.

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It never went in the hole, but we did everything else.

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We would mess around completely naked.

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We had tons of problems before he got married

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and I remember thinking, once we get married

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and we can have sex, like,

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everything\'s gonna be okay, you know?

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So, we go home, like dress hits the floor,

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I\'m on the bed, he, I mean no kissing, no foreplay,

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like nothing, I have no idea what lubrication is

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or what it\'s for or how it should be used

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and he was pretty well endowed fella

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and it felt like surgery without anesthesia.

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Like, it was the most intense pain I\'ve ever felt

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and tears were streaming down my face.

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It took about a year and a half probably

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before it stopped hurting and even then like occasionally

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it would hurt and I hated sex.

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I was pissed.

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I was like, this is what everyone\'s been talking about?

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This is what I waited for?

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This is what I planned my life around?

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- [Therese] How did Ellen\'s wedding fantasy

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and her lived reality end up so far apart?

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(jazzy music)

00:14:08.410 --> 00:14:11.148
- [Group] I pledge from this day forward.

00:14:11.148 --> 00:14:12.677
- [Woman] To embrace purity of mind.

00:14:12.677 --> 00:14:14.710
- [Group] To embrace purity of mind.

00:14:14.710 --> 00:14:17.130
- [Therese] Here in 21st Century America,

00:14:17.130 --> 00:14:19.723
Purity Balls keep ancient traditions alive.

00:14:21.130 --> 00:14:23.690
A girl as young as seven or eight years old

00:14:23.690 --> 00:14:25.640
basically hands over her virginity

00:14:25.640 --> 00:14:28.630
to her father for safekeeping until

00:14:28.630 --> 00:14:31.283
he gives it to her husband on her wedding day.

00:14:34.930 --> 00:14:37.633
It says so right here in the pledge she makes.

00:14:39.543 --> 00:14:42.043
(jazzy music)

00:14:46.080 --> 00:14:49.141
Jessica Valenti is the author of The Purity Myth

00:14:49.141 --> 00:14:51.394
and she\'s fascinated by the ways our society

00:14:51.394 --> 00:14:55.700
links a young woman\'s worth to her sexuality.

00:14:55.700 --> 00:14:57.790
- When you saw the pictures and you saw the images of these

00:14:57.790 --> 00:14:59.520
girls with their fathers and the way they were dressed up,

00:14:59.520 --> 00:15:03.030
they looked like little wives and the language that was used

00:15:03.030 --> 00:15:05.590
in the virginity pledge was also really disturbing.

00:15:05.590 --> 00:15:08.740
There\'s a lot of talk about ownership over girls virginity,

00:15:08.740 --> 00:15:10.870
fathers talking about covering their daughters

00:15:10.870 --> 00:15:12.230
which I believe is a biblical term,

00:15:12.230 --> 00:15:14.500
but it just sounded very incestuous.

00:15:14.500 --> 00:15:16.780
- [Man] I, here, pledge to protect my daughter.

00:15:16.780 --> 00:15:18.540
- [Group] I, here, pledge to protect my daughter.

00:15:18.540 --> 00:15:20.020
- And at some of the events they give their

00:15:20.020 --> 00:15:22.188
dad a little pink box with a lock and key in it

00:15:22.188 --> 00:15:25.550
and people said, well, you know, what about boys\' virginity?

00:15:25.550 --> 00:15:27.090
Isn\'t boys\' virginity important too,

00:15:27.090 --> 00:15:28.910
so they started Integrity Balls.

00:15:28.910 --> 00:15:31.330
It\'s not about ownership and I\'m pledging my virginity

00:15:31.330 --> 00:15:33.820
to my mother or it\'s important for me to wait because

00:15:33.820 --> 00:15:35.520
that makes me a virtuous man,

00:15:35.520 --> 00:15:38.560
the language was I shouldn\'t have sex because that\'s

00:15:38.560 --> 00:15:41.660
someone\'s future wife or that someone\'s daughter so you

00:15:41.660 --> 00:15:44.693
want to do damage to someone else\'s property, really.

00:15:46.530 --> 00:15:49.100
- [Therese] Many Purity Balls do double duty

00:15:49.100 --> 00:15:51.320
as fundraisers for crisis pregnancy centers

00:15:51.320 --> 00:15:53.920
whose goal is to prevent women

00:15:53.920 --> 00:15:56.363
from getting contraception or abortion.

00:15:59.430 --> 00:16:01.720
Even if they don\'t attend a Purity Ball,

00:16:01.720 --> 00:16:04.863
one in six American girls takes a purity pledge,

00:16:04.863 --> 00:16:06.663
Ceremonies for girls as well

00:16:06.663 --> 00:16:10.200
as boys have been not only through churches,

00:16:10.200 --> 00:16:12.463
but at public schools all over the country.

00:16:13.510 --> 00:16:16.433
There\'s even a Facebook page where anyone can pledge purity

00:16:16.433 --> 00:16:19.620
simply by liking that page

00:16:19.620 --> 00:16:22.133
and, of course, there\'s an app for that.

00:16:23.110 --> 00:16:25.437
Many pledgers get rings that say things like,

00:16:25.437 --> 00:16:29.270
\"True love waits\" and purity rings were central to marketing

00:16:29.270 --> 00:16:34.270
pop stars like Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Jordan Sparks.

00:16:34.369 --> 00:16:37.275
- I just have one thing to say about promise rings,

00:16:37.275 --> 00:16:39.760
it\'s not bad to wear promise rings \'cause not everybody

00:16:39.760 --> 00:16:43.230
guy or girl wants to be a slut, alright, so anyway.

00:16:43.230 --> 00:16:45.630
- [Therese] Symbolic items are targeted to girls who don\'t

00:16:45.630 --> 00:16:48.677
wanna be sluts like this rose pin that says,

00:16:48.677 --> 00:16:50.660
\"You are like a beautiful rose.

00:16:50.660 --> 00:16:53.477
\"Each time you engage in premarital sex

00:16:53.477 --> 00:16:55.625
\"a precious petal is stripped away.

00:16:55.625 --> 00:16:59.720
\"Don\'t leave your future husband holding a bare stem.\"

00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:03.070
- Abstinence only programs that are in the schools,

00:17:03.070 --> 00:17:04.960
they\'re not scientifically based,

00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:07.640
they\'re based on fear.

00:17:07.640 --> 00:17:10.500
There\'s a lot of misinformation.

00:17:10.500 --> 00:17:13.102
- [Therese] Since 1996, the US government has granted over

00:17:13.102 --> 00:17:17.210
$1.5 billion to schools that teach

00:17:17.210 --> 00:17:18.704
abstinence only sex education.

00:17:18.704 --> 00:17:21.550
Despite government studies showing

00:17:21.550 --> 00:17:23.199
the programs are ineffective,

00:17:23.199 --> 00:17:26.290
they continue to receive $50 million

00:17:26.290 --> 00:17:29.062
taxpayer dollars every year.

00:17:29.062 --> 00:17:30.920
To receive this funding,

00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:33.470
schools must teach that sex before marriage

00:17:33.470 --> 00:17:36.229
will have harmful psychological and physical effects

00:17:36.229 --> 00:17:39.420
and they\'re forbidden to teach about birth control

00:17:39.420 --> 00:17:41.450
and disease prevention.

00:17:41.450 --> 00:17:44.480
- Kids may delay sex for a little while

00:17:44.480 --> 00:17:47.290
and ultimately they will have sex before their married

00:17:47.290 --> 00:17:49.250
even though the programs told them not to.

00:17:49.250 --> 00:17:52.052
- We know that many of the people that choose to sign

00:17:52.052 --> 00:17:54.770
the virginity pledges when they

00:17:54.770 --> 00:17:56.481
choose to be sexually active,

00:17:56.481 --> 00:17:59.882
they\'re much more likely to be involved in sex

00:17:59.882 --> 00:18:03.680
without the use of a latex condom.

00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:06.353
- Comprehensive sex education will discuss abstinence,

00:18:06.353 --> 00:18:09.710
will also let you know how to prevent pregnancy

00:18:09.710 --> 00:18:12.733
and STDs and other negative consequences of sex.

00:18:14.570 --> 00:18:18.123
- [Therese] These same abstinence messages follow young

00:18:18.123 --> 00:18:19.930
people onto college campuses.

00:18:19.930 --> 00:18:22.550
- Studies have shown that a lot of people

00:18:22.550 --> 00:18:24.887
who engage in premarital sex have future problems in their

00:18:24.887 --> 00:18:29.887
marriages and also, of course, STDs and pregnancy.

00:18:31.630 --> 00:18:35.380
We think that traditional marriage between a man and a woman

00:18:35.380 --> 00:18:37.423
is the appropriate place for sex.

00:18:38.270 --> 00:18:41.090
- [Therese] Rosemary Imms heads up publicity for True Love

00:18:41.090 --> 00:18:44.680
Revolution, Harvard\'s official campus chastity club.

00:18:44.680 --> 00:18:46.030
- Did you register?

00:18:46.030 --> 00:18:47.430
Can I have your name please?

00:18:49.580 --> 00:18:52.665
We encourage gay people also to be chaste because

00:18:52.665 --> 00:18:55.566
we think chastity is a very important component of

00:18:55.566 --> 00:19:00.566
preserving your self identity, your emotions, et cetera.

00:19:08.294 --> 00:19:09.180
- Well, we don\'t believe that

00:19:09.180 --> 00:19:10.903
gay marriage is valid marriage.

00:19:16.323 --> 00:19:17.156
- Yes.

00:19:18.980 --> 00:19:20.530
- [Therese] What did you think would happen

00:19:20.530 --> 00:19:21.910
to you when you lost your virginity?

00:19:21.910 --> 00:19:25.410
- Once you do it, you\'re gonna keep doing it,

00:19:25.410 --> 00:19:26.470
you\'re not gonna stop.

00:19:26.470 --> 00:19:29.080
- You have to wait until marriage \'cause if you lose it,

00:19:29.080 --> 00:19:30.400
nobody\'s gonna wanna marry you.

00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:31.920
- You\'re gonna be called a slut.

00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:33.706
The first time you do it,

00:19:33.706 --> 00:19:34.689
you\'re gonna get an STD \'cause

00:19:34.689 --> 00:19:35.759
you\'re not being smart about it.

00:19:35.759 --> 00:19:38.170
- It\'s very important to get a blessing from God

00:19:38.170 --> 00:19:40.760
before you do anything sexual with anybody.

00:19:40.760 --> 00:19:42.520
- They say that you\'re gonna become slutty.

