Virgin Myths: Virgins Can't Kiss

Cherry graphic via

Today's myth is a little bit different. It has been implied to me in multiple variations, but never as blatantly or as explicitly as Myths One, Two, and Three.

Myth Number Four: Virgins are bad kissers/ Nonvirgins are better kissers/ Good kissers must be nonvirgins/ Etc

I have been told, on more than one occasion, “You don't kiss like a virgin.”

I'm never exactly sure how to respond to that. On the one hand, I know he means it as a compliment, so I'm flattered. Who doesn't want to impress their hook-ups with their awesome kissing skills? On the other hand...

What the fuck does he mean by that?! I don't kiss like a virgin? Okay. Tell me how a virgin kisses. Timidly? Close-mouthed? Not at all? I don't understand how a virgin and nonvirgin kiss all that differently.

You gotta learn to walk before you can run, right? Well, it's the same thing with kissing and sex. Ideally, you perfect your kissing skills before you move on to your sexual prowess. So, no, I haven't had sex yet, but yes, I mastered kissing years ago.

In fact, I'm a virgin who's a better kisser than several of the nonvirgins with whom I've hooked up. I've made out with some guys who I know have slept with many girls, and when we've been done kissing, the main thought running through my head has been, “How the hell did you get so many girls into bed with you?”

They were probably insecure. Or drunk. But that's another post for another day.

Moral of the story. Kissing is a skill just like any other. Some people are naturally good at it. Like me.* ;) Some people need more practice. Everyone can improve with practice and patient, loving feedback. But just because I don't enjoy running doesn't mean I can't comfortably spend hours walking and exploring Paris/London/Vienna/etc.

MYTH POPPED!

*I'm not being immodest. Remember my first kiss? He was also my best friend. If my first kiss had been with someone else, naturally, I would have told him. About halfway through our make out session, he stopped and looked at me, with a slightly accusatory look on his face. “I'm not your first kiss, am I,” he said, sounding hurt. It took me several minutes to convince him that he was.

Who I Am: A Story in 10 Parts

Y'all remember that “25 Things” meme that was going around facebook a few years back? You had to write out 25 random things about you and then tag 25 people in your note?

I've decided to do that tonight, albeit an abbreviated version. Although ultimately, all my posts come back to sex/abstinence, not all future subjects will relate so obviously. By sharing with y'all 10 things about me, you'll have a better idea of who I am, why this blog is important to me, and where my ideas are coming from.

Without further ado, and in no particular order, 10 things.

1. I am in my 20s, and I have never been in love. I have never had a boyfriend. Before meeting man friend, I had never even come close to having a boyfriend, although I had had a handful of complicated liaisons. Most people discover this about me, and they are shocked. I am always torn between feeling flattered and insulted. I'm glad that you think I'm awesome enough that you think guys should be throwing themselves at me... but I'm not totally okay with the fact that you feel as though there's something wrong with still being single at my age. Because I don't. I think it means I'm discerning, not that I'm undesirable.

Edit 10/23/2011: As of 10/16/2011, I have had a boyfriend. Man friend officially leveled up. :) 

Edit 01/28/2012: I meant to adjust this earlier. The boyfriend & I first said "I love you" on Thanksgiving 2011.

2. My religious and spiritual beliefs are complicated. I am certain of very few things when it comes to God. One, I believe in an Ultimate Being, my Creator, who I call God, who made me and loves me. Two, I believe God is beyond gender or sex, and we only refer to God with masculine pronouns because of the patriarchal time period in which the Bible was written. Personally, I use feminine pronouns with God because the English language lacks a gender-neutral pronoun worthy of Her. Three, I believe Jesus is the Son of God, He came to Earth to teach us about love, and He died for our sins so that we may one day ascend into heaven.

Beyond that, I have no idea. I feel as though all religions have truth to them. I think the ultimate religion is to love. I think we have to figure out our own moral compasses and abide by our own consciences. What's okay for me might not be okay for you and vice versa. I think it's hypocritical to judge anyone for their actions. What I'm about to say really won't sit well with conservative Christians, but I don't think that Jesus is the only way to heaven. I think accepting Him as your savior is the only surefire way to heaven, but not necessarily the only path available to us. I feel as though I learn just as much about religion and spirituality when I read Susan Cooper, C.S. Lewis, and Madelaine L'Engle as when I read the Bible... if not more. I am constantly seeking what is True, what is Beautiful, what is Good. When I die and meet my Maker, I am confident that I will be able to say I did my best in this life. I faltered, I stumbled, I made mistakes, but I tried, I learned, and most importantly, I loved.

