What is a virgin? Most people would say it is someone who has never had sex before. The problem with this definition of virginity is that everyone has a different opinion of what sex is. Most people think of it as penetrative sex between a man and a woman, but some people think of it as taking part in oral or anal sex, while others believe a girl is a virgin until her hymen is broken. First of all, saying sex is a penetrative activity excludes lesbian couples from actually ever having sex. From that definition, you could say they are forever virgins. Second, whoever believes a girl is a virgin until her “cherry pops” is actually quite ignorant to a woman’s body. The hymen can break from playing a sport or simply wearing a tampon, and last time I checked, most people don’t consider putting in a tampon as having sex.

Our society uses the whole concept of virginity as a way to target women and discriminate against them. Now before you think I’m this crazy, man hating feminist, hear me out! Most of the time when a woman is not a virgin, she’s seen as a slut and has to explain the entire situation to justify why she would ever have sex before marriage. When a woman is a virgin, she’s seen as prude and looked at by men as a prize to try and get her to do the dirty deed. I remember being in high school and hearing how guys would annoyingly make fun of girls for not “putting out.” This impacted a lot of girls in the sense that it made them think the only way to get a guy to like them is to have very intimate experiences with them, even if they really didn’t want to. Allowing for young women to believe that they are only worth as much as the amount of their body they give away to a man, allows for them to grow up feeling like they need to objectify themselves in order to get ahead in the world.

Regardless of whether someone still holds their “V-card” or lost it a long time ago, they should not be ridiculed for it. They shouldn’t have to worry about other people’s opinions for their decision to or not to have sex. Personally, I think the whole concept of virginity is just a way to discriminate against women because of the double standard which comes along with it. Next time you’re thinking about calling a girl a whore for sleeping with “too many guys,” just remember that it is in her past and does not change the type of person she is.