For the average male, losing his virginity is the ultimate milestone. The reaction he tends to receive is high-fives and friendly jeering. The male specimen congregates and speak about their latest conquest and are seen as this hero of sex. As someone to imitate.
But for a female, losing her virginity is a twisted path of excitement and of fear. She wakes up and realizes that she has given away something she can never get back. Something precious and sacred. She goes back in forth in her head with the uncertainty: Was this a good idea? Will he/she call me? Will my parents find out? The reaction received tends to be one of aversion by both males and females. Words like slut, whore and easy echoes in her ears as she walks down the hall. And she is left with an impending feeling of regret.
Sex is seen either as a way to gain simple pleasure or a way to complete the greatest action of love. To give mind, body and soul to another person. To become vulnerable and exposed in a desperate attempt to feel connected to someone. To feel whole.
And if done in the right way, sex can lead to an establishment of pure connection to a certain individual. It can lead to the creation of life. Amazing, to create life out of love. To have a being develop inside you.
But if done wrong, sex can lead to a downward spiral pain, suffering and dire consequences no one is truly ready to handle.
As a child of divorce, I know for a fact that being with someone you don’t love in the most intimate way possible will lead to feelings of anger and regret.
To conceive life out of a relationship where there is no love, one where there is a distinct void in the hearts of both parties, should be a crime.
To grow in an environment where you must tiptoe around the ragged edges of a fabricated happiness warps one’s sense of love and what love means. Sex can be an expression of love. But it is not the only way to convey love. And, contrary to popular belief, just because someone has sex with you, it doesn’t mean they are in love with you.
Sex is a package deal. One that includes possible happiness equated to possible disillusionment. A deal that includes fears such as unplanned pregnancies, STD’s and disappointment. And hopes such as creating a life, obtaining life-long love and the establishment of a life of happiness.
Pressure to have sex is one of the many struggles that high school tends to magnify. The ultimately incorrect idea that ‘everyone else is doing it,’ seems to produce this illogical response that if everyone is doing it, then so must I. God forbid anyone takes into account the rise in teen pregnancy rates (Arkansas was ranked 5 out of 51 in 2008 for the highest teen pregnancy and 13 out of 51 in 2011). But school is no better at preparing someone for sexual encounters than social media or television shows.
I’ve been in the Bryant School District since seventh grade, and since that time, I’ve taken a health class. I don’t recall any serious discussion on safe sex or any unbiased information on the consequences sex can generate. We follow the Arkansas Department of Educations Curriculum on how to teach health courses, which stresses the factor that the school must teach abstinence as the only sure way to prevent unplanned pregnancies or STD’s.
Though it may cause some controversy with the more conservative population, it wouldn’t be the end of all things pure and good if the school began to hand out some contraceptives. They could at least provide a health class that effectively teaches Sex Education instead of using the cliché cop-out “safe sex is no sex”.
I describe myself as a happy virgin. Not that I have a distinct aversion to sex, but I accept that I am not ready for the responsibilities that are in direct correlation with having sex. Because of my sexual orientation, the possibility of me becoming pregnant is pretty much impossible for me to become pregnant unless humanity suddenly evolves into a different type of sexually productive being. But nonetheless, I have decided that until I am at least an adult and can effectively provide for myself I will remain chaste.
