Letter to the Editor

I am rather concerned to see that my comments have been misunderstood by Ms. LeBlanc. I didn’t, in fact, make negative comments about virginity and, indeed, I absolutely oppose the shaming of freely made choices not to have sex. (It’s important to distinguish freely made choices to abstain from those that are coerced by threats of violence or personal attacks on one’s reputation or moral character.) I can see how what was written might be misinterpreted, so I thought I should clear things up.

This is exactly what the article says on the topic and it does reflect my views:
“There are such screwy and stupid messages out there,” says Meynell. “Like the weird status of virginity and the idea that you can ‘give your virginity to someone.’ What the hell does that even mean? If you are having sex for any other reason than for yourself that’s probably a bad idea.”

Part of the ‘weird status of virginity’ is exactly the kind of anti-virginity attitudes that LeBlanc criticizes. In fact, that others care at all about one’s virgin or non-virgin status (unless they are prospective sexual partners) is pretty weird and arguably ‘screwy and stupid.’ If I am reading her right, LeBlanc claims that many people have their own reasons to value their virginity and make their own choices to abstain from sexual relationships. I unhesitatingly support the right for everyone to choose to abstain from any given sexual activity; the right to say “No” and have your refusal accepted is a fundamental freedom. It is absolutely wrong (and, again, weird) that people’s choices on this personal matter are not always respected.

But it’s also weird that some people seem to promote virginity as a kind of end in itself and there are some weird messages that go along with this, such as the idea of “giving one’s virginity to another person.” What’s odd about this is that it seems to make one’s own desires and sexual agency secondary; the ‘giver’ seems to make what is generally understood to be (at its best) a mutually satisfying and enjoyable bodily activity with two (or more) people an event where someone willing makes interaction with his or her own body an object for somebody else. That’s weird. Notice that I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it seems weird to me. It seems less weird if I think of it as a kind of BDSM role playing with the person ‘taking’ the virginity of the other in the role of a Dom and the giver being a Sub, but that doesn’t seem to be how people typically think of it. (As a philosopher, I think that people generally should critically reflect on *all* of their values and make sure that they can critically endorse the values that they live by. (When philosophers talk about ‘the examined life’ that’s the kind of thing that they typically have in mind.))

To make my position clearer perhaps I should make explicit what I had hoped was implicit in my previous statement: If you are having sex *or not having sex* for any other reason than for yourself that’s probably a bad idea.

Letitia Meynell