We’re in the last throes of summer, so I’m reposting some of my old favorites. This originally appeared on March 10, 2006.
Yesterday in my women’s history class, we began making our way through Joan Brumberg’s The Body Project. I’ve been using the book for years and years, and it’s a huge hit with my students each semester.
It is Brumberg who first drew my attention to statistics about menarche, marriage, and the loss of virginity. She points out that a century ago, girls menstruated for the first time at an average age of 16 and got married at an average age of around 21. Today, girls menstruate at an average age of just under 12 and get married for the first time at just over 25.
(A quick note about statistics. The problem with teaching statistics — especially with something like menarche — is that very, very few folks end up being "average". Almost every girl seems to have a sense of herself as being "early" or "late" — a Goldilocks effect, I suppose!)
Here’s where it gets interesting. A century ago, the time between the onset of puberty and marriage was but five years; today it’s close to fifteen. If a contemporary young woman is trying to "wait" until marriage to lose her virginity, she is waiting — in a very real sense — three times as long as women did in her great-great grandmother’s era! She’s got three times the frustration of coping with unexpressed sexual feelings and longings, three times as long to struggle to live up to a cultural and religious standard of purity. Forget trying to live up to the standards of one’s ancestors; today’s young women who remain committed to virginity are trying to accomplish something that has, from a demographic and physiological standpoint, never been achieved before.
My class is 75% non-white, and of those, most are first-generation Americans. (Latinas and Asians make up two-thirds of the young women in the course; given the demographics of the area, many of the remainder are first-generation Armenians whose families have arrived from Iran, Lebanon, or the former Soviet Union.) Yesterday, I asked them the following questions:
1. How many of you have parents who want you to be virgins when you marry?
2. How many of you have parents who want you to go to college and get a degree before you get married?
3. How many of those same parents also want you to be skilled at cooking and cleaning in order to attract a husband?
After half the class had raised their hands to all three questions, I asked them a follow-up:
"Based on what you’ve read in Brumberg, and based on what you’ve experienced in your family, how does it feel to be asked to do something no one in your family has ever been asked to do before?"
The answers came pouring out! Many of these young women are the first in their families to go to college; they’ve often been raised by immigrant parents with a tremendous faith in education. Most of these families have embraced at least one aspect of feminism: the notion that women have a right to education, and perhaps an obligation to become economically self-sufficient. (Most of my students have been warned by at least one older adult to "get an education so you won’t have to rely on a man.") But even as they’ve been encouraged to do what women in the past were not able to do (go to school and earn at least a bachelor’s degree, if not something higher), these young women are still being given a message about sexuality that is as traditional as the one that their grandmothers received in little villages in Michoacan and Martuni and Mindanao and Mae Hong Son. And to top it off, their bodies (and the concomitant emergence of sexual desire) are developing earlier!
Over and over again, students say things like "Wow, do you know my mother?" Everyone laughs. It’s not that they think that I’m personally so insightful, it’s that they’ve never realized just how absurd — and historically unique — the bind is into which they have been placed. Their ambitious yet culture-bound parents are extolling a crushing set of contradictory ideals; they demand daughters who can be domestically proficient, financially independent, professionally autonomous, yet traditionally demure and asexual until marriage! No wonder so many of these young women appear so damned tired!
Some of my students make it clear (explicitly or obliquely) that they are rejecting their parents’ values. Some have rebelled more successfully than others; the guilt in the faces and voices of some is painfully evident. Others are still making heroic attempts to live up to all of the hopes and dreams and values of their parents and their culture. Some have internalized these values to the point that they can claim them as their own, but most — when made aware of their unique historical status as the first generation to face this particularly brutal constellation of pressures — get appropriately ticked off.
In so many traditionally-minded families, there is still an unfortunately explicit connection between virginity and success. In the semi-mythical old days that the abuelas and the po-pos talk about, a girl who had lost her virginity before marriage would lose her opportunity to make a good marriage — and that could mean a life of struggle and poverty. In the modern equation, the fear is of single motherhood. Having children outside of marriage while still young and uneducated is the contemporary stigma, one that all too often guarantees long-term financial hardship. In the old days, virginity might attract a good husband; in the modern age, these girls are raised to believe, abstinence is the surest guarantee that they’ll be able to finish college and become self-supporting without being burdened by a child.
