Our virginity is something that's been on our minds since we had that uncomfortable "birds and the bees" conversation with our parents. For guys, it's something they dream about losing, having their status based on their "game." For girls, it's something they're taught as being sacred, becoming a slut when it's lost.
College is officially the time in your life when you're no longer treated as a child. You move away, throw your life at the hands of loans from the government, and strive for a degree, partying it up along the way. The truth is, when you get to college, it's pretty much assumed that you lost your virginity years ago.
But that's not always the case. For some college students, losing their virginity still isn't even on their mind and they're tired of hearing about it from their peers. I sent out a survey to get anonymous responses from college students who haven't lost their virginity to allow them to express themselves and get some things off their chests.
Here's what they had to say to all of the people who just won't seem to let it go:
1. It's OK to wait.
"Don't judge people for waiting."
"It's OK to be a virgin because one day, someone is going to be so grateful that you waited until you met them to give it away."
"It's OK to wait! It's honorable and I believe it will be worth it."
"It's OK to wait! Sex is a big deal for some people. It's an emotional and intimate thing to share with another person and it's OK to wait for someone who is committed to you and loves you completely."
"I'm waiting for the right person. I don't want my first time to be a one night stand."
"I am waiting because I want my first time to mean something and for it to be with someone who I trust and love. I don't want to just have casual sex and sex not mean anything."
"I want to wait until I am in love and in a committed relationship. There's nothing weird about that."
"I'm just waiting for the right time when I feel comfortable with myself and the other person. And yes, it bothers me when people think I'm saving it for marriage."
"I've waited because I haven't been presented the opportunity with someone who I care about that I feel like will respect me."
"I'm not waiting till marriage, I'm waiting until I find someone I trust and care about. it's my body and I want to treat it with the same respect that I expect from other people."
2. It's a personal choice that doesn't affect you.
"It's a decision I've made and just like with every other decision people make, I shouldn't be judged for it."
"It's a personal choice and others should respect that"
"Personally, I'm a virgin purely by circumstance. When I was younger, I identified as Christian, so I thought my worth was in my virginity for my fortune husband. Over time, I no longer identified that way, and I decided I was ready for sex. My first boyfriend was when I was a freshman, and I wanted to have sex with him, but I'm glad I didn't. After ending it with him, I was able to see how mentally/emotionally abusive he was, and how toxic it was for me. I was purposely single for years after that because I just wasn't interested in dating. A while later, a close loved one was sexually assaulted and that made me even more wary about getting close to anyone in a sexual manner. I still don't know if it was in solidarity, or fear, or a little of both. After that and a lot of processing, I had a friends with benefits, but he knew I didn't want to do penetrative sex (penile-vaginal sex, to clarify) yet, so we did about everything but that. Now I'm in a happy and healthy relationship and I just had sex for the first time about two weeks ago (so to clarify, I was a virgin until age 23 and for about 5 years of college). So I would just tell people it's not because I was 'saving myself' for anyone or anything. It's just a personal choice."
"Stop telling me I'm missing out because I don't feel the need to sleep with everybody I see."
"It's more of a respect and commitment thing on my end. Saving myself for the one person I know I am going to be with. I don't want to give more of myself away to people that aren't going to stay and be a part of my life forever."
"It's my choice that I'm still a virgin! I don't wanna be another number on a guys roster and I respect myself enough to not have random hookups."
"Don't tell people that they 'need' to do anything. You don't know their lives, or their inner thoughts about their processings. Just let them live their lives and they'll get to it when and if they want to."
"It's a personal choice. I don't want people to feel bad for me, or to judge me for it. I'm not missing 'the college experience' because I haven't hooked up or had a one night stand."
"I am not a prude because I am a virgin. This is my choice."
"I have made this choice because I want to. People can think what they want, but it doesn't make their assumptions true."
"You can question people's motives about anything and everything, especially something like virginity, but no one owes you an explanation so it's best just to worry about your own decisions."