00:19:42.520 --> 00:19:45.000
- Women are just a lot more sacred.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:48.380
We\'re a lot more delicate and we shouldn\'t just be passed

00:19:48.380 --> 00:19:49.830
around from man to man to man.

00:19:49.830 --> 00:19:52.410
- Supposedly, when you start having sex,

00:19:52.410 --> 00:19:53.943
your hips get bigger.

00:19:56.970 --> 00:19:59.910
- Though I never received any formal abstinence only

00:19:59.910 --> 00:20:01.620
education in high school,

00:20:01.620 --> 00:20:03.890
I practiced my own unique brand of it

00:20:03.890 --> 00:20:06.760
by developing crushes on pop stars

00:20:06.760 --> 00:20:09.293
and on jocks who didn\'t know I was alive.

00:20:10.530 --> 00:20:13.023
I was a nerdy, artsy teenager who was totally awkward

00:20:13.023 --> 00:20:16.430
around guys and almost never dated.

00:20:16.430 --> 00:20:19.104
I was too embarrassed to talk openly about sex,

00:20:19.104 --> 00:20:21.920
but I did plenty of independent study.

00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:24.850
I pored over the Joy of Sex while I was babysitting,

00:20:24.850 --> 00:20:27.300
looked up all the words from the Hair song \"Sodomy\"

00:20:27.300 --> 00:20:31.163
in the dictionary and I read lots and lots of Judy Bloom.

00:20:33.050 --> 00:20:35.869
- Judy Bloom, God bless you.

00:20:35.869 --> 00:20:38.960
I know that there are so many women like myselves

00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:42.090
that would have grown up and probably had a baby

00:20:42.090 --> 00:20:44.420
and still not known where it came from.

00:20:44.420 --> 00:20:47.830
- Welcome to Abiola\'s kiss and tell, the March edition.

00:20:47.830 --> 00:20:50.800
- [Therese] I\'ve known Abiola Abrams for years

00:20:50.800 --> 00:20:53.820
and I\'ve always admired the way her multimedia programs

00:20:53.820 --> 00:20:56.883
make talking about sex really normal and fun.

00:20:58.240 --> 00:20:59.840
- All I remember about that education

00:20:59.840 --> 00:21:01.910
was a woman standing there with a banana.

00:21:01.910 --> 00:21:03.941
She unrolled a condom onto a banana

00:21:03.941 --> 00:21:06.510
and that was pretty much it.

00:21:06.510 --> 00:21:08.627
And I was like, but how to get get to the banana?

00:21:08.627 --> 00:21:10.710
(laughs)

00:21:12.070 --> 00:21:15.152
What I talk a lot about is empowered sexuality and

00:21:15.152 --> 00:21:18.010
it doesn\'t necessarily mean that you want to sleep around.

00:21:18.010 --> 00:21:19.640
Maybe you do and that\'s fantastic

00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:21.460
if that\'s what you choose to do.

00:21:21.460 --> 00:21:22.293
Maybe you don\'t,

00:21:22.293 --> 00:21:24.780
this next generation of young women coming up.

00:21:24.780 --> 00:21:26.218
It doesn\'t seem to be a lot of choice in what they think

00:21:26.218 --> 00:21:30.130
that they can do with their own bodies.

00:21:30.130 --> 00:21:32.550
- Young women are growing up thinking that you have two

00:21:32.550 --> 00:21:35.010
choices abstinence only education is telling you,

00:21:35.010 --> 00:21:38.420
you know not to and Girls Gone Wild is telling you how to.

00:21:38.420 --> 00:21:41.070
It\'s really very much the same message that your sexuality

00:21:41.070 --> 00:21:42.440
doesn\'t belong to yourself,

00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:44.580
that someone else is there to tell you what to do

00:21:44.580 --> 00:21:46.220
with your sexuality.

00:21:46.220 --> 00:21:48.419
- There are some girls who believe that literally everyone

00:21:48.419 --> 00:21:52.590
is having sex so they\'d better do it

00:21:52.590 --> 00:21:55.150
otherwise they are missing out.

00:21:55.150 --> 00:21:56.980
Other girls perceive themselves

00:21:56.980 --> 00:22:00.770
as being thrown into this den of sin,

00:22:00.770 --> 00:22:04.360
this culture of constant pole dancing

00:22:04.360 --> 00:22:06.810
and they need to hold out to maintain their purity.

00:22:06.810 --> 00:22:09.427
They see themselves as rebels in a way.

00:22:09.427 --> 00:22:12.010
(violin music)

00:22:18.200 --> 00:22:20.450
- My name is Judy and I am a virgin (laughs).

00:22:22.020 --> 00:22:23.360
There you go.

00:22:23.360 --> 00:22:25.090
- [Therese] This is Judy King,

00:22:25.090 --> 00:22:27.360
a Julliard trained violinist.

00:22:27.360 --> 00:22:29.460
Unlike many of the women I\'ve met,

00:22:29.460 --> 00:22:32.170
her conception of virginity goes far beyond

00:22:32.170 --> 00:22:34.303
what you\'re not allowed to put where.

00:22:35.640 --> 00:22:36.920
- It\'s not just a physical thing.

00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:40.870
You can be just as impure without actually doing the

00:22:40.870 --> 00:22:42.990
physical act if it\'s done in your head,

00:22:42.990 --> 00:22:45.414
already in your heart losing your sense of

00:22:45.414 --> 00:22:48.800
keeping things kind of holy and pure.

00:22:48.800 --> 00:22:51.680
I belong to God and my body belongs to God.

00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:53.250
My life belongs to Him.

00:22:53.250 --> 00:22:54.640
- [Therese] Judy spend the last year

00:22:54.640 --> 00:22:56.530
and a half traveling the world.

00:22:56.530 --> 00:22:59.995
- Recently, I\'ve been on tour with a major pop artist.

00:22:59.995 --> 00:23:03.690
(electronic music)

00:23:03.690 --> 00:23:07.199
Her name\'s Lady Gaga, I don\'t know if you\'ve heard of her.

00:23:07.199 --> 00:23:09.590
(laughs)

00:23:09.590 --> 00:23:11.610
We\'ve been traveling pretty much all over the world.

00:23:11.610 --> 00:23:13.280
I have it shaved on both sides,

00:23:13.280 --> 00:23:15.200
but I usually have a design.

00:23:15.200 --> 00:23:17.320
I\'m gonna get that done in a couple days.

00:23:17.320 --> 00:23:20.590
I have a little, she\'s a lamb, actually.

00:23:20.590 --> 00:23:22.200
- [Woman] I see more tattoos.

00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:23.250
- Yeah, I have a few.

00:23:24.783 --> 00:23:29.783
The feeling of being on stage, it\'s surreal almost.

00:23:31.070 --> 00:23:33.530
It\'s such a spiritual experience for me.

00:23:33.530 --> 00:23:37.500
It feels like, I\'m not really there 100%,

00:23:37.500 --> 00:23:39.190
like I\'m physically there,

00:23:39.190 --> 00:23:42.450
but somehow I not always not 100% in control.

00:23:42.450 --> 00:23:45.685
I love having that freedom and letting something else

00:23:45.685 --> 00:23:48.590
come in and inspire me.

00:23:48.590 --> 00:23:49.713
It\'s a great feeling.

00:23:51.690 --> 00:23:53.680
- [Therese] How can you be touring with like the most

00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:56.060
sexually provocative (mumbles) on the planet?

00:23:58.000 --> 00:23:58.893
- I know, right?

00:24:00.180 --> 00:24:01.830
Yeah, that is the question.

00:24:01.830 --> 00:24:04.230
I hang out with everyone on tour.

00:24:04.230 --> 00:24:07.722
I don\'t know I keep to myself and study the Bible in my

00:24:07.722 --> 00:24:09.230
room all the time and pray.

00:24:09.230 --> 00:24:12.250
My human nature, my flesh, has struggled

00:24:12.250 --> 00:24:15.049
and said I want to to experience it,

00:24:15.049 --> 00:24:18.640
but God\'s been teaching me a lot about myself.

00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:21.313
If there\'s any place he wants me to be,

00:24:21.313 --> 00:24:23.227
it would be here because it\'s like the ultimate.

00:24:23.227 --> 00:24:24.520
It\'s like I\'m exposing you to this,

00:24:24.520 --> 00:24:26.333
so let\'s see where you where you go with it.

00:24:27.290 --> 00:24:29.440
- [Therese] Is religion the only reason people

00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:31.503
wait to have sex for the first time?

00:24:32.800 --> 00:24:36.593
It certainly wasn\'t my reason and it\'s not Sarah\'s either.

00:24:38.396 --> 00:24:40.143
- Hi, I\'m Sarah DiMuro and I am 30 years old

00:24:40.143 --> 00:24:43.340
and I live in New York City.

00:24:43.340 --> 00:24:45.550
I am a comedian in the City,

00:24:45.550 --> 00:24:48.690
oh yeah, and I\'m also a virgin.

00:24:48.690 --> 00:24:52.090
Like, I\'ve never had the sex, ever.

00:24:52.090 --> 00:24:54.600
- [Therese] Sarah created a blog for Jane magazine

00:24:54.600 --> 00:24:57.014
about her search for a Mr. right to lose her virginity to.

00:24:57.014 --> 00:25:00.234
It caused a media sensation.

00:25:00.234 --> 00:25:02.480
- [Female News Anchor] You\'ve seen Hollywood\'s

00:25:02.480 --> 00:25:05.557
40-year-old Virgin, now meet TV\'s 29-year old virgin.

00:25:05.557 --> 00:25:07.878
- And the guy\'s like, \"So, you\'re a virgin?\"

00:25:07.878 --> 00:25:10.470
- [Female News Anchor] Calling all men, she could be yours.

00:25:10.470 --> 00:25:12.500
- So, what am I waiting for?

00:25:12.500 --> 00:25:14.740
So, I went on a bunch of these dates

00:25:14.740 --> 00:25:16.840
and I wrote about it like for a year.

00:25:16.840 --> 00:25:18.563
Like, a no sex in the city.

00:25:20.320 --> 00:25:22.860
- This building is an all women\'s residence,

00:25:22.860 --> 00:25:26.576
like Bosom Buddies, Peter Scolari, Tom Hanks.

00:25:26.576 --> 00:25:28.470
This is my floor, institutional.

00:25:28.470 --> 00:25:30.883
See the hand railings for the older folk?

00:25:33.020 --> 00:25:36.860
Yoo-hoo, come on it, I\'ll give you a little tour.