3. As part of my complicated religious and spiritual beliefs, I don't believe that premarital sex is a sin. I have studied the Bible, although I have yet to read it cover-to-cover, and nowhere in the Bible does it state that sex before marriage is a sin. That guideline is an extrapolation from other verses about not committing adultery and not having lust in your heart. Frankly, for most of history the Church didn't care if men had sex. A woman's virginity was valued less for biblical reasons and more because she was property. My choosing to save myself for marriage has nothing to do with my religious beliefs and everything to do with my personal desire to save my virginity as a gift for my husband.

4. Words are important to me. I know I tweet about Words With Friends and Scrabble constantly, but my love of words is more than that. I want to paint you a picture with my words. I want you to see what I see, to feel what I feel.

Names are important to me. Naming something gives it power, gives it significance. I love my name. I wish I could share it with y'all, but frequent google searches indicate that I am one of three people in this country, possibly the world, with the combination of my first and last name. Any modicum of anonymity I have left would be smashed to smithereens. My name is beautiful. My first name is for my maternal grandmother, my middle name is for my paternal grandmother, and my last name is my father's. When I get married one day, I want to keep my last name. Not only that, but I want my first daughter to take both my first and last name. (Don't worry; I already have an equally beautiful nickname picked out for her so that she can maintain her individuality). Some people think I'm crazy when I say this... but if a man were to say the same thing about his first son, would your reaction be the same? Or completely supportive?

5. Homosexuality is not a sin. Love is love and should never be sullied by hate. If you adamantly disagree with me, fine, I probably won't change your mind. This topic will be its own post one day, so I'll leave you just with this. If you believe homosexuality is a sin, you ought to believe premarital sex is a sin. Odds are, you're engaging in that, so who are you to judge the LGBTQ community?

6. I'm incredibly comfortable with my body and will display it without thinking twice. Sometimes I wish we could all go back to Eden (which I recognize as a creation metaphor, but go with me here) and walk around the garden, naked and unashamed. My body is beautiful, and I don't mind it being appreciated. I do believe there is a difference between appreciation and objectification. I realize that I can't control men's thoughts or actions towards me, but I don't think it's my responsibility to hide who I am to make their lives easier.

My body isn't perfect. I have stretch marks from childhood, one of the few outward signs of Crohn's disease and the weight gain that was beyond my control... and a much better option than slowly starving to death. My stomach has always been curved, even when I was grossly underweight and even when I was in amazing shape. I wear glasses and refuse to even consider contacts. My nose is slightly off-center.

But I've embraced my body. I've embraced my imperfections. I think I'm beautiful because of my flaws, not in spite of them.

7. May 5, 2011 changed my life forever. That was the first time I ever admitted my last deep, dark secret to one of my best friends. I finally openly accepted who I was inside, and the next few days were some of the best, most free days of my life. But the rest of the summer was spent in tears as I tried to figure out how to come to terms with who I am. Because I can't go back to the scared little girl I was before, the one who always felt on the outside of things, the one who used her sweet and innocent facade to survive southern conservatism, the one who could only embrace the socially-acceptable aspects of her incredibly complex personality.

Eleven people know now. Eight of my best friends, one of their boyfriends who's like a brother to me, Ron, and man friend. Careful readers may have figured it out already. ;) I'll probably tell y'all about it... eventually. Another reason why I had to start a separate, anonymous blog/twitter/email. I don't think most of my friends and family will accept me anymore. Sure, they'll still love me, but they'll never look at me the same way again. And that thought kills me inside, daily, as it has for seven years now.

Edit 08/30/2012: As of 07/29/2012, I finally admitted to my blog readers and twitter followers that I'm bisexual. It feels incredibly freeing to write this. I just wish I could tell my family and my friends at home as easily as I told the Internet.

8. I want to make a difference in the world. I want to help people. I want to know that I matter. I want to make people happy. I want to bring a smile to someone's face. I want to inspire, to educate, to lead by example. I know this blog only garners a tiny bit of traffic, but that's okay. If I can reach out to just one person, then I've made a difference. And that will bring a smile to my face.

9. I strongly believe in the five languages of love: gift-giving, words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, and acts of service. For example, I'm words of affirmation, and my college roommate is gift-giving. It's important to learn not just your own, but also the language of the people you love. More on this later.

10. I have grown way too attached to my followers on twitter, although this shouldn't be a surprise. I've had another blog for years, since high school, in fact, and I've developed genuine relationships with people I've 'met' there. Some of them I have had the pleasure of meeting in real life, and, because it truly is a small world, I now live just a few towns over from one of them!

So maybe it sounds crazy or cheesy or insincere, but I've actually come to care about the people with whom I interact on twitter. I like reading y'all's tweets. I love reading y'all's blogs. I'm curious to learn more about y'all.

There you are. 10 things about me. All the cards on the table. I can handle being a walking oxymoron. The question is:

Can you?

Open for Business

Confession.

