“If a young, successful, handsome, heterosexual man told you he was a virgin, what would you think?”

Last summer a friend noticed we shared a ‘mutual’ on Facebook. Said ‘mutual’ had invited her out for some drinks in London and at the end of the night they had parted amicably. Yet in the summer, surprised that I knew him, she asked - ‘Don’t you think he’s weird?’ I was surprised. Though I didn’t know the individual that well, he seemed like a pretty sound guy, with no ‘unusual’ traits or hang-ups. After further questioning, it turned out that after their date, he’d finished without ‘even giving me a kiss.’ Perturbed at this lack of first-date amorous action, my friend had taken it upon herself to warn me not to venture down that path: it was a fruitless one in the garden of romance.

This experience led me to question how we perceive male sexuality, especially male virginity. I wondered whether male virginity was such a non-issue because the culture we live in expects men to be so forward, especially in their physical displays of emotion.

Of course, as with females, an immediate assumption to be made about male virginity is that it has something to do with religion. Recently, I challenged some male friends who were Christians about this matter. Although it isn’t an explicit biblical doctrine, my perception of the Church is that it encourages men and women to wait for marriage to experience sex. Marriage, conceived in its purest form, is the most intimate relationship two individuals can share, and, simultaneously, the most fruitful for raising children. It makes sense, then, that the most emotionally and physically intimate act should occur within its boundaries. But in reality we all know that, post-puberty, if you aren’t ‘doing it’ then you are certainly talking or thinking about ‘it’.

Too often virginity is presented as a women’s issue. History shows us that sexual misdemeanors were always the result of ‘loose women’ - in the post-watershed archaic sense, not the daytime television sense. Affairs were laid at the doors of tarnished ladies, and, just like their matriarch Eve, women were condemned to be deceivers and tempters. Though less obvious today, the stigma attached to ‘sex outside of marriage’, is still reserved for the female domain, with the term ‘slut’ a staple of student vocabulary. Its equivalent, ‘man-whore’, is only just beginning to edge into the realms of daily discourse – and, even then, whilst the former is derogatory, the latter still elicits only a degree of ‘banter.’

However, it certainly takes two to tango: so why are we so silent on the male front? With the use of an anonymous survey in which the comment field was, for the most part, inundated by the anxious individual who repeatedly emphasized that he got ‘BJ’ on his phallus, it seems a large majority of male students lose their virginity sometime between Secondary School and University. As one young man put it, ‘men are turned on like a light-switch.’ Combine quick stimulation with alcohol fueled nights of revelry - often more accessible during this time - and sex just ‘happens.’

Why wouldn’t guys want to ‘wait’? On one hand I was presented with the argument that the loss of one’s virginity is an initiation into ‘manhood’. Though someone quite rightly commented, ‘what is a man?’, sadly the student survey does not the philosopher make. So if we take manhood as being masculine adulthood - a point of physical, mental and hopefully emotional maturity - then 22% of men surveyed viewed sexual intercourse as an initiation into manhood with 16% acknowledging it to be an important attribute, but not the most important.

So why wait? To answer this question I sought out a second year engineer whose decision to stay a virgin till marriage was underpinned by his faith. Six foot, a former rower, blonde hair, hazel eyes and definitely heterosexual, to all accounts this guy could have sex if he wanted. For him, however, virginity was rooted in the true nature of marriage, defined in Genesis as a powerful thing. Called upon to be fruitful and increase, to fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 9:7), God’s plan was for married couples to be “powerfully significant and impacting in the world.” Sex becomes less about instant gratification, but rather an intrinsic and exclusive attribute of a lasting relationship.

Considering most casual sex occurs under the influence of alcohol, impaired sensibilities make retaining one’s virginity highly unlikely. Interviewing an ‘a-religious’ twenty year old, for him it was clear that sex with someone you strongly like and within a long-term commitment was much better than mechanical, casual sex. Casual sex, however, still presents no problem. “Sex is a drive that one gets, especially when you are drunk, but it isn't something you can try and control. It's primal and instinctive.” So long as both parties are aware it is ‘just sex’, then “neither party is hard done by.”

In contrast, the Christian engineer felt that in choosing to stay a virgin, he was actively demonstrating self-control and ownership of his decisions. Not acting upon physical urges “shows you are in control of your body, desires and therefore intentional in your actions” - an important characteristic of being a ‘man.’ “You could be the strongest person in the world, but if you have no physical restraint…it'll be hard for people to love you because it would be hard for people to get close to you.” Being in control of your sexual desire isn’t stating that one is a prude, but rather it’s an investment in the “amazing pleasure [I’ll have] for the rest of my life [which will be] in total security and commitment with someone that I've promised to love. You're waiting until you can have it all, and better.”

Yet, even though sex is seen as the pinnacle of physical intimacy, it doesn’t always mean emotional intimacy. Quick to share our bodies, it seems our generation are still hesitant to share their secrets, hopes, dreams and even fears - all valuable aspects of a relationship. Supposing sex really is one of the greatest and most intimately shareable experiences? Have we have lost that specialness - or sacredness - because we live in such a ‘now’ culture? Do we put pressure on our men to ‘be men’, which means to be sexually active? Should men preserve their virginity not to appear pure, but rather so they can be “the most effective lover in every sense of the word,” someone who doesn’t carry any “baggage” with them - or is that baggage necessary in order to develop secure relationships?

This article opened with a question that many men have responded to in surprise. If they met such a man - young, successful and still a virgin - they would “assume he was gay” or has “commitment issues”. Whilst male sexuality is today an encouraged social practice, I hope this article has gone someway to dispelling the myth that the desire for male virginity is a facade behind which an ‘emasculated’ inclination must exist. Indeed, as one surveyee stated: masculinity is not and should not be defined by a man’s sexual practice.

Justina’s blog: www.deathofthewriter.wordpress.com