00:25:36.860 --> 00:25:41.270
This is my bed, also my living room,

00:25:41.270 --> 00:25:43.740
family room, dining area.

00:25:43.740 --> 00:25:45.633
You can\'t have guys here, though, that\'s one thing,

00:25:45.633 --> 00:25:47.230
you cannot have men in your room.

00:25:47.230 --> 00:25:49.169
One guy went out on a date with me

00:25:49.169 --> 00:25:50.002
and at the end he walked me home

00:25:50.002 --> 00:25:51.770
and I go, \"Well, this is it, you\'re not allowed in.\"

00:25:51.770 --> 00:25:53.995
He\'s like, \"If you don\'t like me Sarah, just tell me,

00:25:53.995 --> 00:25:55.120
you don\'t have to make up stories.\"

00:25:55.120 --> 00:25:57.282
People are fascinated with someone

00:25:57.282 --> 00:25:58.115
that decides not to have sex

00:25:58.115 --> 00:25:59.800
and they really look like that thing that wrong with you.

00:25:59.800 --> 00:26:03.752
Like, well, she\'s not fat, she\'s not Mormon,

00:26:03.752 --> 00:26:05.576
it\'s never religious, it\'s Mormon.

00:26:05.576 --> 00:26:07.070
They couldn\'t do it,

00:26:07.070 --> 00:26:09.140
but they think it\'s really powerful that I did.

00:26:09.140 --> 00:26:10.697
Yeah, and then you get this sense in your head like,

00:26:10.697 --> 00:26:14.060
\"Wow, I\'m a superhero, I\'m virgin superhero,

00:26:14.060 --> 00:26:15.200
I can do anything.\"

00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:17.760
I\'m a virgin not because of God or because like parents

00:26:17.760 --> 00:26:20.400
are like whatever but because I just was really dorky

00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:22.610
growing up, all women\'s education,

00:26:22.610 --> 00:26:24.700
really insecure and when I go through the whole thing

00:26:24.700 --> 00:26:27.150
about being a dork, they\'re like, but your fine now,

00:26:27.150 --> 00:26:30.883
you get to have sex now, but I wanna meet someone I like.

00:26:30.883 --> 00:26:33.293
I\'m 30, I want it to be good.

00:26:34.450 --> 00:26:37.350
I\'ve met a great guy and I haven\'t had sex with him yet.

00:26:37.350 --> 00:26:39.430
I think it\'ll mean more to me no matter how bad

00:26:39.430 --> 00:26:41.690
or good or horrible or terrific it is.

00:26:41.690 --> 00:26:44.334
It\'ll mean something to me because

00:26:44.334 --> 00:26:46.183
I met someone really special.

00:26:47.910 --> 00:26:50.520
- [Therese] There can be something very empowering about

00:26:50.520 --> 00:26:51.950
saying no to sex.

00:26:51.950 --> 00:26:54.970
Historically, many women became powerful specifically

00:26:54.970 --> 00:26:56.763
because they remained virgins.

00:26:58.170 --> 00:27:01.250
The vestal virgins were responsible for the temple of Vesta,

00:27:01.250 --> 00:27:02.730
the goddess of Rome.

00:27:02.730 --> 00:27:05.570
At a time where almost every woman got married,

00:27:05.570 --> 00:27:08.140
they had to the unmarried virgins.

00:27:08.140 --> 00:27:10.180
It wasn\'t about being pure though.

00:27:10.180 --> 00:27:13.800
It was about being autonomous and not ruled by a husband.

00:27:13.800 --> 00:27:16.290
Broken vows meant a death sentence,

00:27:16.290 --> 00:27:17.516
but after 30 years,

00:27:17.516 --> 00:27:19.240
they retired rich enough to

00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:21.383
never need a husband to take care of them.

00:27:23.030 --> 00:27:24.330
And nuns traded husband

00:27:24.330 --> 00:27:27.030
and family for their own kind of autonomy.

00:27:27.030 --> 00:27:30.060
They avoided the fate of so many other women dying

00:27:30.060 --> 00:27:32.610
in childbirth and until recently,

00:27:32.610 --> 00:27:35.530
it was one of the few ways that a woman could learn

00:27:35.530 --> 00:27:38.573
how to read, learn a trade, or be in charge.

00:27:44.660 --> 00:27:48.300
- [Man] A membrane partly covers the entrance to the vagina.

00:27:48.300 --> 00:27:49.347
This is the hymen or the maidenhead.

00:27:49.347 --> 00:27:54.347
- My mom thought you\'re not a virgin when you have your

00:27:56.410 --> 00:27:59.519
hymen broken and she thought putting on a tampon

00:27:59.519 --> 00:28:02.640
would make me lose my virginity.

00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:05.521
- I\'ve been told that females lost their virginity from

00:28:05.521 --> 00:28:07.828
such things as riding horses,

00:28:07.828 --> 00:28:10.300
you know being in a car, hitting a bump.

00:28:10.300 --> 00:28:11.850
- Like, when you see the blood and stuff,

00:28:11.850 --> 00:28:15.480
that\'s how you define when a girl is not a virgin anymore.

00:28:15.480 --> 00:28:17.030
- [Therese] When I was young I heard

00:28:17.030 --> 00:28:19.853
that an intact hymen equals virginity.

00:28:21.100 --> 00:28:25.250
That idea continues to be perpetuated from tampon ads

00:28:25.250 --> 00:28:27.113
to to the vampire community.

00:28:27.974 --> 00:28:28.807
- I can\'t believe I waited so long.

00:28:28.807 --> 00:28:30.480
We are going to do it every single night

00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:31.940
whether you want to or not.

00:28:31.940 --> 00:28:34.210
- [Therese] Jessica was an abstinent Christian girl before

00:28:34.210 --> 00:28:37.370
she was turned into a vampire and had sex.

00:28:37.370 --> 00:28:38.870
- Stop, stop.

00:28:38.870 --> 00:28:40.750
- Is that blood again?

00:28:40.750 --> 00:28:42.980
- [Therese] Because of the innate regenerative properties

00:28:42.980 --> 00:28:45.830
of vampire blood or something,

00:28:45.830 --> 00:28:47.790
her hymen kept growing back after

00:28:47.790 --> 00:28:49.673
each time she had intercourse.

00:28:51.148 --> 00:28:52.542
- It\'ll be beautiful.

00:28:52.542 --> 00:28:53.375
Every time will be like our first time.

00:28:53.375 --> 00:28:54.240
- It\'ll hurt like hell.

00:28:55.852 --> 00:28:57.904
I\'m a fucking deformity of nature.

00:28:57.904 --> 00:29:01.290
I\'m gonna be a virgin forever.

00:29:01.290 --> 00:29:03.590
- [Therese] The thing is, the connection between hymens

00:29:03.590 --> 00:29:07.530
and virginity is about as mythical as vampires.

00:29:07.530 --> 00:29:10.140
Trying to tell if a woman is a virgin by checking her

00:29:10.140 --> 00:29:13.700
hymen would be like checking a guy\'s penis to see if he\'s

00:29:13.700 --> 00:29:16.443
ever had sex, it doesn\'t tell you a thing.

00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:21.073
A hymen is just what\'s left over when you make a vagina.

00:29:22.060 --> 00:29:24.830
- [Man] The vagina has a moist lining

00:29:24.830 --> 00:29:26.013
called the mucous membrane.

00:29:26.870 --> 00:29:28.480
- [Therese] Like on a cheap plastic toy, you know,

00:29:28.480 --> 00:29:30.410
when there\'s a little plastic left over on the edges,

00:29:30.410 --> 00:29:32.203
that\'s actually what a hymen is.

00:29:33.640 --> 00:29:36.470
- You have different types of hymen.

00:29:36.470 --> 00:29:41.470
Some hymens looks very thin, some hymens look very thick,

00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:44.900
some hymens have some holes in them.

00:29:44.900 --> 00:29:47.440
- [Therese] Henia Dakkak was gynecologist before

00:29:47.440 --> 00:29:49.540
she went to work for the United Nations.

00:29:49.540 --> 00:29:53.080
- Some girls would lose their hymen very easily

00:29:53.080 --> 00:29:54.550
without even noticing.

00:29:54.550 --> 00:29:57.423
The hymen could be also very elastic.

00:29:58.330 --> 00:30:02.300
Some women will not lose their hymen until they deliver.

00:30:02.300 --> 00:30:05.790
- [Therese] The hymen wasn\'t even discovered until 1544 by

00:30:05.790 --> 00:30:09.030
an anatomist named Andreas Vacilius.

00:30:09.030 --> 00:30:11.820
By checking hymens to to test virginity is just part of a

00:30:11.820 --> 00:30:13.820
long history of searching for proof

00:30:13.820 --> 00:30:16.470
of something that just can\'t be proven.

00:30:16.470 --> 00:30:18.360
Many of these tests were based on the belief

00:30:18.360 --> 00:30:20.150
that when a woman had intercourse

00:30:20.150 --> 00:30:22.110
she was opened up down there

00:30:22.110 --> 00:30:25.350
creating a sort of an open channel up through her throat.

00:30:25.350 --> 00:30:28.260
So that if you sat a woman over something smoky

00:30:28.260 --> 00:30:31.600
and could smell smoke on her breath, she wasn\'t a virgin.

00:30:31.600 --> 00:30:34.380
Another test had a woman selling a head of lettuce

00:30:34.380 --> 00:30:37.413
and if the lettuce made her pee she wasn\'t a virgin.

00:30:37.413 --> 00:30:41.090
I asked Hanne Blank to demonstrate a virginity test

00:30:41.090 --> 00:30:44.400
that\'s been sealing women\'s fates for at least 400 years

00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:46.063
with just one piece of string.

00:30:46.900 --> 00:30:48.490
She\'s measuring my head and

00:30:48.490 --> 00:30:51.320
comparing it to the circumference of my neck

00:30:51.320 --> 00:30:53.110
and if the neck measurement is larger,

00:30:53.110 --> 00:30:54.563
well you get the idea.

00:30:55.720 --> 00:31:00.130
- I am afraid that your neck has expanded past the black

00:31:00.130 --> 00:31:02.166
mark on the string by about,

00:31:02.166 --> 00:31:05.275
so you\'re that much of a non virgin.

00:31:05.275 --> 00:31:09.463
- Okay, alright.

00:31:09.463 --> 00:31:10.981
- The string doesn\'t lie.

00:31:10.981 --> 00:31:13.535
- [Man] Sweetheart, we have to talk about this.