"It frustrates me that I have to have a big laundry list of reasons that I have to. Why can't 'I didn't want to' be enough?"
3. They'd rather just redirect their focus to things that matter more.
"It's not that weird! I'm just focused on my education and activities!"
"It irritates me when people assume it means I can't get guys. I'm super career focused, I don't have time to spend with other people that way."
4. They don't think they're better than you.
"Saving myself does not mean I'm self-righteous."
"Just because I'm a virgin does not mean I think I'm better than anyone. I don't want to just 'get it over with.' I don't want to date someone and the only reason they stay with me is that I put out. I want our relationship to be built on deeper things before adding something complicated. Plus, I've never felt comfortable enough with my partners to take this step with them. I'm not a prude either, so stop. It's really no one's business what I do personally except me and the person I am dating."
"I do not judge you if you lost your virginity to some random guy at a party! If you felt safe and you made that choice, fine, go you, enjoy yourself. If you like to hook up with multiple people a week, go for it! BUT, don't sit there and judge me for not wanting the same things as you. And don't think we are living completely different lifestyles or 'aren't the same type of people,' it's ONE aspect of our lives that is different. I know I don't have to do this or don't do that, it's my choice and when it happens it happens. And for goodness sake, if I do lose it and tell you, don't act I'm i'm some innocent little baby who has just been welcomed into the real world. If anything, that is what bothers me the most. The way people treat you, act as if you are just not quite to their level. Don't belittle me."
"People should be able to choose what they want to do when it comes to sex since it's such a personal thing. I do not judge anyone who has sex, so why should people judge others for not having it?"
"I have friends who have slept with a lot of people, where I've slept with none. We just accept those things about each other, and we live our lives. I don't think less of someone because they aren't a virgin, and I don't want anyone to think less of me because I am."
5. Sex is something precious and should be treated that way.
"I just think that sex is a very intimate action. It should be deliberate, sober, and most importantly it should feel like the right thing. I'm not necessarily waiting until marriage or anything, I'm just waiting for the right person and the right time."
"I believe sex is for marriage."
"I don't want to feel pressured into it. It kind of bothers me when people assume differently but I think they assume wrong because sex is just a casual thing now, it seems like."
"I want to wait until I am in a committed relationship and in love. I value myself, and won't just let any guy use my body for their pleasure to just leave the next day. Also, STDs are everywhere and I'm not putting myself at risk. It bothers me when people assume I just can't 'get some,' because that isn't the case. It's not easy to stay a virgin in college, but I believe it's worth it.
"In college, hookup culture is what everyone assumes everyone else is going to be like, but they don't take in account that there are tons of guys and girls that are not about it and people forget that."
"I've had bad experiences with guys pressuring me into things before and want to save going all the way until I'm married. To those who make fun of me for it: Never shame me for my choice. I don't shame you for having sex, neither should you."
6. It's okay for their reasoning to be their religion.
"I am a Christian and I believe in saving sex for marriage. I hate when people assume I am a virgin just because I don't want to have sex. At some point I do, but I've made the decision to wait."
"I made this decision for religious reasons and quite frankly emotional reasons, too. I don't know if I could emotionally handle me sleeping with different people. My boyfriend is a virgin too. Call me jealous, but I couldn't handle knowing he had been with anyone else. It bothers me that he kissed one other girl."
"I believe that you can emotionally be attached to someone after you have sex. And I believe it is a beautiful design created by God!"
"Because of personal and religious reasons, I personally do not want to be intimate with someone I'm not going to be with for the long run."
"I grew up in a very religious family, so I was always pressured to make sure I wait. Growing up like this made me realize I just want to wait for the right person."
"I believe the Bible says sex is reserved for marriage only, and that's how I've vowed to live my life ever since I was really young!"
"It's a choice to honor God, myself, and (if I get married) my future spouse by not just giving my body to someone."
