Transcript | Ask Unladylike: Virginity Disclosure?

[CLIP: DAWSON’S CREEK]

Joey: So, uh, Jen, are you a virgin?

Dawson: That's mature.

Joey: Well, cuz Dawson is a virgin, and two virgins really makes for a clumsy first encounter don't you think?

Dawson: You are gonna die.

Joey: I just thought I'd help, you know, Cut to the chase.

Jen: No, it's, it's okay, Dawson. Yes, I am a virgin. And how about you, Joey? Are you a virgin?

Joey: Please. Years ago. Trucker named Bubba.

Dawson: What is up with you? 

[UNLADYLIKE THEME]

CRISTEN CONGER: This is Unladylike. I'm Cristen, and let me just say listener. Yes, you. You have five star podcast taste. Did you know that?

By choosing to listen to Unladylike out of the millions of podcasts out there, you, friend have chosen quality and you don't just have to take it from me. I'm gonna read an Apple Podcast, five star review at random. 

Steffy Dube says, Amazing. Oh, thank you. I cannot lie. Please don't. I am an unlady and I'm okay with that. We need this podcast in the podosphere unraveling truths, giving a voice, lending an ear to women and their stories. I love it. Exclamation point. An exclamation point! Thank you, Steffy Dube.

Now is it gauche to start an episode by shamelessly plugging for five star ratings on Apple Podcasts and Spotify? Yeah, it probably is extremely gauche, which is one of the reasons why I've never done it. But now I'm doing it cuz for one thing, it is the easiest way to show Unladylike some love and help would-be unladies find the podcast. Also, I am hoping a glowing review will gimme a little bit of a credibility boost since this is, after all, an Ask Unladylike episode where I answer your questions that Google could never. 

So unladies, are you ready? 

I don't think you're ready for this…telly?

CLIP: BOOTYLICIOUS

CRISTEN: Before we get to this week's advice request, I wanted to share part of my conversation with Unladylike listener “A” who inspired the episode, Bad Nose, Good Nose. And if you haven't listened to that episode, it is fantastic and also this chat with “AS” will still make plenty of sense.

She and I got on Zoom about three minutes after “A” finished listening to the episode, and I was both excited and a little bit nervous to check in and learn more about how her nose became an alleged problem that needs fixing.

"A": I know that the listeners can't see me, but I feel like, um, if you've ever seen Dirty Dancing and you're familiar with the actress, Jennifer Gray, we have a, we have very similar facial features, and Jennifer Gray is a Jewish woman that had rhinoplasty done.

And I remember when, um, she had that surgery, like my dad was like, man, she looked so much better before, and I just thought, it's like a lose-lose. There's no way for, for us to win this battle. 

CRISTEN: You describe nose jobs. As like a silent secret rite of passage. Was there a first time it was brought up to you? 

"A": Yeah. the time that my mom told me she thought I would look prettier with a nose job, which is a very sad, sad statement to reflect on, but I think I must have been in maybe 10th grade, and it was kind of just out of the blue, like we were just sitting on the couch together, like drinking a cup of coffee and she just turned to me and she was like, You know, if you ever want to have this surgery done, I'll pay for it.

It would probably be covered by insurance, and I just think you would look a lot prettier, like you're beautiful as you are, but you know, you might look prettier if you had a nose job done. And it really took me aback. And then of course I spent the next 15 minutes in the bathroom looking at my nose and. 

Thinking about, you know, what prompted that comment. And I feel like ever since then, and honestly she probably doesn't even remember this conversation, um, it sort of spiraled into a lot of like self reflection about my face and  what expectations I, I might have or people have for me, I suppose.

CRISTEN: So has your mom had a nose job? 

"A": Yeah. As I mentioned in my email, like almost every single woman in my family saved for one cousin has had plastic surgery. And it's really funny because people tell me that my mom and I look um Very similar all the time. but we have very different noses because she has had plastic surgery. And, I remember really distinctly finding a photo of her before she had had the procedure done.