00:31:13.535 --> 00:31:16.813
(group laughs)

00:31:16.813 --> 00:31:18.610
- [Therese] Now that I think of it,

00:31:18.610 --> 00:31:20.380
I probably shouldn\'t have let my boyfriend

00:31:20.380 --> 00:31:21.963
watch from behind the camera.

00:31:24.740 --> 00:31:27.500
The absurdity of these tests reminds me of the way

00:31:27.500 --> 00:31:29.887
women were tested to see if they were witches,

00:31:29.887 --> 00:31:34.563
equally absurd, but also devastating, if it came out wrong.

00:31:34.563 --> 00:31:39.390
- If the girl is not found a virgin at the night

00:31:39.390 --> 00:31:41.740
of her wedding, it\'s a shame for her family.

00:31:41.740 --> 00:31:43.570
She could get killed.

00:31:43.570 --> 00:31:47.800
Girls will pay money and their families will pay money

00:31:47.800 --> 00:31:50.703
to make sure that is there is

00:31:50.703 --> 00:31:54.560
some sort of bleeding happening at the night of the wedding.

00:31:54.560 --> 00:31:57.657
In these situation, do one stitch between the two labias.

00:31:57.657 --> 00:31:59.700
They will have to drop some blood

00:31:59.700 --> 00:32:02.790
and most families will be happy and so on.

00:32:02.790 --> 00:32:05.000
- [Therese] Our collective anxiety about the state of

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:08.720
the vagina has spawned an entire industry.

00:32:08.720 --> 00:32:10.470
There are hymen reconstruction clinics

00:32:10.470 --> 00:32:11.770
in the heart of Manhattan,

00:32:13.350 --> 00:32:15.400
Amazon sells creams to tighten the vagina

00:32:16.610 --> 00:32:20.800
and you can buy an artificial hymen on the Internet for $30.

00:32:20.800 --> 00:32:21.633
I ordered one.

00:32:26.271 --> 00:32:28.771
(waltz music)

00:32:40.220 --> 00:32:43.100
It\'s just a little piece of plastic a woman inserts into

00:32:43.100 --> 00:32:45.640
her vagina and during intercourse

00:32:45.640 --> 00:32:48.123
it releases some red dye to stimulate blood.

00:32:49.060 --> 00:32:51.790
Despite the fact that it can cause infections,

00:32:51.790 --> 00:32:53.483
it\'s a bestseller in China.

00:32:57.450 --> 00:32:59.790
The longer I waited to have intercourse,

00:32:59.790 --> 00:33:01.253
the more nervous I got.

00:33:02.170 --> 00:33:04.750
I was worried it would hurt, I might bleed,

00:33:04.750 --> 00:33:07.570
I might get pregnant or get an STD

00:33:07.570 --> 00:33:10.293
and it didn\'t even occur to me that I might enjoy it.

00:33:12.170 --> 00:33:15.142
But in total opposition to those things I also believed

00:33:15.142 --> 00:33:18.256
that the power of sex would bond me so intensely to my

00:33:18.256 --> 00:33:21.573
partner that I should choose very carefully.

00:33:23.160 --> 00:33:25.920
Where did I get the idea that the penis was some kind of

00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:28.763
magic wand that would transform me forever?

00:33:30.540 --> 00:33:32.410
There are two competing narratives:

00:33:32.410 --> 00:33:36.419
the loss of virginity is going to be painful and traumatic

00:33:36.419 --> 00:33:39.620
and that simultaneously this is somehow supposed to be the

00:33:39.620 --> 00:33:42.306
best sex you\'re ever gonna have in your life.

00:33:42.306 --> 00:33:45.100
Call me crazy, but I sense a bit

00:33:45.100 --> 00:33:47.670
of distance between these two concepts.

00:33:47.670 --> 00:33:50.576
- I think a lot of young women who feel like

00:33:50.576 --> 00:33:52.863
they need a man for their sexuality to be ignited

00:33:52.863 --> 00:33:55.810
don\'t see themselves as full human beings

00:33:55.810 --> 00:33:57.520
and sadly that\'s the point,

00:33:57.520 --> 00:33:58.870
that\'s what they\'re supposed to feel.

00:33:58.870 --> 00:34:00.860
- You know, it circles back to that whole mythology

00:34:00.860 --> 00:34:03.052
that, you know, that having sex somehow

00:34:03.052 --> 00:34:06.040
foundationally somehow changes your being

00:34:06.040 --> 00:34:09.050
and that there is that thralldom and that connection,

00:34:09.050 --> 00:34:10.679
that inevitable connection with the

00:34:10.679 --> 00:34:13.632
first person who penetrates your body.

00:34:13.632 --> 00:34:17.520
- [Therese] Isn\'t this just the story of sleeping beauty?

00:34:17.520 --> 00:34:20.139
A passive girl who can\'t become a woman

00:34:20.139 --> 00:34:22.773
until she\'s sexually awakened by the right man.

00:34:24.010 --> 00:34:26.965
- This is a woman, this is a vagina who is also a woman who

00:34:26.965 --> 00:34:31.199
has been necessarily asleep, sexually asleep,

00:34:31.199 --> 00:34:33.529
for her entire existence because how could she not be

00:34:33.529 --> 00:34:36.810
if women can only have proper sexual pleasure by being

00:34:36.810 --> 00:34:39.873
penetrated by a penis then that is the gesture.

00:34:39.873 --> 00:34:44.085
A lot of queer people have been thinking about this

00:34:44.085 --> 00:34:44.918
and talking about this and talking about,

00:34:44.918 --> 00:34:46.150
okay so if you\'re not talking about

00:34:46.150 --> 00:34:48.989
penises and vaginas and potential of reproduction

00:34:48.989 --> 00:34:50.620
and babies and all of this,

00:34:50.620 --> 00:34:52.870
then how do you decide whether

00:34:52.870 --> 00:34:54.940
you\'ve lost your virginity or not?

00:34:54.940 --> 00:34:56.350
- It\'s coming-of-age quick.

00:34:56.350 --> 00:34:58.030
Having girlfriends, having boyfriends,

00:34:58.030 --> 00:35:00.573
just really wasn\'t something that came up.

00:35:00.573 --> 00:35:03.280
I didn\'t wait to have intercourse.

00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:05.430
It was just we\'re doing lots and lots of other things

00:35:05.430 --> 00:35:09.190
for many years and I remember actually when I did go

00:35:09.190 --> 00:35:12.268
ahead and have like penis and vagina sex.

00:35:12.268 --> 00:35:15.210
I kind of made like a little bit of a big deal about it

00:35:15.210 --> 00:35:17.140
because it did seem like you were supposed to make a big

00:35:17.140 --> 00:35:19.070
deal about it and like I told three people,

00:35:19.070 --> 00:35:20.713
but it was kind of,

00:35:20.713 --> 00:35:21.546
it was interesting for about 10 minutes.

00:35:21.546 --> 00:35:23.050
- It\'s gonna be really heteronormative.

00:35:23.050 --> 00:35:25.130
It\'s gonna be really patriarchally oriented

00:35:25.130 --> 00:35:28.260
and there\'s not going to be an alternative schedule

00:35:28.260 --> 00:35:30.834
of losing your virginity because that\'s not what it\'s about.

00:35:30.834 --> 00:35:33.517
- [Therese] My friend Meghan Curry is transgender

00:35:33.517 --> 00:35:35.450
and she began her transition from

00:35:35.450 --> 00:35:38.130
male to female just a few years ago.

00:35:38.130 --> 00:35:40.782
I was curious about how she thinks about virginity loss.

00:35:40.782 --> 00:35:44.010
- I was thinking back to my first time.

00:35:44.010 --> 00:35:46.140
I was 19, I think so was she.

00:35:46.140 --> 00:35:50.780
Probably my most profound moment as a young man,

00:35:50.780 --> 00:35:54.134
my most honest moment as a young man

00:35:54.134 --> 00:35:59.134
was not being able to get comfortable.

00:36:00.700 --> 00:36:03.825
I didn\'t feel as though I lost my virginity that night.

00:36:03.825 --> 00:36:08.365
I always wanted to feel what she was feeling

00:36:08.365 --> 00:36:11.110
and throughout my life I wanted to feel

00:36:11.110 --> 00:36:13.710
what what the women we\'re feeling.

00:36:13.710 --> 00:36:16.950
It\'s been about six years since I was in a sexual

00:36:16.950 --> 00:36:20.220
relationship with someone and I know that it\'s going to be

00:36:20.220 --> 00:36:22.227
completely different when

00:36:22.227 --> 00:36:25.640
I enter into a relationship again.

00:36:25.640 --> 00:36:27.240
I\'m really looking forward to that.

00:36:27.240 --> 00:36:30.050
The operation may not come for another couple of years

00:36:30.950 --> 00:36:35.950
and so what do you do when you\'re a 50-year-old virgin?

00:36:42.340 --> 00:36:45.500
What will virginity look like as a female for me?

00:36:45.500 --> 00:36:47.950
What will my next experience look like?

00:36:47.950 --> 00:36:50.160
What will it be and how it make me feel

00:36:50.160 --> 00:36:53.883
and how will it affect the rest of my life?

00:36:53.883 --> 00:36:58.883
I find now that I am mainly attracted to women

00:37:00.300 --> 00:37:03.010
and that makes me lesbian,

00:37:03.010 --> 00:37:05.736
but you know, there are some that turn my head too.

00:37:05.736 --> 00:37:10.736
I don\'t know, I\'m really confused.

00:37:11.730 --> 00:37:12.880
I\'m probably more confused than

00:37:12.880 --> 00:37:14.530
most people are about the labels.

00:37:16.510 --> 00:37:20.070
I just think that in order to lose

00:37:20.070 --> 00:37:25.070
my virginity I have to be with a man.

00:37:28.390 --> 00:37:33.310
Why is it always about a penis and a vagina?

00:37:33.310 --> 00:37:35.260
And that\'s what\'s disappointing for me.

00:37:38.590 --> 00:37:42.850
I used to think that virginity was about new experiences.

00:37:42.850 --> 00:37:46.540
I used to think that maybe virginity was about love,

00:37:46.540 --> 00:37:49.310
experiencing love as a woman for the first time,

00:37:49.310 --> 00:37:52.070
you know, openly at least, for the first time.

00:37:52.070 --> 00:37:53.901
And who knows, when it comes time,

00:37:53.901 --> 00:37:56.600
maybe I\'ll feel a completely different way

00:37:57.840 --> 00:38:00.080
because I do believe that it\'s possible

00:38:00.080 --> 00:38:02.483
to lose my virginity to a woman.