I started taking birth control last week. And, of course, my nine-year-old discovered it yesterday when he came with me to my room to grab my new Glee CDs.

Sam*: (picks up my birth control) What's this medicine for?

Me: (trying not to panic visibly) Uhhh, it's something I have to take every day.

Sam: (puts it down without reading the label) Why do you have to take it every day?

Me: (looks wildly around) I take a lot of medicine every day. I take this, this, and this every day too. (points to Pentasa, calcium supplements, and Omega-3 capsules) This when I have a cold, and this when I have a headache. (points to Dayquil, Nyquil, and Tylenol)

Sam: Wow, you take a lot of medicine! How come?

Me: (relaxes) I have Crohn's Disease. I have to take medicine not to be sick.

This is why I shouldn't let my kids in my room. That, and the fact that I insist they keep their rooms clean while I have a pile of laundry in my desk chair, stacks of books on the floor, half-unpacked shopping bags on the floor, and seven pairs of shoes scattered about the room. Hypocritical much?

But, yeah, you're probably thinking that the real hypocrisy is the virgin on birth control. If I'm not planning on having sex, why do I need to be taking even more drugs?

Virgin Myths: Male Virgins are Conservative

Cherries graphic via

I realize that at this point, you probably think I'm, like, the Goddess of Virginity and the Sophia of Abstinence. I understand your misconception (I am an awesome writer, let's be honest, of some pretty sexy and controversial topics), and I'm flattered, really, I am. But it pains me to admit that with all my experience in not having sex, I too have fallen victim to stereotyping virgins. Specifically, virgins of the male variety.

Myth Number Three: Men who save themselves for marriage have other conservative ideas about gender roles.

Out of the fifteen guys (and four girls) I've French-kissed, thirteen were definitely nonvirgins, three were probably nonvirgins, two could have been nonvirgins or virgins, and only one was definitely a virgin.

This in and of itself doesn't mean anything except to indicate the rarity of virgins in their 20s. I'm special and sparkly, like a unicorn, and I'm totally okay with that. ;) But because of this, I also came to accept years ago that it's unrealistic of me to expect to marry another virgin one day. Obviously that would be AWESOME, but I'm looking at pretty slim pickin's if virginity is a non-negotiable for me in a future spouse.

I also (wrongly) assumed that if I were to end up with another virgin, he would be an ultra-conservative, head-of-household, wives submit to your husbands kind of guy. If you haven't figured out by now that I'm a bit of a feminist the way Katy Perry is a bit sexy and J.K. Rowling is a bit of a writer, well, news flash, I am. Don't get me wrong; I'm all about putting other people first, but in a relationship, I want a partnership, not a benevolent monarchy. Based on my undergrad interactions with fellow virgins, most of whom I knew from my on-campus church group, I drew the conclusion that men who saved themselves for marriage also had other traditional views on marriage. Views that would never sit well with me.

Sidenote: This is the origin of stereotypes and generalizations. We take our personal observations about a small sample of a larger group of people and assume that everyone in that group shares characteristics with the small sample. It is very easy to fall into this trap, but very important to avoid it if at all possible.

So. All that said, part of me has always thought I would end up with a nonvirgin because that would be my only chance of marrying a man who would be okay with me keeping my last name and us co-leading our family.

Then I kissed the only definite virgin out of nineteen.

And my entire perspective changed.

Because he's not saving himself for religious reasons either. Because he likes how fiercely independent I am. Because he bought me dinner, but then didn't say a word when I bought our drinks later in the evening.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't the only one setting the pace whilst making out. Don't get me wrong, I've (mostly) made out with gentlemen who didn't push me to go any further than I wanted, and I greatly appreciated their respect for me. But I discovered that it's so much better when I share that with a man. When we have a mutual understanding of how far to go and when to stop. When I'm not the only one stopping, the only one moving hands away, the only one saying “No.”

This is my formal and public apology for any men out there who are proud and intentional virgins. I'm sorry I assumed your values on sex automatically transferred to your beliefs on gender roles. I realize now that just like women save themselves for many reasons, men do too.

P.S. Virgins can be pretty damn good kissers too. ;)

MYTH POPPED!

Dating, Sex, & Marriage

A reader asked me if I'd read I Kissed Dating Good-Bye by Joshua Harris. I had to admit, I had not, but I was intrigued by the title. Sadly, my library does not carry this book, but I did read several reviews and summaries of the book. I've passed midterms with less prep work, so I feel slightly prepared to discuss the topic.

According to wikipedia, clearly the ultimate authority on everything, “dating is a form of courtship consisting of social activities done by two persons with the aim of each assessing the other's suitability as a partner in an intimate relationship or as a spouse.”

Um, okay. Is that really applicable to the modern world of dating, though? I mean, is that honestly how we treat dates?