And in that photo we looked almost identical like she had. Exactly the same nose that I have now. and I remember bringing her the photo and she asked me to put it away and to not mention to my dad that, you know, that photo existed because even though I think she succumbed to family pressure. She still didn't get some sort of relief and I think it helped me see that there's shame on both sides of the aisle, and I'm sure that her prompting me to get surgery also has to do with some of her own reckoning, which the episode also helped me understand so,

CRISTEN: Yeah. And, I'm also just curious if. If there were ever open conversations among women in your family about, body talk in the way that we hear about like women and socializing and the ways we talk about our bodies when we're around each other.

"A": Yeah. This is something that my family does not talk about, I think the only time we've ever openly acknowledged somebody's plastic surgery was when one of my other cousins had, a nose job done and there were just comments of like, Oh, doesn't she look so much better?

Like, Oh, but her nose was really bad before and. Yeah, those just did not sit well with me. And I feel like any time I've tried to breach the subject, like I almost had my nose pierced, and as I was walking out the door, my grandma who. Almost 90 at the time, nearly begged me not to because she said it would draw attention to my face.

And did I really want to do that and I told her that what she had said was hurtful and you know, it never really went farther than that. So it is kind of a bit of a taboo topic, despite the fact that my family is very open about, you know, other emotional things.

CRISTEN: So how do you feel, how do you feel about your nose? 

"A": I think similar to other women with, um, any sort of body and security, it goes through phases. There are times that I have resentment for my nose. And there are also times that I love my nose and as I've aged, my perspective has changed as I've grown. My focus has changed away from maybe how I look a little bit more. I can say right now I do like my nose. I just don't like, um, the pressure that comes with having a large nose. 

CRISTEN: are there pressures outside of the family pressures that, come with having a big nose?

"A": I think it's really more of like an internal and a family conflict. No stranger has ever suggested that I adjust my face, which I suppose I'm grateful for. But yeah, it's really more of like a swept under the rug made in sort of passive aggressive passing comments kind of pressure. 

CRISTEN: Is it a conversation at all that you would want to engage in with your family of like, hey, drop it. Like accept, accept my nose. 

"A": Yeah, I think that it's probably a conversation that would be healthy to have. It might come into play as well, like as I think about having kids and the connotations with them, and I think It would be important and valuable for me to talk to my family. I just haven't really had the courage. And even as I reflected on the episode that you did, I was like, wow, I've listened to, I think every single episode you've ever put out. And I've listened to people's, you know, insecurities and. You know, emotional, personal things, but it hits differently when it's your thing.

And it kind of made me reflect on, okay, well if, you know, potentially like thousands of people can listen to this, then like, certainly I can talk to my mom. Like she's one of my best friends, so hopefully this is the kick in the butt that I need to actually talk to her about it. 

CRISTEN: I mean, is there a way that you can just kind of get her to listen to this episode? 

"A": Yeah. Slide it into her. Slide it in her dms. Yeah. 

CRISTEN: Yeah, thought of you. 

[STINGER]

CRISTEN: Thank you and godspeed to unlady “A”, which sounds way too much like the band formerly known as Lady Antebellum. Anyway, speaking of broaching uncomfortable conversations, it is now time for a segment I'm calling Tell Unladylike since the advice episodes are called Ask Unladylike, this is Tell Unladylike where y'all tell me where I can go, shove it, just kidding. Y'all are amazing.

So amazing in fact that last Ask Unladylike - Unvaxxed, Unfriend - I was fully bracing myself when that episode came out. And fortunately, y'all had a lot to say, and even though not everyone was pleased with what I had to say, unladies, you know how to do constructive criticism. And that's just one of the many things I love about y'all. And if you are new to this podcast, I call listeners unladies and welcome. You are included in this. 