00:38:03.400 --> 00:38:05.676
You know, I know it\'s not going to

00:38:05.676 --> 00:38:07.560
be living up to my expectations.

00:38:07.560 --> 00:38:09.420
I know I\'ll romanticize it.

00:38:09.420 --> 00:38:13.520
I know that all I\'ll fall into all the traps,

00:38:13.520 --> 00:38:18.503
but I want to know what it feels like.

00:38:21.130 --> 00:38:22.960
- [Therese] Meghan is thinking about her virginity

00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:26.820
in a more complex way and she\'s not the only one.

00:38:26.820 --> 00:38:29.063
- I actually lost my virginity twice.

00:38:30.020 --> 00:38:34.667
I lost it or gave it up (laughs) as a teenager

00:38:35.929 --> 00:38:40.470
and then I was a born-again virgin in my 30s.

00:38:40.470 --> 00:38:43.000
I dated one person my entire 20s,

00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:45.376
afterward I had to again,

00:38:45.376 --> 00:38:48.440
I guess lose or give up my virginity

00:38:48.440 --> 00:38:51.400
because I was new to the whole sexual game.

00:38:51.400 --> 00:38:53.730
I was new to dating.

00:38:53.730 --> 00:38:55.710
I was new to interacting as a

00:38:55.710 --> 00:38:58.430
sexual being with new men and flirting,

00:38:58.430 --> 00:39:03.430
so it was definitely like a born again virgin experience.

00:39:03.440 --> 00:39:06.200
Now, I haven\'t been sexual for a while

00:39:06.200 --> 00:39:09.140
and it\'s because I\'m waiting for the right partner.

00:39:09.140 --> 00:39:12.530
When I do have sex again, yeah, it actually will be

00:39:12.530 --> 00:39:15.470
quote-unquote special and not because harps are gonna play

00:39:15.470 --> 00:39:17.910
or I\'m gonna march out in a white dress or anything,

00:39:17.910 --> 00:39:20.583
but because it\'s not something that\'s part of my everyday

00:39:20.583 --> 00:39:23.100
existence, meaning sex with another person.

00:39:23.100 --> 00:39:24.400
Sex with myself, all the time.

00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:26.397
That\'s a different thing (laughs).

00:40:23.138 --> 00:40:23.971
- [Therese] I thought it was great that these young women

00:40:23.971 --> 00:40:26.380
were speaking so openly about sex,

00:40:26.380 --> 00:40:28.150
but there was one puzzling thing.

00:40:28.150 --> 00:40:30.986
I had spoken to girls there who weren\'t sexually active,

00:40:30.986 --> 00:40:34.140
but they didn\'t share any of that with the group.

00:40:34.140 --> 00:40:37.180
Were they just too embarrassed to admit to being virgins?

00:40:37.180 --> 00:40:39.270
It felt like depending on where I was,

00:40:39.270 --> 00:40:42.200
women were either not supposed to talk about having

00:40:42.200 --> 00:40:46.163
sex or not supposed to talk about not having sex.

00:40:49.720 --> 00:40:53.480
I spent my four years of college as a deeply closeted virgin

00:40:53.480 --> 00:40:56.030
and I was convinced that I was the only virgin

00:40:56.030 --> 00:40:58.310
in any art school anywhere.

00:40:58.310 --> 00:41:00.870
It wasn\'t until I started blogging about virginity a few

00:41:00.870 --> 00:41:02.810
years ago that I realized how many

00:41:02.810 --> 00:41:04.773
people out there felt the same way.

00:41:06.409 --> 00:41:08.520
When are you too old to be still a virgin?

00:41:08.520 --> 00:41:10.530
And if more people were honest about it,

00:41:10.530 --> 00:41:11.953
would it be such a stigma?

00:41:14.040 --> 00:41:16.879
I came across a blog called Confessions of a Virgin

00:41:16.879 --> 00:41:19.970
and got in touch with its anonymous author.

00:41:19.970 --> 00:41:22.930
Happily, she and her boyfriend agreed to come out of the

00:41:22.930 --> 00:41:26.053
virginity closet to talk to me about their relationship.

00:41:27.010 --> 00:41:30.400
- My name is Brita, I\'m 24 years old.

00:41:30.400 --> 00:41:32.570
I currently work as an au pair.

00:41:32.570 --> 00:41:36.848
- I\'m Dan Fleck, 25, and I work as an engineer repairing

00:41:36.848 --> 00:41:40.770
petroleum storage tanks which is pretty exciting.

00:41:40.770 --> 00:41:42.960
- We\'re both on OkCupid.

00:41:42.960 --> 00:41:44.760
- I saw her profile.

00:41:44.760 --> 00:41:47.760
Very obvious that you were intelligent and had good grammar.

00:41:47.760 --> 00:41:51.840
- I think of myself as a technical virgin because I

00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:54.730
haven\'t had the penis in vagina sex.

00:41:54.730 --> 00:41:56.730
- I have participated in a wide range

00:41:56.730 --> 00:41:58.550
of physically pleasing activities,

00:41:58.550 --> 00:42:00.235
but the one that I\'m saving for

00:42:00.235 --> 00:42:04.120
marriage is penis in vagina sex.

00:42:04.120 --> 00:42:05.570
- We have a nerdy sex life.

00:42:05.570 --> 00:42:09.470
- The first time I ever took off a girl\'s panties,

00:42:09.470 --> 00:42:12.420
I may have had Google there to help me find the clitoris.

00:42:12.420 --> 00:42:16.720
I mean, it\'s kind of elusive and a diagram is helpful.

00:42:16.720 --> 00:42:19.008
- Most things I\'ve done have been with Dan.

00:42:19.008 --> 00:42:20.090
- Well you gotta start at first base.

00:42:20.090 --> 00:42:21.750
- Above the waist fun.

00:42:21.750 --> 00:42:23.650
- I really enjoy giving massages.

00:42:23.650 --> 00:42:25.670
- We have been completely naked together.

00:42:25.670 --> 00:42:26.503
- Oral sex.

00:42:26.503 --> 00:42:28.730
- He\'s gone down on me, I\'ve gone down on him.

00:42:28.730 --> 00:42:31.531
We have watched each other masturbate on Skype.

00:42:31.531 --> 00:42:32.800
- Skype sex is wonderful.

00:42:32.800 --> 00:42:35.228
- For a while I was just waiting to be in love,

00:42:35.228 --> 00:42:39.810
but then I decided that I really just wanted to have one

00:42:39.810 --> 00:42:43.153
thing that was only shared with my husband.

00:42:44.150 --> 00:42:46.000
- [Therese] Say if you do get married

00:42:47.336 --> 00:42:48.750
and it\'s your wedding night,

00:42:48.750 --> 00:42:51.079
so tell me, what is it gonna be like?

00:42:51.079 --> 00:42:51.912
What is it gonna mean?

00:42:54.020 --> 00:42:55.150
- I think it\'ll be a special moment.

00:42:55.150 --> 00:42:58.150
It\'ll probably feel, maybe a little bit better.

00:42:58.150 --> 00:43:00.753
I don\'t have any I think unrealistic expectations of

00:43:00.753 --> 00:43:03.290
oh my gosh I\'m gonna stick my penis in the vagina

00:43:03.290 --> 00:43:04.980
and it\'s gonna be glorious.

00:43:04.980 --> 00:43:07.490
- I think it will be really nice

00:43:07.490 --> 00:43:09.230
to actually feel him inside of me.

00:43:09.230 --> 00:43:12.177
We\'ll have that emotional connection like that extra step,

00:43:12.177 --> 00:43:15.100
but I don\'t want it to hurt the first time.

00:43:15.100 --> 00:43:17.370
- I thought we were gonna do the casta-penis kit.

00:43:17.370 --> 00:43:19.530
- Well, we did talk about that.

00:43:19.530 --> 00:43:21.170
- You know, like any scientist,

00:43:21.170 --> 00:43:23.800
you gotta first figure out before if it fits

00:43:23.800 --> 00:43:24.730
before you start going for it.

00:43:24.730 --> 00:43:25.984
- Exactly, so we might how to start

00:43:25.984 --> 00:43:28.907
with a smaller dildo though and work our way up.

00:43:30.050 --> 00:43:31.800
- I\'m okay with that.

00:43:33.020 --> 00:43:36.953
- It took me six years to work up the courage

00:43:36.953 --> 00:43:38.937
to actually go through divorce.

00:43:38.937 --> 00:43:41.370
- [Therese] After Ellen got divorced

00:43:41.370 --> 00:43:43.700
she didn\'t have sex for years.

00:43:43.700 --> 00:43:46.850
Is it true that her first time totally traumatized her

00:43:46.850 --> 00:43:49.590
out of ever wanting to have sex again?

00:43:49.590 --> 00:43:51.350
- The first time I had sex with

00:43:51.350 --> 00:43:52.920
someone other than my husband,

00:43:52.920 --> 00:43:55.350
I fell back in love with sex

00:43:55.350 --> 00:43:57.870
or I fell in love with sex for the first time.

00:43:57.870 --> 00:44:02.870
Like to to know that it can feel good, it was awesome.

00:44:04.370 --> 00:44:08.172
I totally, I remember thinking, saying out loud,

00:44:08.172 --> 00:44:10.640
you know, that I can go the whole rest of my life

00:44:10.640 --> 00:44:11.630
and never have it again

00:44:11.630 --> 00:44:16.630
and to feel that\'s just foolishness made me happy.

00:44:29.354 --> 00:44:32.330
- To be honest, I don\'t think there\'s a number,

00:44:32.330 --> 00:44:34.670
a limit, for guys.

00:44:34.670 --> 00:44:38.620
For females, I can say the most is five.

00:44:38.620 --> 00:44:41.750
- [Therese] So, if the girl has 10 partners, 20 partners?

00:44:41.750 --> 00:44:45.122
- Well, if it\'s like more than like 25,

00:44:45.122 --> 00:44:49.010
then yes, I think it really matters a lot.

00:44:49.010 --> 00:44:51.420
- And if a girl has more than she can count one hand,

00:44:51.420 --> 00:44:55.220
then she\'s a slut, et cetera, et cetera,

00:44:55.220 --> 00:44:57.460
but I think it\'s the same for a guy.

00:44:57.460 --> 00:45:01.120
I would call him a manhole, but...

00:45:01.120 --> 00:45:02.557
- If he\'s like up in the like,

00:45:02.557 --> 00:45:04.930
\"Oh, you know, I slept with 30, 40 women,\"

00:45:04.930 --> 00:45:07.300
it\'s like, okay.