During these discussions, some of my white middle-class students (especially those from secular backgrounds) sit aghast. Raised by affluent baby-boomer parents who took them to Planned Parenthood when they were 16, the stories they hear from their classmates of color bewilder and horrify them. My privileged ones have never had to equate abstinence with success; their parents have never asked them to spend more than a decade as a physically sexual being without any outlet for their God-given desires. These young women express sympathy; some make the unfortunate mistake of issuing derogatory remarks about how appalling these "backwards" cultures are in which their classmates have had the misfortune to be raised. (I try and nip that sort of thing in the bud.)
After years and years of these discussions in my immensely diverse community college women’s studies classes, I’ve become convinced that we’re dealing with a vital feminist issue here. My younger — and not so young — sisters are trying live up to conflicting and contradictory imperatives that ask them to have a foot in two completely different worlds. As one of my students, a 20 year-old from an Armenian immigrant family, put it a semester or two ago: "My family dreams of me as their brilliant, virginal, medical doctor daughter — who drives her own Mercedes, makes amazing baklava, has a perfect figure and has never kissed a man until she meets her husband."
If I were teaching at Wellesley or Vassar, that young woman might not be speaking for the parents of over half of of her classmates. But here at Pasadena City College, she is — and as a result, the feminist curriculum has to be tailored to speak to her and those like her. Before they can become articulate activists for a global feminist agenda, these young women need to find the voice to speak out against the cruel and nonsensical double binds in which they have been placed. They need teachers who will encourage them to demand the right to be full and complete human beings. They need to be encouraged to offer each other support, to build feminist community, to help each other escape the crushing and contradictory burdens that weigh upon their minds and bodies. The culture tells them they need to be Superwomen; in a feminist classroom, they can learn to say "No" to the pressure and say "Yes" or even "Hell, yes!" to their deepest and most basic desires.
Is an almost middle-aged heterosexual Anglo man from Carmel by-the-Sea the right person to lead these discussions? Who knows? I may not be able to empathize with the majority of my students, but that doesn’t mean I can’t share some simple statistics, ask some simple — and provocative — questions, and then facilitate the ensuing firestorm of discussion. And from that discussion, I can only hope what all teachers hope — that my students will find the inspiration and the tools to begin to make real changes in their lives.
Note: There are some obvious similiarities to the experiences of young conservative Christian women of any race who are also trying to manage both education and delayed marriage on one hand and traditional ideas about purity on the other. This post at Thursday PM is very powerful; a young Christian woman asks exactly the right question:
What if denying healthy sexuality is just as harmful to the psyche and self image as engaging in unhealthy sexual activity?
Another post, that one.
If there was one lecture that single-handedly changed the way I felt about virginity, it was this one. Without going into too much detail about why, I think it even changed my life. Thanks.
As a young white woman raised by conservative Christian parents, I saw myself in this post. (Thanks for re-posting it, Hugo.)
Are my parents asking me to do something they didn’t do themselves? Well, yes and no. I don’t know when my mother had her first period, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was 12-13 like me. She met my dad in her freshman year of college at age 18. They were dating by age 19 and married at 22. Neither had engaged in consentual intercourse before that. I was born when they were 25. Now here I am at 24, unmarried, and definitely expected to stay a virgin. I’m not currently dating anyone, so that makes it easier on one hand but certainly doesn’t give me a “light at the end of the tunnel” to look at like someone in a serious relationship would have.
What’s the solution? Keep women uneducated and “pure”, throw off all restrictions, encourage women to forget about marriage and family… or something else?
It shocked me when Hugo told me that even James Dobson believes masturbation is okay. So why can’t Brio publish an article called, “Sex can wait! Masturbate!” Until we’re married, we’re expected to be totally asexual until we find a man worthy enough to awaken those sexual desires. (Almost every Christian purity book stresses that one).