Let's dive in and let's start with the question that by far, got the most feedback, and it was Kelly in Colorado looking for advice on mending things with a long-distance friend who is unvaccinated, who things are on the rocks between them now, because this friend was coming into town, originally going to stay at Kelly's house, then Kelly discovers the friend is unvaccinated. Kelly also has a little baby now, and Kelly had to tell that friend, Sorry, you gotta stay somewhere else. Let's just say the whole thing. Really put the distance in their long distance friendship.

Listener, Lexi said: I'm listening to your up about the girl who kicked her friend out of her house for being unvaxxed. I was in a similar situation in August, 2021. I went to visit my hometown friends and family with my 18 month old who no one had met yet, and I knew a dear, dear friend of mine was not vaccinated. 

At the time I was captain scared of Covid, and in the year since I've had it, as has my kid and partner, and we were all fine. And that had certainly lessened the intense fear I felt in the early days of the pandemi. Anyway, after much hand ringing on my part, we agreed to hang out outside and for a long time I harbored resentment that she was selfish and angry and that she didn't trust the science.

But as time went on and as I got less scared and practiced some cognitive dissonance, I've just come to terms with her decision to do what she likes with her body.

We're still friends, thankfully.

Wow, Lexi. That was a journey. And the only thing that bumped for me and Lexi, I'm sure this was not intentional, but my body and my choice kind of rhetoric being applied to not getting vaccinated.

I'm not into that kind of co-opting, that kind of co-opting of Feminist rhetoric over reproductive rights and access because of anti-science anti-abortion. Then being flipped into some kind of Anti-VAX slogan, which is also anti-science. And again, Lexi, I am fully reading all of this out of context in your letter, so please don't take that feedback personally. 

Now Michelle kinda pick picks up the baton from Lexi and says, I was listening to the recent episode of Ask on Ladylike and was cringing about the first email on vaccination status. I'm bothered because there's still so much misunderstanding about what the vaccine does for you and for others. Well, you could say that again, especially when it comes to anti-vaxxers.

Michelle says, Being vaccinated is for all YOU. You can still get covid even if you're vaccinated. I did. You can still carry covid even if you're vaccinated and not sick. What the vaccine does is help you to not get sick. Not get as sick, and to survive if you do get sick.

Losing a friend over that that, that, that seems wrong. The friend is risking her own health and survival. I just cringe that people seem to think that the vaccine makes you invulnerable.

It makes people more careless. Oh, oh, that's interesting. Interesting take Michelle. Okay, and finally I'm gonna share a letter from Sarah. There are gonna be a number of Sarah's this episode, but a letter from Sarah that also calls back to our women and conspiracy theories two-parter Illuminati Influencer Queens, part one and two, if you haven't listened to it, do.

I also wrote this on a bonus mailbag episode on Patreon, so dearest patrons, you can fast forward the next three minutes, but I had to share it here because I have a feeling it's gonna resonate with a lot of y'all. 

Sarah writes, I am a person who ended a friendship over the vaccine. I have a friend group from childhood of eight women, and I'm closer to some than others. One who will call Rachel lives out of state, so I rarely see her anyway, and has become more and more indoctrinated with QAN adjacent beliefs overtime.

The vaccine was the final straw. I had reached out privately over a few of her social media posts, anti blm, anti-choice, et cetera, to try to get a better understanding and explain my position. One that she clearly had misinformation about. It was getting harder and harder to feel like I wanted a person with such different all caps, values in my life.

Then the vaccine cometh I'm immunocompromised, so it's especially important for me that society reach herd immunity to keep people like me safe, and even more important for me to surround myself with people who believe that I deserve that safety.

We were all in the group chat talking about when we were getting vaxxed, which ones we ended up with, et cetera. Then Rachel comes in hot with very q and on takes about how unsafe it is, how for her, the six people who died in trials was enough and we don't need more people to die.