00:45:07.300 --> 00:45:08.738
I think for a woman, I mean,

00:45:08.738 --> 00:45:12.100
I would hope, no, 20,

00:45:12.100 --> 00:45:14.113
but in any sense the less the better.

00:45:19.086 --> 00:45:23.228
- (laughs) I would say,

00:45:23.228 --> 00:45:26.470
I hope your husband doesn\'t know (laughs).

00:45:30.640 --> 00:45:32.400
- I may have been a late bloomer,

00:45:32.400 --> 00:45:35.190
but I\'ve been making up for lost time ever since,

00:45:35.190 --> 00:45:37.543
staying happily single into my 40s.

00:45:39.370 --> 00:45:42.700
But then, to pretty much everyone\'s surprise,

00:45:42.700 --> 00:45:44.236
while I was making this film,

00:45:44.236 --> 00:45:47.730
I fell in love and got engaged to Ed,

00:45:47.730 --> 00:45:51.043
the very man who watched me fail my virginity test.

00:45:52.510 --> 00:45:53.940
Back when I was six,

00:45:53.940 --> 00:45:56.720
I wrote this book called the story of Therese

00:45:56.720 --> 00:45:59.203
in which I gave a lot of thought to my wedding.

00:46:00.690 --> 00:46:03.830
It went into great detail about my future husband

00:46:03.830 --> 00:46:05.703
and my dream wedding dress.

00:46:06.760 --> 00:46:08.910
There\'s a part of me that can\'t resist indulging

00:46:08.910 --> 00:46:10.670
in that six-year-old\'s fantasy of

00:46:10.670 --> 00:46:12.670
what I\'d look like in a big white dress.

00:46:15.570 --> 00:46:17.900
I\'m going to check out David\'s bridal,

00:46:17.900 --> 00:46:19.980
the industry leader and the only place

00:46:19.980 --> 00:46:22.223
that actually stocks dresses in my size.

00:46:23.810 --> 00:46:24.920
Where are the big girl dresses?

00:46:24.920 --> 00:46:26.080
Oh, here they are.

00:46:26.080 --> 00:46:28.930
It\'s clear to me that I\'m not just buying a dress.

00:46:28.930 --> 00:46:32.268
I\'m buying into a whole fantasy where on my wedding day

00:46:32.268 --> 00:46:35.090
I\'m transformed into a princess

00:46:35.090 --> 00:46:38.040
preparing to cross a magical threshold,

00:46:38.040 --> 00:46:42.700
shedding my old life and becoming someone shiny and new,

00:46:42.700 --> 00:46:44.703
like, dare I even say it?

00:46:47.140 --> 00:46:50.053
Oh, my God, hi.

00:46:51.998 --> 00:46:53.848
- It\'s a little weird, I gotta admit.

00:46:58.300 --> 00:47:01.673
- It feels like I\'m contained in some sort of apparatus.

00:47:04.500 --> 00:47:07.023
- I was asking Emma if this makes me look virginal.

00:47:17.540 --> 00:47:19.390
- Why do you think you felt that way?

00:47:27.537 --> 00:47:28.993
- So, do you think that I could fool people?

00:47:32.664 --> 00:47:33.643
- Oh, I don\'t have the look?

00:47:33.643 --> 00:47:34.476
- I have to work on the look?

00:47:36.680 --> 00:47:37.513
Okay.

00:47:39.070 --> 00:47:42.193
So, tell me, does this dress make my ass look innocent?

00:47:48.382 --> 00:47:49.470
I got a little carried away

00:47:49.470 --> 00:47:52.630
and spent the next two hours trying on dresses.

00:47:52.630 --> 00:47:53.883
Then I snapped out of it.

00:47:55.270 --> 00:47:57.930
Why should I even give the illusion of virginity

00:47:57.930 --> 00:48:01.160
and symbolically erase my sexual history?

00:48:01.160 --> 00:48:02.683
Even if it\'s just for a day?

00:48:03.560 --> 00:48:06.230
My sexual history is something good

00:48:06.230 --> 00:48:07.283
I\'m bringing to this marriage.

00:48:09.280 --> 00:48:11.513
So what does this white dress mean?

00:48:12.550 --> 00:48:14.370
To me, it feels like a throwback

00:48:14.370 --> 00:48:16.335
to those historic marriage transactions.

00:48:16.335 --> 00:48:19.030
Just like taking your husband\'s name

00:48:19.030 --> 00:48:20.793
or being given away by your father.

00:48:24.490 --> 00:48:26.490
I left the shop without buying anything.

00:48:29.920 --> 00:48:32.060
No one even wore a white wedding dress

00:48:32.060 --> 00:48:34.463
until Queen Victoria did in 1840.

00:48:35.940 --> 00:48:37.110
Women usually just wore their

00:48:37.110 --> 00:48:38.710
best dresses for their weddings.

00:48:39.550 --> 00:48:40.940
But by the 20th century,

00:48:40.940 --> 00:48:43.363
I guess the symbolism became irresistible.

00:48:44.420 --> 00:48:46.956
Maybe as women became more sexually active,

00:48:46.956 --> 00:48:50.980
they had to go out of their way to emanate chastity

00:48:50.980 --> 00:48:52.030
on their wedding day.

00:48:58.226 --> 00:48:59.810
- Men do expect that you had some sex,

00:48:59.810 --> 00:49:01.210
but they don\'t want to talk about it.

00:49:01.210 --> 00:49:04.564
They kind of still want to have the illusion

00:49:04.564 --> 00:49:07.350
somehow that then you were kind of not a virgin,

00:49:07.350 --> 00:49:10.760
but that you had a kind of a semi-chaste past.

00:49:10.760 --> 00:49:13.110
- With women there\'s this sense that we only have so many

00:49:13.110 --> 00:49:16.210
times we can have sex before we go bad

00:49:16.210 --> 00:49:19.600
and if you use it all up you know in your 20s

00:49:19.600 --> 00:49:20.900
with a bunch of different dudes,

00:49:20.900 --> 00:49:23.550
somehow, you know, if you decide to get married later on,

00:49:23.550 --> 00:49:26.400
your husband is going to run out of supply.

00:49:26.400 --> 00:49:28.475
- [Therese] What happens if you don\'t

00:49:28.475 --> 00:49:29.880
even pretend to be semi-chaste?

00:49:29.880 --> 00:49:31.797
When you talk to your sex life as if you didn\'t know

00:49:31.797 --> 00:49:33.783
it was something to be ashamed of?

00:49:34.990 --> 00:49:36.600
This is Lena Chan.

00:49:36.600 --> 00:49:38.180
She was a sophomore at Harvard

00:49:38.180 --> 00:49:41.340
when she began writing her blog, Sex and The Ivy.

00:49:41.340 --> 00:49:43.870
Her first person accounts of what she calls her college

00:49:43.870 --> 00:49:47.830
sexcapades and misadventures acquired a huge following,

00:49:47.830 --> 00:49:50.970
partly because it described a life many on campus

00:49:50.970 --> 00:49:53.573
were also living, but not talking about.

00:49:55.263 --> 00:49:57.550
- I got a lot of media attention for being apparently the

00:49:57.550 --> 00:49:59.030
only Ivy Leaguer willing to go

00:49:59.030 --> 00:50:01.520
on record about their sex life.

00:50:01.520 --> 00:50:03.970
- [Therese] Lena was invited to debate Janie Fidel

00:50:03.970 --> 00:50:06.430
who was then the president of True Love Revolution,

00:50:06.430 --> 00:50:08.630
Harvard\'s abstinence group.

00:50:08.630 --> 00:50:12.530
For some people, it was literally a virgin horse knock down,

00:50:12.530 --> 00:50:15.370
but the debate actually focused on common ground.

00:50:15.370 --> 00:50:16.780
How they were both being defined

00:50:16.780 --> 00:50:19.540
and judged by their own sexual choices.

00:50:19.540 --> 00:50:22.080
- Actually Lena and I were joking about me like starting

00:50:22.080 --> 00:50:24.000
a blog called Chastity in The Ivy.

00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:26.100
- [Therese] That wasn\'t the way most people saw it though.

00:50:26.100 --> 00:50:29.010
For many, it came down to who would you rather marry,

00:50:29.010 --> 00:50:30.930
the virgin or the whore.

00:50:30.930 --> 00:50:32.690
When the debate was covered by Ivy Gate,

00:50:32.690 --> 00:50:35.280
commenters repeatedly called Lena a whore,

00:50:35.280 --> 00:50:38.230
and a slut, and assured her men would much rather marry

00:50:38.230 --> 00:50:39.860
someone like Janie.

00:50:39.860 --> 00:50:41.791
- I guess there\'s a lot of assumptions involved

00:50:41.791 --> 00:50:45.590
when you encounter someone who is writing about

00:50:45.590 --> 00:50:48.065
sex openly because presumably the only people

00:50:48.065 --> 00:50:50.120
who are willing to do that publicly

00:50:50.120 --> 00:50:53.770
and openly are people who are sexual deviants.

00:50:53.770 --> 00:50:55.080
- [Therese] Soon after that,

00:50:55.080 --> 00:50:59.080
an ex-boyfriend posted explicit sexual photographs of her.

00:50:59.080 --> 00:51:00.400
The images were forwarded

00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:02.260
and re-forwarded all over Harvard and beyond.

00:51:02.260 --> 00:51:05.459
The invasion of privacy was so devastating

00:51:05.459 --> 00:51:07.724
that Lena took a leave of absence.

00:51:07.724 --> 00:51:11.706
Lena was not brought down by all the sex she was having,

00:51:11.706 --> 00:51:14.950
but rather because of the public harassment over it

00:51:14.950 --> 00:51:18.120
carried out by people who felt her openness about her sex

00:51:18.120 --> 00:51:20.033
life made her fair game.

00:51:23.480 --> 00:51:25.883
We\'ve all been someone else\'s idea of a slut.

00:51:27.040 --> 00:51:29.453
Even being abstinent doesn\'t give you immunity.

00:51:30.840 --> 00:51:33.680
A conservative youth group surveyed 1600 men

00:51:33.680 --> 00:51:36.413
about things that they were immodest in a woman.

00:51:38.300 --> 00:51:41.302
93% thought miniskirts were immodest.

00:51:41.302 --> 00:51:45.410
61% said bending over was a problem

00:51:46.840 --> 00:51:50.238
and 48% of guys gave wearing a purse diagonally across

00:51:50.238 --> 00:51:53.873
your chest the thumbs down.

00:51:55.210 --> 00:51:58.770
- A woman doesn\'t have to have sex to be called a slut.

