As promised, the results of our NSFW survey regarding the current market value of virginity, released now to coincide with the availability of Issue #11’s article on the same topic.
There are probably a lot of disclaimers I should make, but this is my first time. …Conducting a survey, I mean.
All I can think of to say, by way of disclaimer, is that I don’t know who responded to this survey. We put it out everywhere–Facebook, Twitter, chat rooms, you name it. One respondent cops to being Catholic; beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.
Also, this survey wasn’t really about metrics. The questions were all short-answer format. Several people took the opportunity to say things like “N/A,” or to harangue the great wide Internet with their views on why the question wasn’t worth answering.
What that means is that if you’re looking for percentages of who does what and when they do it, you won’t find it here. This is meant as a temperature taker of this great Western culture of ours.
The survey is closed now. But feel free to share your answers, or your thoughts on other people’s answers, in the comments below.
“What’s the Value of Virginity?” — Results
Question #1
If you a) are unmarried + not a virgin or b) were not a virgin at the time of marriage, do you wish you could have your virginity back prior to getting married?
A few said “yes,” at least one of whom wasn’t A or B. (In other words, he was a virgin when he got married.)
Most said “no.”
I was interested by the number of people who went on to explain (unsolicited) why they answered “no.” Here are some of the more articulate among them:
- “I am unmarried and a virgin, but I have found the man I plan to marry and I seriously doubt we’ll be able to wait until marriage. We’ve been together going on 2 years and waiting has been a struggle, plus we agree we shouldn’t marry until I’ve finished my degree. After a lot of consideration, we believe God isn’t going to damn us to hell if we have sex before marriage, so we agreed that if the time feels right, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have sex, as long as we use protection.”
- “No. My boyfriend and I are absolutely certain that we’re getting engaged and married after college when we are financially stable. We consented to sex after almost four years of faithful companionship. Due to Catholic parents, we will not move in with each other until marriage, however.”
- “Depending upon the definition of “virginity” used I was “impure” at the time of my wedding. I would have preferred to have had more sexual experience before marriage. The idea of having even less experience and being expected by social pressure to have penetrative intercourse on one particular day with no prior sexual activity is terrifying.”
Question #2
If you could reinstate your virginity (prior to marriage) by paying money, how much would you be willing to pay?
This question seems to have freaked a lot of people out; the survey yielded many responses that carefully explained the science behind loss of virginity and how reinstating it wouldn’t be possible without a great deal of pain.
After consulting several anatomy books to verify their claims, I concluded that either our society has lost its capacity for conceptual imagination, or that survey questions are not my calling as a writer.
Of those who lent their imagination to the question, nearly all said “No.” As in, their virginity wasn’t such an important factor in a long-term relationship that they would tender legal currency to get it back.
However, a few amounts were proposed: $9, $100, $3000. And one person answered, “As much as I needed to.”
Question #3
What kind of payoff would make you consider auctioning of your virginity? (Examples: taking care of a loved one, saving someone’s life, a million dollars, etc.)
Many people called this question insulating, bizarre, and absurd. (To widen their parochial viewpoints, I’d recommend they take a look at Issue #11…or visit Brazil, where this kind of thing is just another day in the tabloids.)
Still more people said that they would auction off their virginity if it meant saving the life of someone they loved. Alternative acceptable payoffs included “Peace in abundance” and “Lifetime safety.”
One person took the opportunity to write a lengthy paragraph on the church’s misguided definition of sexual purity, before answering that they would not auction off their virginity because it would violate their self-respect. Another answered similarly, but more succinctly, “I don’t want my first time to be sex work. Sorry, ladies.”
Question #4:
Prior to marriage, are virginity and sexual purity the same thing? If not, what’s the difference between them?
One highly practical response advised that virginity is a physiological technicality, easily preserved by “other backdoor avenues for sex, if you know what I mean.” Another response dismissed the question as being concerned with “pointless social constructs,” “a patriarchal, heteronormative way to control women” that “pathologizes basic human bodily functions.”
Those were the only two deviants. Everyone else agreed that virginity and purity are not the same thing; that virginity is a physical condition, while purity has to do with the mind and spirit, as well as the body.
So what do YOU think?
©bevezetem.hu