Parentheses like from Covid, question mark, exclamation point, question mark, and I was all-caps done. We actually have a separate group chat for the five of the eight of us who live in the same state so the Others don't have to deal with a million texts about logistics of meetups, so I just use that one and not the one she's in. I felt like I'd already tried to talk to her about the issues I have with her positions, and she no longer deserves that emotional labor from me.

She is well aware of my medical conditions, and in fact, her father is a doctor. The members of the group, I'm closer to know my position and support it, and certainly if they wanna see her when she's in town, that's up to them. So while the vaccine was the final straw, it wasn't the only thing, and I suspect that may be the case with others as well, given the current political atmosphere.

Oh, I bet. I bet. Now, if you'd like to hear the most heated response. To that advice request from a frustrated listener who felt the need to explain to me how making safety decisions on behalf of an infant quote is not the same thing as making decisions between adults end quote.

To hear that you gotta go to the Patreon. Yeah. That's pay walled content. Sometimes I just gotta, I gotta pay all my responses, friends, you know? 

I also heard from some unladies in STEM who had advice for listener, Lydia. She was the one who was about to graduate from college with a computer science degree. Always the only woman in the room and she wanted to know how to enter this field that is rife with sexism, with any kind of confidence.

Listener, Jenny recommended. I am a woman in computer science. Oh hey. And have been for over 20 years. Oh, hey. I just went to the Grace Hopper celebration along with 15,000 fellow women non-binary ally technologists. It was so inspiring. It's run yearly by Anita b.org. I would highly recommend Lydia join and utilize all the benefits they offer, including mentor mentee relationships.

Uh, Jenny, 20-year computer science veteran! Thank you for that hot tip!

Over in the Instagram dms @unladylikemedia, Megan shared: I'm currently a scientist in the muscle physiology slash exercise science world. Oh my God, that's so cool. As you may expect, if it's muscle, it can be very dude heavy. Some great, a few select trash humans. I think confidence is earned slash developed through challenges and doesn't manifest itself.

Agree. This is not to say go make things difficult on one's self, just to make a point, but rather. Take confidence in the challenges you've already overcome. I've taught for many years and computer science is really hard. I have a PhD and am pretty fluent in code-based statistical, and I don't know the first thing about computers and y'all, I don't know the first thing about what code based statistical is.

I think when you are surrounded by a lot of the same people in your field, your accomplishments can feel less impress. But give yourself a cheer. You're in one of the most difficult majors on any college campus. Hell yes. That's such a good point too. When you are surrounded by a lot of the same people in your field, your accomplishments can feel less impressive.

Yeah. That's like me. Anytime I go on Twitter any single time. There are so many companies that need your kind of talent. People don't pursue computer science slash math because they're hard. And because it's so hard, companies are desperate to find computer science people.

So upon entering the job market, you should have your pick of companies. If one has a crappy men child manager, move on to a company that will appreciate and cultivate your talent and skill. They are out there and many now are women led and ready to hire young female talent. You've got this. 

Now, I do have some real talk from another listener named Sarah. And Sarah wrote, I'm a little over five years into my career in chemical engineering, and to be honest, I don't know if I have advice.

I feel like I've had a huge struggle with people taking me seriously. I've thankfully been promoted a few times, but I'm feeling very defeated in my current role due to major sexism, red flags. Get ready y'all. I've been called a fucking buzz kill, too Pretty to be taken seriously. Little girl, I've been asked if I'm my boss's assistant, if I'm only going to be eating salad at all meals.

I get asked to organize all the outside work activities, even if it's just going to the bar. A few weeks ago someone told me they were impressed to hear technical words coming out of my mouth because I was too pretty. I am so frustrated. Um, yeah, I, I, if, if someone asked me whether I would only be eating salad, I would take my salad fork and I was about to say, poke their eye out, that is much too grizzly. I would actually just use it to pass, aggressively, eat my salad, because I probably wouldn't think of anything in the moment to say, Okay, back to Sarah. I've been feeling very overwhelmed with everything, and the only advice I have is going to a technical group like Women in Comp Psi, s w e or something like that.