Before we go any further, I don't want anyone to form the mistaken conclusion that I am, in any way, shape, or form, an expert on dating. I have been on exactly seven official dates with four guys. (Four of them being with man friend... le sigh). But I am the queen of secondhand experience. Both my guy friends and my girlfriends come to me for relationship advice all the time. I also read a lot. Between the two, I've picked up on a thing or two.

So. Dating. Why do we do it? My first real date was with my best friend's boyfriend's best friend. Yeah. My best friend thought I was too picky when it came to guys, and I guess I was trying to be more open-minded? But the date wasn't about him; it was about me. What could I get out of it? What could I learn? What could I experience?

The whole thing was very self-centered. According to Harris, that's the attitude most people have about dating, and it's the wrong attitude to have. He states, “Every relationship for a Christian is an opportunity to love another person as God has loved us.” We should be putting God first, other people second, and ourselves last. This should be true not just in romantic relationships, but all relationships.

So far I'm totally down with this idea. I think generally I do a good job of balancing my own needs and desires with those of the people I love. I almost always put other people first unless that would negatively impact me. If putting someone else first affects me neutrally, or positively, then I usually do it. I'm not a doormat; I just like to see other people happy.

But... four steps? Casual Friendship – Deeper Friendship – Courtship – Engagement? It's a great idea in theory, but I'm not sure how great that works in practice. How many of my best guy friends have I fallen for? (Five out of eight. Rather hard for one and borderline in love with another). How many of them fell for me? (Just one). Was it mutual? (No, that would be too easy). Clearly forming deep friendships with (mostly) godly men did not lead to courtship for us.

What does Harris say about intimacy?

Again, I've just read through about 100 reviews and summaries of the book, not the book itself. Finding his exact stance on intimacy is not as easy as the aforementioned points. Overall, though, his thesis is that intimacy is the reward of commitment. That you should save intimacy for commitment. That one of our problems today is sharing intimacy with someone without commitment.

I have trouble articulating if I agree or disagree with this. I think that young people jump into sex too quickly. I think they use physical intimacy selfishly. I think the emotional scarring you can suffer by being too intimate too fast with the wrong person can affect your future relationships. So in this sense, I agree. You should save intimacy for commitment.

But. I also feel as though the two go hand in hand. Yes, there are a lot of people I consider my best friends (at last count, I think I hit 27...). But out of the thousands of people I've met in my life? It's a very small number who are rewarded with the best friend title. I click with some people in a special way, on a deeper level. They go on to be my best friends.

It's the same concept with men. I can't commit myself romantically to someone unless we've reached a certain level of intimacy. The reverse is true as well. For true intimacy to occur (aka not just hooking up, which I've done on many an occasion), I need to have a certain level of commitment as well.

I've refrained from blogging about man friend (even if I tweet about him incessantly) since sharing my present private life with the world is just a little more personal than sharing my past private life. But I feel as though a quick overview of my relationship with man friend is a good example of commitment and intimacy happening at the same time. (More detailed stories about us to come at a later date!)

Man friend contacted me via an online dating site. Soon we were emailing each other almost daily. After a few weeks, we met for dinner: our first date. A week later, we had our second date, and I kissed him at the end of the night. After our third date a few days later, we enjoyed a very nice make-out session. After our fourth (and final) date a week later, I stayed the night with him. During this time, we were still emailing and instant messaging constantly. I also saw him several other times that were not dates. My last night in town, he told me that if I were staying, he would ask me to be his girlfriend. I told him if I were staying, I would say yes. Now that it's been a month exactly since I last saw him, and probably still three months away from when I can see him again, I can say that I feel even more strongly about him. I don't even want to go make out with random guys and girls in a club (which is saying a lot for me). I just want to be with him, even in our current undefined long-distance unofficial whatever.

The more I learned about him, the more I liked him. The more I liked him, the more I wanted to kiss him. The more I kissed him, the more I wanted to know about him. See a cycle here? Commitment and intimacy went hand in hand.

At the end of the day, I think we need to be intentional in our relationships. We can't just sit back and let them happen. We need to consider carefully who our friends are and who are significant others are. We need to put love and effort into our relationships. We need to have a conversation with God about what we're doing and where we're going and who's coming with us.

What this looks like is different for everyone. For me and romantic entanglements, I don't have hard and fast rules. I'm careful with my heart, but I also let myself love freely. I have blurred guidelines for physical intimacy, but not black and white lines of yes and no. I talk things out with God, but I also express myself in writing and turn to my friends for advice. I make mistakes, I allow myself to be hurt, but then I learn from my experiences, and I move on.

Purity and goodness are different for everyone. As long as I can look myself in the mirror at night and be proud of my reflection, I'm doing okay.

Edit 05/27/2012: I just found this blog post with a thoughtful criticism of Harris's approach.