A Virgina Monologue

Benedicamus Domino!

I'm going to talk in this post about something I've not discussed in this particular outlet for my ponderings, maunderings and other pithy and not-so-pithy pontifications, and that is: (drum-roll please!) sex, or rather my singular non-obsession with sex. There are times in this world when I truly feel as though I am the ice-queen extraordinaire. Oh, I know otherwise, but when faced with the plethora of ads, shows, songs, movies and books (fifty shades, anyone?) available today, I feel as though I must be somehow damaged or incomplete or something. This is what our culture's obsession with sex often makes me feel like. I am thirty-four years old, and though I have some acquaintance with sexual intimacy, I am, in the classical sense, a virgin. Yep, that's right, a virgin! I simply don't long for that kind of satisfaction, or well, not very often. Why this is I really don't know, but in my better moments, I know that I am not missing something or incomplete, but we women are supposed, in these days, to embrace our sexuality, and there are times when I feel that we are told to do this as a way to fulfil our lives, as if a mere function of the body might be the answer to all our stresses, anxieties, depressions and problems. Oh, I know that responsible educators and such on this subject do not truly think that way, but if you look at what popular culture has done to sex, it has actually cheapened it while supposedly trying to free it from the chains of what are perceived as outmoded and unnecessary institutions such as marriage.

Yes, I am writing rather bitterly about all this, because I do feel bitter about it. I feel bitter about feeling excluded because I have not yet been "fully awakened" in that area. I am somehow still a young girl because of it, as though sexual intercourse is simply a right of passage. I can only imagine how young girls and boys feel! In my time as a teenager, it was less carnivorous an activity, this sexual thing. Now, it seems that "hooking up" is equivalent to proving yourself as a fully-functional teenager! It's equal to what used to be symbolized by a first real kiss, I suppose. Perhaps it has always been this way, but something has changed in the last twenty years I think. Everything has gone faster and farther! To me, sexual intercourse should symbolize the reaching of something, the capstone on the building of a beautiful relationship. It should be about safety, about trust, about mutual consent! I'm not a prude! I don't think sex in itself is dirty or shameful. I just refuse to cheapen it. I refuse to taste its pleasures without sincerity. I have been fortunate to experience some aspects of it, and I do not imagine that I will build it into some unattainably perfect fantasy, but I know in my heart that though I'm thirty-four and have bucked against some nebulous social script or other, I know that when I at last enter into a truly sexual relationship with someone, it will be because we both want it and we both trust each other.

I know that we are meant to feel pleasure. We were made that way, so the idea that pleasure in sex is somehow sin is just preposterous. However, should this be a substitute for a real emotional and mental connection? That, I think would be the sin. If we use the emotions and physical pleasures we feel during sex as a foundation on which to base a relationship, it cannot help but wax and wane, and inevitably, the waning would win. This is what I've always believed. We are reasoning beings, and since we are, we cannot simply cavort like animals. We owe it to ourselves to bring all our faculties to bear on all aspects of our lives. I know that this is difficult, but I think it can be done. Of course, even animals have their seasons and times. This is an interesting thing to contemplate.

So, though there are times when I feel lonely and excluded by being a virgin in her mid-thirties, I know that I have chosen this way of life for a reason. It is my way of negotiating the paths of life in the best way I can. I'm sure it's not right for everyone, but it's been right for me, though it too shall pass, and another right thing will come, and I will move into another phase of my life as a woman and a human being. May God bring all things in His hands to perfection!

Deo Gratias!