The 20 Year Old Virgin

People say that your internal clock is never offtime. I find my body anticipates the question as I blow out the candles on my birthday cake, “is this the year I do IT”? It started when I was in high-school, I have thought about it ever since. I realized I don’t exactly understand what virginity is. Why does everyone care about it? Why do I care about it? All I know is that everyone is doing something that I am not; having sex. My inner monologue manifests into a character when I start to spiral about my inherent lack of experience - I named her The Virgin. Her inner thoughts very much consume me this time of the year, “cuffing season” or what have you. These are her thoughts now, straight from the source.

If my body’s intuition is on time, what is it waiting for? If I’m being practical, I know that I can technically lose it whenever I want. I’ve done the research, in the form of rewatching Sex and the City. At twenty years old, I’ve done the time. Does everyone else know something I don’t? It feels like something I should have gotten over with a long time ago, but it sounds unlike me to “get over” something. If sex is this all-encompassing thing that humans will do anything to get their fix for, why do people tell me to “get it over with”? Supposedly boys will jump at the chance to have sex with anyone. So is that what I want? To be an “anyone”? Do I want just “anyone” to see me naked? The Virgin persona who still believes my first time will be magical is taking over. Will I remember it forever? I think losing my virginity will have some sort of imprint on me, hurting more than my tattoos.

At Queen’s, I hear it all the time, that it is commendable to still be a virgin. In the same breath, when I tell people that I have never seen a penis, the room fills with laughter. I can’t help but feel, despite my other many fulfilling experiences, that I am lacking big time in a category that everyone cares about. My relationship with sex is warped from everyone around me, to a point where I just want discourse and no action. When everyone is exchanging their “wildest place I’ve had sex” stories and those rice purity scores, how can I participate? Let’s face it, everyone cares about sex, even the ones who aren’t having it. I am the proof. Sex is something that holds us by our necks, metaphorically of course! (Unless you’re into that… I wonder if I’m into that?)

So do I even want to have sex, or do I just want to talk about having sex? I want to prove that my friendship has just as many benefits as a “friends with benefits” does. It feels like we are lost in translation between what me and my friends define as intimate. During the Saturday brunch debrief, I want my makeout stories to matter as much to my friends as their one-night stands do to me. I don’t feel like I’m missing out until I see it in front of me. I’m playing Never Have I ever and winning, but sober.

When I tell you I have my shit together, I mean it. I’m doing great in a triple major, I have summer internships lined up. I play a mean lead guitar and I have incredible music taste (my Spotify handle will be taking off soon). There is nothing I wouldn’t do for someone I love (except have sex). Not to mention, I turn heads when I walk into class… Yeah, I am very attractive. I don’t need to be making up for my lack of experience in love with everything else that I offer. My mind likes to forget that I’m fine. Instead, it loves to place all my value in what is coming my way.

To be a virgin at 20 apparently means I’m missing out. My FOMO is raging harder than Stages on a Thursday night. If I have waited this long, surely it must be worthwhile. Is it possible that I am ready to have sex, but not lose my virginity? Why is it something to lose? I don’t want to change. I want to say sex is a big deal, but it would make me a hypocrite for caring about it. My inner voices are battling, and the only casualty is myself. There are things that I simply don’t know and unfortunately, I think there is only one way to find out. Where are the lines of virginity drawn? Does it have to include penetration? I know I’ve asked a lot of questions, but I just have one more. Am I supposed to keep my socks on?