VIRGINITY AND OTHER NUISANCES

ex is one of those subject areas in school that is never taught enough about, but is also seemingly all there is to be discussed. I hadn’t registered

the word ‘sex’ until I was nine years old, and even

then, everyone on my table used it as a joke. Regardless, I had a deep feeling that we shouldn’t have been saying the word, for reasons that I didn’t fully understand. Naturally, it felt like a really funny joke. That was until British sex education began, in all its ambiguity...

I remember every scientific term and those weird cartoons that everyone in Britain above the age of eleven will mutually remember. ‘Zygote’, ‘meiosis’, ‘identical and fraternal twins’ - all of the words that imply sex, without actually having to talk about it. Virginity was never a subject of conversation in science; it was part of religious and ethical studies. Even then, it was your standard talk about chastity, homosexuality, and purity. We walked away with a vague understanding of virginity.

By secondary school, everything I had learned about sex had originated from my own peers. The word ‘virgin’ came up a lot. Who is a virgin, who isn’t? In what ways are they a virgin, in what ways are they not? From these conversations alone, it was clear that something was shifty about the concept of virginity. Some people kind of were and kind of weren’t. But it would take such a toll on your social status. The working definition of ‘virgin’ was never set in stone, but you could still tell who was sexually active and who wasn’t by the way they were treated.

Rumours, gossip, and hearsay would arise out of the blue about someone’s sex life, and with this, their treatment at school would suddenly change. They became ‘players’ as guys or ‘slutty’ as girls. On the flip side, they were considered ‘prudish’, ‘frigid’, or a ‘tease’ if someone’s advances were rejected, or were knowingly holding out on sex. All these social complications don’t even take into account what virginity means among those who don’t fit into a heteronormative framework. Amongst gay people, what is the concrete way of saying that you have lost your virginity? As a fifteen-year-old, I thought it must have been some inexplicable change in the air, in the way people acted, or the energy that they gave off once they lost their virginity, which made it so obvious. How can we know so much about a person based on whether or not they have had sex?

For a concept that implies people’s purity, moral standing, and religious piety, virginity actually has no working definition. There are no physical markers among men or women as to whether they are a virgin or not (although an abundance of film and media would suggest otherwise). Despite this, for the most part, the concept of virginity and its perceived entailments has been detrimental to women. Although men are often shamed and harassed for their virginity, the loss of virginity for women can be the difference between social inclusion and exclusion; marriage and rejection, and a morally pure woman and one who is ‘not the type to bring home to the parents’. We do not have an objective definition for virginity. Instead, it is a social tool that has harmed, isolated, and in many instances, killed, women who did not fit into its narrow parameters.

Even the origin of the word ‘virgin’ specifically connotes a sexually inexperienced young woman, in particular. The importance that is ascribed to a woman’s virginity places women in danger across many different cultural landscapes. Even in places where there is less stigma against premarital or casual sex, the mere presence of virginity is problematic for women and girls.

Virginity and Other Nuisances

The perceived personality traits that supposedly accompany virgins (such as purity, innocence, and naivety) are actively sensationalised and sexualised. A woman’s first time is something to be sought after, and the act of ‘taking’ someone’s virginity is an accomplishment, an act of conquest. This further perpetuates the idea that a woman’s body is purely reactive to men’s sexual desires, rather than an active body with its own sexuality and agency. The idolisation of women’s virginity only exacerbates the notion of women being at the behest of men.

We only need to look at the resurgence of the ‘Lolita aesthetic’ to understand the dark side of equating virginity with innocence and purity. Regardless of intent, romanticising sexual innocence endangers young girls. The iconic heart-shaped sunglasses not only remind us of Vladimir Nabokov’s masterpiece, but drag us into the widespread misinterpretation of it that romanticised a predatory idolisation of young girls. From Lana del Rey to Alice-in-Wonderland-esque fashion trends, the conflation of virginity and innocence naturally leads us down an ethically disturbing approach to sex, targeting young girls and ignoring the sexuality of adult women.

The myriad of social problems that have come about in the name of preserving one’s virginity and the supposed purity of women demands a drastic revamp regarding how we examine sexual experience. It may be too much to ask people to mind their own business, but at the very least, we can try to remove the perceived connection between someone’s sexual experience (or lack thereof) and their consequent social worth.

Disclaimer: The views expressed within this article are entirely the author’s own and are not attributable to Wessex Scene as a whole.

WORDS BY ELIZABETH SORRELL IMAGE BY REN NEOH

Phone, Keys, ...Passport? The First Night Out Since Freedom Day

n 23rd March 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the U.K. would enter into a ‘Lockdown’; a radical move to limit the spread of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) and to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed. Overnight, the freedoms that formed the cornerstone of British life were severely limited in ways not seen in peacetime before. Yet almost 18-months later, at midnight on 19th July 2021, all mandatory restrictions such as the requirement in England to wear facemasks in shops and indoor settings, capacity limitations in bars, restaurants, and on socialisation were lifted.

This so-called ‘Freedom Day’ proved a gamble for the Prime Minister, with case numbers continuing to rise and hit 46,000 the day restrictions were lifted. However, the reality of Freedom Day seems to have evaded the dire predictions of epidemiologists. Just a week after 19th July, cases per day had fallen by 40% and continue to do so almost a month later.

There have been questions, however, over how accurate the data is on this fall in infections, given that young people are averse to being tested, and the school summer holidays have begun, signalling a pause in perpetual weekly testing. Yet the explanation advanced by epidemiologists is that the high levels of vaccine uptake in the U.K. – the highest in Europe – in tandem with high levels of natural infection, the U.K. has developed some form of herd immunity.

Despite the optimism the data is providing, Number 10 have refused to rule out domestic vaccine passports for use at nightclubs and bars. In fact, Vaccines Minister, Nadhim Zahawi, has indicated that individuals will need proof of full vaccination to enter nightclubs and other crowded indoor venues from the end of September. This has been met with anger from the Night Time Industries Association, the body representing such venues who have struggled to stay afloat over the course of the pandemic, and who believe that such a move will exacerbate the decline of the sector further. Others point to the Government’s own Events Research Programme, in which only 28 cases of Covid-19 were recorded out of 58,000 who attended events included in the programme. The necessity of Vaccine Passports also raises profound questions regarding civil liberties, as it could discriminate against those who choose not to be vaccinated, or who cannot be vaccinated owing to underlying health conditions. Where such passports have been introduced, the reaction from the citizenry and parliamentarians has been equally volatile. For instance, the decision by France to require proof of full vaccination to visit night-time venues was met by large and sustained protests. In Italy, an MP was filmed being chased out of parliament after waving a placard in opposition to the proposed ‘Green Pass’ scheme.

Whatever your view of how the Government has handled the pandemic, thanks to the herculean vaccine programme, it seems that the U.K. is shifting from a pandemic outbreak to an endemic one. Although case numbers are falling at a sustained rate and the Government’s own research trial has shown that large events do not necessarily lead to major outbreaks, come September, when checking your pockets for your wallet, keys, and phone, you may also need to remember your vaccine passport too. As ever, only time will tell...

Disclaimer: The views expressed within this article are entirely the author’s own and are not attributable to Wessex Scene as a whole.

WORDS BY HECTOR HEMINGWAY-MCGHEE IMAGE BY SAYLI JADHAV