So you have peers that are going through the same thing as you. There are less women working here now than there were five years ago, which is a bumber. There are only two other women at my company in the engineering and technical roles out of 60 plus guys.

Thankfully, we're all pretty similar and have each other to talk to, which is the only thing that keeps me together some days. I also think my company and industry is really old fashioned, so I'd encourage anyone getting into STEM to choose a company that is making a product or service you personally or politically align with.

I make petrochemicals and don't agree with the company's mission or purpose, so I'm actively looking for a new job that fits my beliefs better. I think companies that have a more progressive mission are more likely to have a better culture, but I could be wrong.

I'm hoping for a better experience for everyone else. Sarah, I am so enraged for you and thankful that you took the time to share the unvarnished truth, 

I am also, I'm also thrilled to hear you're looking for a new job. You know, because you took the words right outta my mouth. Three women. 60 Plus men Who? Who? De lolly. 

Finally, I've got some quick feedback to my response to Leticia's advice request. On whether she should stop dying away. Her gray. Cheryl wrote, I was just listening to the October q and a episode and think you might be misinterpreting your dad's reaction to your graying hair. Cheryl is talking to me in case you didn't listen.

You know what? I'm not gonna give you the recap. You gotta go back and listen to the episode. I tell a whole story about my dad. So what does Cheryl have to say about my dad? It might be more about how difficult it is for him to realize you are aging and what it means for his own mortality. I just lost my dad very suddenly a few months ago, so I may be biased to giving dads a little grace.

Oh, Cheryl,

I'm so sorry, Cheryl. And you're a thousand percent right. As his youngest child, I can only imagine, what a mortality check it must be for him to see her graying hair. And thank you Cheryl, for reminding me to. Appreciate that time nonetheless. 

Okay, let's take a quick break.

[AD BREAK]

CRISTEN: Got a question that you don't know how to answer? Email me!

Okay, unladies, this episode's advice request comes from Lee, subject line: on the verge(in). She spelled it v e r g, parentheses i n lee. I love it. I love a pun. 

Lee writes: At age 27, I had made my peace with not having a relationship yet. For the most part, I was either too busy with school, new jobs, or just too chicken to initiate on a crush from afar.

Fast forward to my surprise, last year I found myself being asked out by a real catch of a guy I had just met at a coffee shop. Go figure. He's younger, 21, still in college and has had at least one previous relationship. My conundrum is this. Now that we're three months into dating, I find myself wondering if I need to tell him just how new to all this I am. The subject hasn't really presented itself naturally yet, and now I'm a little self-conscious that I'm stumbling through first kisses, cuddling, and the possibility of sex in the near future. Does he sense my awkward navigation through these?

I'm on board to be more intimate, but I don't really know what I'm doing. How do I bring this up? Do I even need to Until he's curious. So far he's been genuinely attentive and thoughtful, especially compared to a lot of the guys in our local college town dating scene. I know he'd be very understanding. I just can't, for the life of me decide when or if I ought to announce my inexperience.

What's the feminist angle on it all? You know? Oh, I know Lee. I know, I know. Yes, the feminist angle. And I also know the head games that virginity and air quotes can play on us. 

After all, virginity is a patriarchal invention, a heteronormative construct that frames cisgender women as the sexual gatekeepers. And our worth as relationship partners and sexual partners, frankly, allegedly hinges on whether or not a penis has penetrated a vagina. How ridiculous is that? How ridiculous is that? Answer: extremely ridiculous. And Lee, I, I'm pretty sure you understand that you don't owe him any kind of explanation. What I pick up from your letter and probably projecting my own experience onto this, is the anxiety that this guy is sensing your inexperience, that he might be thinking to himself, Uhoh, I think she might be a virgin. She doesn't really seem to know what she's doing. And to that, I will say he's probably thinking about it much less than you are. At 21, even though he's had at least one previous relationship, that means fuck all honestly.