00:51:58.770 --> 00:52:01.440
The only criteria for being called a slut is that one\'s

00:52:01.440 --> 00:52:05.140
sexuality or one\'s perceived sexuality

00:52:05.140 --> 00:52:07.330
is threatening to some onlooker.

00:52:07.330 --> 00:52:10.930
- White guys think that black women are promiscuous

00:52:10.930 --> 00:52:12.350
and that they are assuming that,

00:52:12.350 --> 00:52:16.033
that you then just don\'t wanna be that

00:52:16.033 --> 00:52:20.424
because you feel like they think already that

00:52:20.424 --> 00:52:23.450
I\'m a de facto slut because I\'m a black woman.

00:52:23.450 --> 00:52:26.080
- Sluts sometimes means fucked a lot of people,

00:52:26.080 --> 00:52:29.083
slut sometimes means you had sex that you liked.

00:52:32.180 --> 00:52:34.540
- [Therese] I like to think of Eve as the very first

00:52:34.540 --> 00:52:36.113
woman to be slut-shamed.

00:52:37.010 --> 00:52:39.321
Eve wasn\'t brought down by the forbidden fruit she ate.

00:52:39.321 --> 00:52:42.410
It was the subsequent shame and her loss of innocence

00:52:42.410 --> 00:52:44.070
that was her punishment.

00:52:44.070 --> 00:52:47.250
It was as if God himself had posted her naked photos

00:52:47.250 --> 00:52:50.660
all over the celestial Internet as a lesson

00:52:50.660 --> 00:52:54.220
to every other woman who wouldn\'t follow orders.

00:52:54.220 --> 00:52:56.200
- Well, Eve was a little slutty.

00:52:56.200 --> 00:52:58.670
There\'s the sense that she gave in to temptation,

00:52:58.670 --> 00:53:00.873
so she\'s become this paradigm of sluttiness.

00:53:00.873 --> 00:53:04.590
What she really wanted was to know stuff.

00:53:04.590 --> 00:53:06.250
The woman who wants to know,

00:53:06.250 --> 00:53:09.230
who listens to someone saying here is some knowledge

00:53:09.230 --> 00:53:13.340
and says, \"Oh, knowledge, I would like some of that please,\"

00:53:13.340 --> 00:53:17.328
is the slut and obviously the Virgin Mary is the lady who

00:53:17.328 --> 00:53:21.130
sits there and she\'s very good.

00:53:21.130 --> 00:53:24.390
Mary is the most powerful virgin of all.

00:53:24.390 --> 00:53:26.110
She\'s a virgin rock star,

00:53:26.110 --> 00:53:28.023
loved and worshiped the world over.

00:53:29.516 --> 00:53:32.240
The submissive and obedient Mary

00:53:32.240 --> 00:53:35.100
was a corrective to the unruly eve

00:53:35.100 --> 00:53:37.640
and that tension between them continues to influence

00:53:37.640 --> 00:53:40.573
attitudes about female sexuality to this day.

00:53:42.270 --> 00:53:44.620
The virgin-whore dichotomy classifies

00:53:44.620 --> 00:53:47.931
all women into two totally distinct groups

00:53:47.931 --> 00:53:52.523
ragingly promiscuous or completely pure.

00:53:53.970 --> 00:53:55.590
It\'s like the game people play,

00:53:55.590 --> 00:54:00.240
like Betty versus Veronica or Ginger versus Marianne

00:54:00.240 --> 00:54:03.591
or even Taylor Swift versus Taylor Swift

00:54:03.591 --> 00:54:06.343
playing both sides in the very same video.

00:54:07.340 --> 00:54:08.930
And who gets the guy?

00:54:08.930 --> 00:54:11.333
Why, virgin Taylor Swift, of course.

00:54:13.413 --> 00:54:15.060
- It\'s kind of a double edged sword isn\'t it?

00:54:15.060 --> 00:54:15.893
- What?

00:54:17.478 --> 00:54:19.987
- Well, if you say you haven\'t, you\'re a prude.

00:54:19.987 --> 00:54:21.737
If you say you have, you\'re a slut.

00:54:22.660 --> 00:54:24.200
It\'s a trap.

00:54:24.200 --> 00:54:26.320
- [Therese] The idea virgin-whore fantasy

00:54:26.320 --> 00:54:28.210
is a two-for-one proposition,

00:54:28.210 --> 00:54:31.760
to be slutty and innocent at the same time.

00:54:31.760 --> 00:54:34.550
It\'s an unattainable mixed message bonanza

00:54:34.550 --> 00:54:36.850
that continues to sell everything from good old

00:54:36.850 --> 00:54:38.733
abstinence to pop stars.

00:54:40.151 --> 00:54:43.737
- I think that the perfect example of

00:54:43.737 --> 00:54:44.940
\"Be sexy, but don\'t have sex\"

00:54:44.940 --> 00:54:47.990
is someone like a Britney Spears who, you know,

00:54:47.990 --> 00:54:50.497
everyone loved when she was the,

00:54:50.497 --> 00:54:53.880
\"Hit My Baby One More Time\" in the schoolgirl outfit

00:54:53.880 --> 00:54:55.940
and she was like the virginal little girl that everyone

00:54:55.940 --> 00:54:58.150
could obsess over and think was very sexy,

00:54:58.150 --> 00:55:00.310
but once she became more of a woman

00:55:00.310 --> 00:55:03.260
and had kids, then all of a sudden she was hated

00:55:03.260 --> 00:55:04.930
and really vilified in the media.

00:55:04.930 --> 00:55:07.610
All of that kind of like pop sexuality, I think,

00:55:07.610 --> 00:55:10.200
is very much packaged in girlhood

00:55:10.200 --> 00:55:11.880
and I think a lot of the porn culture is

00:55:11.880 --> 00:55:13.220
very much packaged in girlhood.

00:55:13.220 --> 00:55:15.950
You know, the ideal woman is not really a woman,

00:55:15.950 --> 00:55:17.920
she\'s a teenaged girl.

00:55:17.920 --> 00:55:20.400
- [Therese] I didn\'t have to look very far to see this idea

00:55:20.400 --> 00:55:25.300
taken to its logical and lucrative extreme, virginity porn.

00:55:25.300 --> 00:55:28.047
This multibillion-dollar industry includes titles like

00:55:28.047 --> 00:55:30.560
\"Pigtail Puppets,\" \"Virgin Cheerleaders,\"

00:55:30.560 --> 00:55:32.340
and \"First Timers.\"

00:55:32.340 --> 00:55:35.130
So, I hopped on a Virgin Airlines flight to Los Angeles

00:55:35.130 --> 00:55:38.620
to visit the genre\'s leader, Barely Legal.

00:55:38.620 --> 00:55:39.973
I don\'t even know what to expect.

00:55:39.973 --> 00:55:42.265
This is my first porn set.

00:55:42.265 --> 00:55:43.990
This is the first of their two day

00:55:43.990 --> 00:55:47.160
shoot for Barely Legal 82.

00:55:47.160 --> 00:55:49.940
I\'m told that even if we haven\'t seen, one through 81,

00:55:49.940 --> 00:55:51.800
we\'ll still be able to follow the plot which is good.

00:55:51.800 --> 00:55:56.800
This is Erica McLean, Barely Legal\'s director and producer.

00:56:00.100 --> 00:56:02.313
- I mark down what I\'m gonna do,

00:56:02.313 --> 00:56:03.490
these are the people who I\'m gonna use today.

00:56:03.490 --> 00:56:05.462
If they look young,

00:56:05.462 --> 00:56:07.210
then it\'s okay because it represents the first time.

00:56:07.210 --> 00:56:09.240
As long as we keep them really clean looking.

00:56:09.240 --> 00:56:11.910
I think anywhere from 18 to 21.

00:56:11.910 --> 00:56:13.821
- Okay, that looks nice.

00:56:13.821 --> 00:56:14.892
- It\'s a little big.

00:56:14.892 --> 00:56:17.137
- It\'s gonna be coming off anyway, so.

00:56:17.137 --> 00:56:22.137
- These are the famous Barely Legal white panties.

00:56:22.170 --> 00:56:23.889
It is our signature.

00:56:23.889 --> 00:56:26.214
- [Man] We\'re all required to wear them.

00:56:26.214 --> 00:56:27.566
We\'re all required to wear the white panties.

00:56:27.566 --> 00:56:29.870
(man laughs)

00:56:29.870 --> 00:56:32.119
- If you work here at Barely Legal,

00:56:32.119 --> 00:56:33.127
you have to have the white panties.

00:56:33.127 --> 00:56:34.316
- What does it mean?

00:56:34.316 --> 00:56:36.082
Tell me what the white panties mean.

00:56:36.082 --> 00:56:37.960
- It\'s kind of that fetishy, kind of kinky thing

00:56:37.960 --> 00:56:40.940
where it\'s that pure image, young.

00:56:40.940 --> 00:56:41.840
- And turn around.

00:56:43.560 --> 00:56:45.610
- Cute, I like these, I think.

00:56:45.610 --> 00:56:48.623
And they\'re the full bottoms because again,

00:56:49.704 --> 00:56:51.990
that kind of plays into a little bit of that fetishy thing.

00:56:51.990 --> 00:56:54.840
- We\'re going to do the scene with Lee\'s car.

00:56:54.840 --> 00:56:59.840
It\'ll be just like where you\'re just parked underneath

00:57:00.020 --> 00:57:00.960
where he gave you a lift,

00:57:00.960 --> 00:57:03.863
so thanks for picking me up after school

00:57:03.863 --> 00:57:06.420
and, \"Oh, yeah, sure.\"

00:57:06.420 --> 00:57:09.068
- Right up on the bumper there, you know, like that.

00:57:09.068 --> 00:57:11.560
- If you find the backpacks in your way,

00:57:11.560 --> 00:57:13.410
you can drop it at anytime, alright.

00:57:13.410 --> 00:57:15.610
- No, no, no, I like the backpack, it\'s hot.

00:57:17.181 --> 00:57:18.014
- It\'s padding.

00:57:18.014 --> 00:57:19.997
- So, we can do that, we can do that.

00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:21.833
- Perfect.

00:57:23.130 --> 00:57:27.259
- Okay, do we have the blue basket on set? Okay, cool.

00:57:27.259 --> 00:57:32.259
- It\'s about the girl\'s first memorable time,

00:57:33.830 --> 00:57:35.460
you know remembering your first

00:57:35.460 --> 00:57:37.748
memorable fuck is how I call it.

