Recently, a man expressed his opinion that in the culture he was a part of (I don’t know if

he meant in your circle or more generally), sex was overvalued. A close friend of yours joked

that he was a virgin, and that his statement was a coping mechanism. I asked him why he felt

threatened by it, was informed that it was a joke, and then responded that there wasn’t really

much of a difference because “your circle has a sick way of looking at these things”.

What I’m referring to as “your circle” is a segment of Twitter that I know ten to thirty

people from whose positions generally boil down to “don’t mess with me and let me enjoy

whatever pornography or sexual practice I want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone”.

The “sick way of looking at these things” is related to that pornography and those sexual

practices. It’s not just what you do, but why you do it. It’s a mindset that makes perfect sense

and is perfectly reasonably to come to believe in the context of the world that most of us grew up

in, but it’s still mistaken.

What is virginity, really? Traditionally it’s been defined as a lack of biologically

reproductively valid genital contact, but the modern understanding of it has expanded to include

other acts. The current working definition seems to consider anal sodomy as an act that ends

virginity, possibly because without it no gay men would ever lose theirs (I personally consider

homosexual/bisexual men who haven’t had sex with women to be virgins). The term can be

loosely defined as “someone who hasn’t participated in the sexual act that the society of the time

interprets as irrefutable evidence of successful courtship”. It’s a failure to conclusively

demonstrate a certain level of social value.

Consequently, the loss of one’s virginity is a token of social competence. With many

(maybe most) people it isn’t something that they’re anxious about, as they tend to start getting
into relationships in their mid to late teens (in the United States and similar countries). For

others, due anything from personal values to general incompetence, the level of courtship

required to lose their virginity is beyond their understanding or ability to perform. There are two

paths that these latter people tend to go down, should they fail to court through the ordinary

methods:

Firstly, they’ll find a different definition of virginity to follow that’s more suited to their

abilities. I believe that this is the definition that you and most of your friends fall under. It

explains both your hostility towards the idea that your sexuality can or should be altered, and

also your fear of turning into the second type of person should you abandon your homosexuality

and fetishism (although this is probably partially also motivated by a fear of losing your close

relationships with the men you consider your romantic partners; this is based on a

misunderstanding of friendship and doesn’t have to be the case).

The second type of person builds up so much ressentiment (suppressed feelings of envy

or hatred) that they lash out at sexuality altogether, inventing moralistic rationalizations for their

own failures and attacking anyone more romantically successful and capable than themselves.

This is what you probably believe me and my friends to be. There people are dangerous,

hypocritical, and despairing. In many instances, you’ll see combinations of this type with the

first. You’ll often see gays who call heterosexuals “breeders” derisively, similarly to how you’ll

see rainbow haired polyamorists get beautiful women removed from jobs as flag girls, models,

actresses, and other such positions.

The point I’m trying to make here is that both positions are invalid. In fact, the first

(finding a new definition of virginity) is recursive. Not even what you’d consider the base level

(modern heterosexual post-sexual-revolution courtship) is legitimate. It requires the participants

to imitate masculine and feminine roles rather than to truly embody them, even in reproductively

correct (though sterile due to contraceptives) genital contact. In addition, it’s not a man’s

preoccupation with society’s view of his romantic competence that causes insecurity, it’s that

person’s own internal recognition of their own failures, which he can measure against an

objective standard rather than against society. If he doesn’t meet that objective standard, he can

improve himself. If he has some mental disability or physical deformity that prevents him from

meeting a woman’s standard, he knows that this has nothing to do with who he is as a man and

has no impact on his stability. This differentiates his method from that of the hypocritical ankle-

biter who’s only celibate out of jealousy and failure.

You really don’t understand how dark the situation is that you’re in right now. You’re

numb to the despair of it and the same delusions that hold your sexuality together are blinding

you to the reality around you, as well as keeping you or those downstream from you from ever

being fully satisfied mentally or emotionally. You’re putting lipstick on a pig, but the pig has

been dead for weeks and it’s not going to get any better from here. I’m not romantically

incompetent (certainly not on the level that you and your friends compete on); I don’t do this out

of ressentiment. I do this out of the freedom, satisfaction, and clarity that it’s given me; as well

as the fear of becoming like you again (or worse). I know that I convey tone terribly and I can be

less than charismatic, but please keep what I’ve said in mind.