7. It's OK for their reasoning to not be based on religion, too.
"I made this choice for myself and not my religion or my family. I decided this a long time ago that my virginity is something I am keeping until marriage. I take pride in holding myself to that promise."
"I haven't met anyone good enough to give my virginity to. I don't wanna be just a hookup to anyone, I want them to respect me. I hate when people assume that the reason is that I'm religious or scared or that I've been hurt or some stupid reason that they've come up with. No one needs to know whyI'vee made this decision."
"It's not a religious thing because I'm not religious, it's because I want to make sure that I am 100% comfortable before having sex with somebody."
"People assumed my reasoning is because of religion but it had nothing to do with that, and people were proud of me when I had finally had sex and I was annoyed because it didn't even really matter to them."
"I'm not waiting for marriage and I'm not necessarily saving myself for 'the one.' I've just never been in a relationship where I have felt comfortable doing something so intimate with another person. Some people don't think of it as intimate, they don't put their emotions into it, and that's fine, it's just not me. Along with that, my anxiety and insecurities have kept me from loving myself enough to let someone else see me at such a vulnerable state and love me in that way."
"I haven't 'chosen' anything. I have not met the right person and that's all there is to it. I wish people would stop thinking that it's because I'm a religious freak or because I can't get a boyfriend."
"It's too much of a norm to sleep around in college. I get the whole 'my decision, my body, my choice' junk. But if you don't wanna be called a 'slut' or a 'hoe,' don't be telling everyone and their mothers how many people you have slept with. Is there no secrecy anymore? Is it a goal to see how many guys you can get laid by? Intimacy should be private. College is stupid."
"It's really hard for me to NOT take relationships seriously. Because the end goal is to end up with someone and marry them, right? So, why would you waste your time on temporary people and only give them what satisfies them in just that one moment. If someone wants to be with you, they will respect you and your boundaries. There are guys out there who respect women. I have one myself. But, we as women tend to get stuck in the now because it feels good and we like it and it's normal and we want to satisfy the guy."
8. Virginity is bullshit, and so is the pressure put on it.
"I know how much pressure societal expectation place on a person to be 'normal,' but all those expectations are bullshit."
"Virginity is a construct created to assign worth to females. We shouldn't be concerned about 'virginity' because it doesn't physically exist, it's a made-up idea about whether a female has any value to offer a male. There is no way to 'prove' that a female is still an intact 'virgin'—the hymen may or may not tear during intercourse and often tears from other reasons such as exercise or tampon use. Males may be embarrassed about their 'virginity' but it's females who are shamed for 'losing' it, not males. A discussion about 'virginity' shouldn't exist in 2019 unless it's to educate people about its inherent misogyny."
"The stigma behind being a virgin should not be negative. The stigma behind not being a virgin should not be looked down upon. Respect yourself and do whatever you are comfortable with."
"People need to stop assuming. If they're curious it's OK to ask, but don't make someone feel like a child because they're a virgin."
9. It's not weird to be a virgin.
"I wish people would normalize being a virgin in college. If I can respect people who have decided to have sex with someone they love or someone who has decided to have sex with anyone, then they should be able to respect my decision to wait until I find my person."
"I hate when people think I feel sad about being a virgin. I'm not."
"It took me a long time to be able to proudly say I'm a virgin. I'm choosing this because I want to be comfortable when it happens and on my terms."
"Contrary to popular belief, there are other college virgins."
Whether or not someone is still a virgin is, quite frankly, none of your damn business. If they want to wait until they're married, that's their decision. If they just haven't met someone they feel comfortable enough with to lose their virginity to, that's okay too.
Stop treating your friends who are virgins like they are children who can't hear anything inappropriate. They're not lesser than you, just like you're no lesser than them. Quit hounding them about the decision they've made because they're really tired of hearing about it. It shouldn't even matter to anyone besides them and who they're with.
Responses have been edited for length or clarity.