00:57:37.748 --> 00:57:39.189
Because maybe you had sex,

00:57:39.189 --> 00:57:44.189
it\'s the first time, maybe the first time wasn\'t good,

00:57:44.550 --> 00:57:49.430
but the first memorable time when you actually were young

00:57:49.430 --> 00:57:52.470
and you actually enjoyed it, you actually liked the person.

00:57:52.470 --> 00:57:54.210
- [Therese] Barely Legal\'s mission statement

00:57:54.210 --> 00:57:58.150
made me curious about Erica\'s own first-time story.

00:57:58.150 --> 00:58:00.202
- I had a boyfriend for like six months.

00:58:00.202 --> 00:58:02.952
We just loved each other and we just kissed and held hands

00:58:02.952 --> 00:58:05.855
and then this guy who was a friend of his

00:58:05.855 --> 00:58:10.190
was on the wrestling team and he thought that I had been

00:58:10.190 --> 00:58:12.270
having sex with him and I was still a virgin

00:58:12.270 --> 00:58:14.270
and what he did is he tackled me down

00:58:14.270 --> 00:58:15.920
and he goes, oh, my God, you are a virgin

00:58:15.920 --> 00:58:17.610
and it wasn\'t as if I was, you know,

00:58:17.610 --> 00:58:19.840
wear like low cut things or whatever, whatever.

00:58:19.840 --> 00:58:22.190
It was just that, you know,

00:58:22.190 --> 00:58:24.660
he just thought that I had sex

00:58:24.660 --> 00:58:26.987
with my boyfriend and I didn\'t.

00:58:28.410 --> 00:58:30.480
13 years old, that was my,

00:58:30.480 --> 00:58:32.730
yeah, my first experience was not a good one.

00:58:37.070 --> 00:58:38.330
- [Therese] Through Barely Legal,

00:58:38.330 --> 00:58:41.090
Erica seems to have found a profitable way to rescript the

00:58:41.090 --> 00:58:43.576
first time into something much more enjoyable

00:58:43.576 --> 00:58:47.183
and she\'s doing it over and over again.

00:58:49.630 --> 00:58:52.930
The virgin marketplace isn\'t just selling porn fantasies.

00:58:52.930 --> 00:58:55.049
It\'s offering real bodies as well.

00:58:55.049 --> 00:58:58.330
Women all over the world have put their virginity

00:58:58.330 --> 00:59:01.470
up for auction to anyone with the money to buy it.

00:59:01.470 --> 00:59:02.350
- When I heard this,

00:59:02.350 --> 00:59:04.590
I immediately thought this is

00:59:05.479 --> 00:59:06.840
illegal because it\'s prostitution.

00:59:06.840 --> 00:59:09.670
- No, see, that\'s where I contacted Mr. Hoff of the

00:59:09.670 --> 00:59:13.210
Bunny Ranch and that\'s the only legalized way to do it.

00:59:13.210 --> 00:59:16.120
- [Therese] A 22-year-old American named Natalie Dylan

00:59:16.120 --> 00:59:19.800
put her virginity up for auction to pay for college tuition.

00:59:19.800 --> 00:59:23.030
Helped by publicity from Howard Stern and the Bunny Ranch,

00:59:23.030 --> 00:59:26.470
the bidding hit $3.7 million.

00:59:26.470 --> 00:59:28.606
- But look how you look, you look sexy.

00:59:28.606 --> 00:59:29.439
- Look at you, Tyra.

00:59:29.439 --> 00:59:31.780
- But you do, I mean, you don\'t look like a virgin.

00:59:31.780 --> 00:59:33.040
- [Therese] In the end, the winning

00:59:33.040 --> 00:59:34.820
gentleman was forced to pull out

00:59:34.820 --> 00:59:37.530
by his understandably angry wife.

00:59:37.530 --> 00:59:41.043
But Natalie still made $250,000.

00:59:43.210 --> 00:59:46.910
Meanwhile, in the UK, a guy paid 18-year-old Rosie Reid

00:59:46.910 --> 00:59:49.985
about $15,000 to be the first man to put his penis

00:59:49.985 --> 00:59:52.780
inside her vagina.

00:59:52.780 --> 00:59:56.560
He bought into the power of his devirginizing magic wand

00:59:56.560 --> 00:59:58.979
despite the fact that Rosie was a sexually active

00:59:58.979 --> 01:00:01.773
lesbian in a long-term relationship.

01:00:03.710 --> 01:00:06.160
When I set out to understand why virginity

01:00:06.160 --> 01:00:08.730
still has so much value I didn\'t

01:00:08.730 --> 01:00:11.860
expect it to still be so transactional.

01:00:11.860 --> 01:00:16.300
The virginity industries sell porn, purity, white weddings,

01:00:16.300 --> 01:00:19.300
and Hollywood fairy tales by exploiting a powerful

01:00:19.300 --> 01:00:23.930
and artificial fantasy before and after.

01:00:23.930 --> 01:00:27.760
One single event that changes a woman\'s value for ever

01:00:28.850 --> 01:00:31.933
and that fantasy has controlled our lives long enough.

01:00:33.950 --> 01:00:36.880
What if we thought about virginity in a different way?

01:00:36.880 --> 01:00:40.610
Like a sexual debut or maybe a series of first times

01:00:40.610 --> 01:00:43.060
that make up our sexual history?

01:00:43.060 --> 01:00:45.640
What if we all really did have V-Cards,

01:00:45.640 --> 01:00:48.643
but instead of them being swiped once and given away,

01:00:48.643 --> 01:00:50.937
we got to use them again and again?

01:00:50.937 --> 01:00:55.937
What if all we had to lose were our virginity myths?

01:00:55.968 --> 01:00:59.690
The first guy that I had sex with

01:00:59.690 --> 01:01:01.524
only lasted one more date which is fine.

01:01:01.524 --> 01:01:05.073
I\'ve had a lot more pleasurable experiences since then

01:01:05.073 --> 01:01:06.786
and all that experience helped

01:01:06.786 --> 01:01:10.183
me figure out exactly what I want now.

01:01:13.766 --> 01:01:17.520
Ed and I got married on a sunny day in my sister\'s garden.

01:01:18.410 --> 01:01:20.110
I chose a green and black dress

01:01:20.110 --> 01:01:22.470
with a big red flower in my hair.

01:01:22.470 --> 01:01:23.763
The groom wore brown.

01:01:26.510 --> 01:01:29.160
Ed and I walked hand-in-hand down the aisle together.

01:01:31.590 --> 01:01:33.433
And nothing was given away.

01:01:35.502 --> 01:01:38.085
(crowd cheers)

01:01:41.690 --> 01:01:44.980
My wedding day was really important to me,

01:01:44.980 --> 01:01:47.670
but getting married isn\'t the end of my story

01:01:47.670 --> 01:01:50.960
anymore than losing my virginity was the beginning of it.

01:01:50.960 --> 01:01:52.850
- It\'s as much of a benefit,

01:01:52.850 --> 01:01:54.792
I think sometimes to have had partners before

01:01:54.792 --> 01:01:57.790
as it is to have had job experience before you have a job.

01:01:57.790 --> 01:01:59.490
You have had things you\'ve learned,

01:01:59.490 --> 01:02:01.470
places you know you kinda screwed up a little.

01:02:01.470 --> 01:02:03.360
You\'ve refined your communication skills

01:02:03.360 --> 01:02:05.000
which is kind of the biggest thing with sex.

01:02:05.000 --> 01:02:10.000
- We\'ve let myths and ideologies gain control of our

01:02:11.234 --> 01:02:14.980
thinking about sex rather than making it scientifically

01:02:14.980 --> 01:02:17.360
based and age-appropriate.

01:02:17.360 --> 01:02:19.610
I think that\'s something we\'ve got to get back.

01:02:19.610 --> 01:02:23.238
- You\'re going to have sex, hopefully, I hope for you,

01:02:23.238 --> 01:02:28.020
in the way that is most pleasurable

01:02:28.020 --> 01:02:30.100
and most fulfilling for you at the time

01:02:30.100 --> 01:02:31.980
which might not look like anything

01:02:31.980 --> 01:02:34.150
that any of your friends are doing.

01:02:34.150 --> 01:02:36.010
- There\'s gonna be a lot of like trial and error.

01:02:36.010 --> 01:02:38.217
Be like, \"Are you sure you just don\'t wanna watch TV?

01:02:38.217 --> 01:02:39.050
\"Are you sure?

01:02:39.050 --> 01:02:43.310
\"The CSI marathon (laughs) I\'m sure that\'s gonna be good.\"

01:02:43.310 --> 01:02:45.230
We\'ll see what happens, we\'ll see what happens.

01:02:45.230 --> 01:02:47.333
I\'ll keep you posted, in the know.

01:02:47.333 --> 01:02:50.288
Therese, I\'m having sex right now, call you in 20 minutes.

01:02:50.288 --> 01:02:51.430
(Therese laughs)

01:02:51.430 --> 01:02:53.080
I mean, more like seven (laughs).

01:03:01.330 --> 01:03:03.660
- Sex in The Ivy was a personal project

01:03:03.660 --> 01:03:05.550
that kind of taken on a life of its own

01:03:05.550 --> 01:03:08.350
and I wanted to use some of that energy

01:03:08.350 --> 01:03:11.433
to combat sex negative discourse.

01:03:13.160 --> 01:03:17.160
This conference is really allowed me to challenge

01:03:17.160 --> 01:03:18.910
the way we form our sexual ethics.

01:03:18.910 --> 01:03:21.430
- Most of the women that I know are neither virgins

01:03:21.430 --> 01:03:25.883
nor whores, there\'s a whole rich stream of possibilities.

01:03:37.100 --> 01:03:38.420
- I\'m a very passionate person.

01:03:38.420 --> 01:03:40.510
If I am to have a relationship,

01:03:40.510 --> 01:03:43.330
it would be so that eventually I would be married.

01:03:43.330 --> 01:03:46.057
We would be two that come together and be one.

01:03:58.030 --> 01:04:00.960
- It\'s like a perpetual spring for me, you know?

01:04:00.960 --> 01:04:03.423
I\'m curious about so many things.

01:04:08.440 --> 01:04:11.542
- It\'s funny to think about the church I grew up in.

01:04:11.542 --> 01:04:13.280
I\'m pretty sure none of those people were virgins

01:04:13.280 --> 01:04:15.400
when they got married, if you wanna be honest.

01:04:15.400 --> 01:04:19.320
It\'s almost as if my generation is the virginity generation.

01:04:29.802 --> 01:04:32.385
(upbeat music)