I’ve also realized that the concept of “purity” is a myth, but that’s another subject altogether.
Great Post and Lecture, Hugo! It really puts things in perspective! Oh, how I wish that ovulation were intentional….that would put an end to so many problems.
Oooh, “the Body Project.” Sounds like a horror movie.
Hugo-
This is an interesting statistical observation, but I’m confused about the meaning you attach to the math.
How does waiting three times as long necessarily equal three times the frustration? I don’t think that frustration is always a linear equation. The body can become accustomed to things. I know that you tend to be analogy phobic, but I think fasting is a good analogy in this case. The first few days are harder than the end of the fast. Fasting six days is not three times as much suffering as fasting two days in my experience.
As a Christian, I believe that an adult woman’s sexuality is between her, God, and her romantic partner. I do think that some people have a preference for virgins. Why is that so wrong? Is it wrong for a woman to reject a man because he is short, bald, or black? Those are things that he cannot change.
BTW You have are the right person to lead these discussions because, as a married man getting some, you are outside of the actual situation. You have what is known in the industry as “distance.”
Those are things that he cannot change.
So, completely unlike virginity, then.
I do think that some people have a preference for virgins. Why is that so wrong?
It focuses less on morality and more on the egotistical desire to “be first”, for starters.
Sophonisba - Huh? Height, hair, and skin color are genetic. Behavior, if you believe in free will, is a choice.
Myth- I don’t think my friend Dan*, a 32 year old virgin, is egotistical. He simply wants to marry a woman with a similar history to his. In his shoes I wouldn’t be so demanding, but it’s HIS strong preference. My friend Janice* will not date a man under 6′. She wants room for when she “wears heels.” She also only wants to date men who are white and have dark brown hair with blue or green eyes. I think that she is picky, but who am I to say what floats HER boat?
I don’t think that frustration is always a linear equation. The body can become accustomed to things.
Agreed. However, I don’t think the actual abstinence is the issue, but rather the notion that sex is forbidden until matrimony. I am a virgin, though not for any religious reasons, and while I have no trouble avoiding sexual intercourse, I feel safe with the knowledge that should I ever want to indulge, the option is open to me.
In effect, this dictated “purity” prevents a woman from realizing herself sexually until she finds herself a husband. And while self-imposed chastity is perfectly fine when practiced voluntarily, this outside pressure to commandeer a woman’s life in such a way is, I think, unhealthy.
I also agree with mythago’s above statement. Virginity says nothing about a woman’s nature, especially when it’s due to peer pressure and no personal preference of her own.
Or especially when it’s due to no choice of her own. The “purity” movement suggests that a woman is some kind of shrink-wrapped consumer good, and if you’re not the first to break the tamper-proof seal you probably shouldn’t use it. It also implies that sex is something that degrades women.
And it suggests rather strongly that a woman who was sexually assaulted is “impure” and not worth marrying. Whereas a woman who is a virgin but has engaged in sexual activity short of intercourse is “pure”.
Hugo wrote:
“We’re in the last throes of summer…”
‘Tis the last throes of summer, Left blogging all alone…
(sorry, but I’m not poetic enough to finish it.)
Mermade wrote:
“It shocked me when Hugo told me that even James Dobson believes masturbation is okay.”
Well, he *is* a Nazarene, after all! A lot of people buy into stereotypes about folks like Dobson without seeing the whole picture.
Oh my, my, my, could I relate to this post…
I am not the child of immigrants, but the grandchild of immigrants. And along with pounding into my head the importance of my education, my mother managed to pound into me the absolute, utter, all-consuming importance of my not taking the SLIGHTEST possible chance of becoming pregnant while I was still getting that education, because to do so would be to ruin my life…Goodbye to the education, the career, everything, while I got stuck raising a child alone and isolated in a small town for the rest of my life, with everyone knowing my shame…
When you are a teenager and bored to tears and all you can think of is getting out into the world beyond your small town and experiencing some life, you internalize that message but good…”If I weaken and succumb to the boredom and try to dissipate it with sex, it could result in my being stuck here forever.”
