From: roger@quantime.co.uk (Roger Phillips)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: What is virginity?
Date: 2 Sep 92 09:37:53 GMT
Reply-To: roger@quantime.co.uk (Roger Phillips)
Organization: Quantime Ltd, London (software for market research)

In article <14885@borg.cs.unc.edu>,
harris@currituck.cs.unc.edu (Trey Harris) writes:
> In article <1992Aug31.220654.17780@quantime.co.uk>
> roger@quantime.co.uk (Roger Phillips) writes:
> >Recently, I've heard more than one (ok, two, if you must know)
> >gay (ok, I'm assuming they're not bisexual) man
> >describe himself as a virgin.
> 
> I'm assuming I'm one, and THANK YOU for noticing! :-)

I'm assuming you're right, and IT'S A PLEASURE. :-)

> >Might a gay man who calls himself a virgin mean
> >that he's not had sex with a man?
> I have met one man who used this as his definition ...
> That isn't my definition ...

Aha!  There is variation.  (How could there not be?)

> >My personal problem with this is that
> >I find it difficult to tell where simple touching stops and sex begins.
> >Where does kissing fall?
> I haven't kissed yet, either...

(That's the line that gave me a slap in the face.
I really hadn't appreciated
the *depth* of virginity we're talking about here.)

> but I would guess that you can kiss and still be a virgin.  I
> mean, that's generally the assumption for heterosexuals, doesn't it?

Yes, I think so too.

> >I *assume* that gay male virgins are talking about anal fucking...
> I don't know that it matters...

(I'm not losing sleep over it, either.)

> ... I think I wouldn't be a virgin after having participated
> on either side of oral sex or mutual masturbation as well...

So it's genital contact which makes the difference?

> >Are there concepts of virginity for lesbians or bisexuals?
> Sure, I talked to a lesbian virgin only yesterday.  She hadn't had
> sex, so...

As a side issue,
am I alone in considering (solo) masturbation "real" sex?

> I think you're too hung up on penetration.

I said:
> >I *assume* that gay male virgins are talking about anal fucking...
putting the putative fixation in their heads.
(I thought I made it clear that
virginity is something so far removed from where I am now
that even its absence is not something I apply to myself.)
But maybe you're saying that my assumption
is the result of my own projection.
Perhaps it is.  I'll think about it.

> I also spoke tonight to a bisexual woman who DID feel she had only
> "halfway" lost her virginity, that is, she had had sex with motss, but
> not with motos.

Yes, I can see this fitting in with Jess's list of virginities
(a virginity for every occasion :-).

> I don't know, I suppose others would be more qualified to present the
> legal or religious definitions of virginity, but this is how I
> approach it...

I hadn't even considered that there might be
legal or religious definitions.
What a horrible thought!

Thanks for responding.
I think my bemusement arises from
not having heard anyone use the word "virgin" non-metaphorically
since I was about sixteen,
and the fact that I'd forgotten how to *imagine*
a life where one hadn't yet had sex
(however that's defined).
It's good to be brought in touch with others' life experience.
-- 
Roger Phillips                            roger@quantime.co.uk
"To my surprise I find out I have a great imagination." -- Ivana Trump