I'm not sure I'd use the term you did but I do find "virginity" a very strange and unnecessary concept. I have never been parachuting but there isn't a word that is used to define me as that. This is true of virtually all things I haven't experienced. There isn't a word assigned to me to do indicate I have never seen Coldplay. So why is sex any different?
It implies there is something fundamentally different about a person once they have had sex, and I don't think there is.
I suspect its origins lie in shaming people (especially women) for not conforming to some self-appointed authority's standards. It has been used as a way of controlling women.
It makes me think of the "walk of shame". That strikes me as a pretty vile, judgemental expression. |
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I think as is defined, it’s a bit too heteronormative. But I think the concept of having sex for the first time isn’t myth.
I think it has been positioned in society in a particular way that isn’t good for its members. |
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"Is virginity a social construct of society?  "
Yes, it's the commodification of female sexuality - even when it relates to a male virgin, as society decrees it to be a woman's job to "take" that virginity hence the incel backlash. |
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"Is virginity a social construct of society? "
The concept of virginity I would argue is a social construct, yes. Particularly the idea that "losing" your virginity has to be penis in vagina sex. It erases non-heterosexual sex for a start, boils sex down to penetration only and as someone else said, commodifies female sexuality in a very archaic way.
Even abstractly, the concept of virginity can be given many meanings especially outside of heteronormative understandings of "sex". If a woman has only had sex with a woman and has never has penis in vagina sex does that make her a virgin? That seems ludicrous. Virginity has whatever meaning society places on it. It doesn't exist on its own outside of our understanding of it.
We place way too much emphasis on virginity in society imo, and much of that was about the subjugation of women in the past and the valoration of an "unspoilt" maiden with women seen as property to be bartered and traded like prize cows. |
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This is what Google says...
The word "virgin" originates from the Latin word "virgo", meaning "maiden" or "virgin". This Latin word is likely derived from the root vireo, which means "to be green, fresh, or flourishing". The English word "virgin" came into use around 1200, initially referring to an unmarried or chaste woman, particularly one with religious piety. The modern, more specific meaning of "never having had sexual intercourse" developed later, around the 1300s.
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As with most words in the English language, use gets changed over time and with different generations, whether that's through laziness or a definitive choice to redefine a word.
And of course people will always use whatever definition suits their thought process or arguments where there are options. |
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