Of course, resisting temptation is much easier when no one in that little town thinks of you as desirable to begin with. Or, even if they did, they’d be so afraid of The Wrath of Mom coming down on their heads that they dare not even try.
And while I may not have completely bought into it, the idea that sex before marriage was wrong was also pounded quite thoroughly into my head…my mother would sooner have allowed me to call her by her first name (”You will NEVER call me by my first name. I am your MOTHER, and DON’T YOU FORGET IT!”) than been one of those “modern moms” who carted her daughter off to Planned Parenthood for birth control at 16…
I am now 45 years old, still single, and still trying to deal with the blow that message has dealt to me in terms of my conception of myself as a sexual human being.
After some reflection, I think this dynamic may have something to do with why so many educated, middle class Black women are less likely to marry than other women (Aside from the situation of Black men, supposed lack of desirability to non-Black men, etc.). After all, being sexual could end up with you getting pregnant and then you would be yet another young, Black single mother with now diminished career opportunities.
Crap. I wish I knew where I read this (but since I’ve been reading every blog, lj community, website, etc on feminism…), but I recently read about a study that stated something to the effect of: the teens who made abstinence pledges and remained faithful to them were nearly all 1) married at a young age and/or 2) had a short engagement.
It’s funny, you know … I wanted to “save myself” for marriage for awhile, but not for any particular reason … I guess that saying that was easier than saying that I wasn’t ready for sex yet. I had sex for the first time when I was 23, and I just realized that my traditional (but, not conservative) grandmother got married at 20 … so I waited three years longer than she did. Which, when I thought about it, seemed hilarious.
I don’t understand some peoples’ obsession with a woman’s virginity. I mean, if you didn’t bother to keep it in your pants, how do you have any right to expect a woman to wait? It just screams double standard to me. I also don’t understand how a woman is supposed to shut down her sex drive completely for, say, 25 years, and then on her wedding night is suddenly able to find some magical switch to turn it on.
” I also don’t understand how a woman is supposed to shut down her sex drive completely for, say, 25 years, and then on her wedding night is suddenly able to find some magical switch to turn it on. ” - Katie
Exactly. I have heard that Evangelical/Fundamentalist/otherwise very religious Christians as well as Orthodox Jews have this exact problem when they get married after a lifetime of being told that sex is bad and don’t do it. They often end up with miserable sex lives after they get married because they can’t flip the switch, especially the wives (from what I hear). Many Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men (especially in Israel) are known as some of the biggest customers in the Israeli sex industry (and possibly also in some parts of NYC) and part of it is from being married in a situation where especially the wives have internalized a lifetime of very sex-negative messages in their culture.
Interesting statistical argument essentially rationalizing pre-marital sex. Since no women in the history of mankind has had to wait an average of 15 years, why should ours?
Since we are using statistics, consider the bigger picture. At the turn of the century, when women menstruated at 16 and married and 21, they also had an average life expectancy of 47 years. Thus, even with having children at 21, they could expect to die when their oldest kid was 25 or younger and their grandchildren were 3 or younger.
Additionally, with a 47 year life expectancy, they essentially had 26 sexually active years estimating generously, or 55% of their entire life.
Given that life expectancy is now 81 years for American women, even if they get married at 25 the picture is considerably better for them. They will have 55 sexually active years (or so)–30 years more than in 1900–or about (interestingly) 69% of their entire life.
You could look at the statistics and say, well, 15 years is historically too long to wait. You could just as easily say that, even if I wait until I am married, I have 50+ wonderful years of married sex ahead of me, longer than the average woman lived in 1900.
I understand the pressures at a young age from hormones, society, etc. and frankly think that there is some merit your other points regarding culture and expectations. But to use statistics as you have to your impressionable students to provide a demographic justification for the morality of premarital sex seems to be a stretch. One could use the same statistics, taking into account life expectancy, to argue that there is even less justification for it.