I also highly doubt that any 21 year old college guy is gonna be so overwhelmingly experienced that he's just, he just, he just can't handle you fumbling around with all of this.

Like, no, I have a feeling this guy is thrilled. He met you in a coffee shop. Y'all, y'all didn't even meet on Tinder. This is like old school he saw you, was attracted to you, asked you out like you're in, you know. But again, the thing about virginity, of course, are, are the head games because we're talking about something that is highly subjective and cultural and has been warped by centuries of Christian indoctrination and purity culture and that kind of stuff is really hard to simply talk ourselves out of. 

But I also wanna go back to Lee's central conundrum. She says, I'm a little self-conscious that I'm stumbling through first kisses, cuddling the possibility of sex in the near future. Does he sense my awkward navigation? How do I bring this up? Do I even need to until he's curious, Lee. These are all great questions to be asking. My feminist lens on it though is to. Shift the angle of these questions away from him so much and onto you, because what I'm hearing a lot of is you relying on him to set the pace of things. 

And what would happen, Lee, if you took him out of the equation for a hot second and asked yourself, What do you want? Like, do you wanna have sex with this guy? Cuz if the answer is yes, I think the way you bring that up Is to say to him, honestly, at any point in time when you were on your way out the door, when you are sitting next to him, half watching love is blind, like whatever it is. To where y'all aren't already mid make out.

Simply ask him, Do you wanna have sex? Cuz I would like to. And depending on his response to that, since I also wanna leave room for this guy to say no, depending on his response and how you're feeling in that moment, maybe you then express.

You feel a little nervous about it, it's the first time. It will be the first time that he will be having sex with you as well. So if you wanna steer clear of getting into the virginity of it all, you can simply say, I mean, I'm a little nervous cuz it's gonna be the first time.

And you get to decide, which kind of first time you're alluding to. I also wanna be clear that I, I'm not arguing for deception or game playing. I just think that unless this is a relationship that you really want to invest a lot of emotional energy into and are getting that in return, importantly, you don't have to share things that you're not comfortable with. 

There's also room in there for some playfulness. Going back to my example of y'all watching season three of Love Is Blind, which, no, I'm not watching it, y’all. I've seen season one and two, and I don't know if I have more of my life to give away right now, but let's say that y'all are watching it, and one of the couples starts getting hot and heavy.

You can also, uh, turn to him and say, hey, that looks fun.

Whatever takes some of the pressure that you're feeling off of you, because the, the stakes I'm sure feel precarious cuz you're having fun and you wanna keep having fun and maybe yeah. Have some sex while you're at it.

Challenge yourself, Lee, to ask for what it is that you want out of this. 

Anyone, regardless of their age, who freaks out or withdraws at the notion of being intimate with someone who has not had penis in vagina sexual intercourse, but is enthusiastically consenting to it. Yeah, no, that's on them. That is their baggage and it sucks. It is a form of rejection? Yes. Does it feel personal? Sure. But ultimately it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with centuries of this virginal indoctrination that even in our highly sexualized culture is still going strong. 

[AD BREAK]

CRISTEN: So let's dig in a little deeper, starting with the term virgin. It originated from the Latin word, Virgo, meaning maiden, and it entered the English language in the 1200s. And by 1390, apparently , ye oldy horn dogs. We're already talking about virginity in terms of keeping it or losing it, and on top of that, the term Virgin only applied to women originally. And as we'll find out, the gendering of virginity is still going strong. But honestly it, it fucks with all of us. And I found a 2021 study that shed some more light on that. It's called Coming out as a Virgin or not the disclosure of Virginity Status Scale. Now this study intentionally. Looked only at cis hat, young adults and teens, precisely because of the heteronormative nature of virginity. And the study authors noted that there's still a lot of research that needs to be done on first sexual experiences and virginity disclosure among LGBTQ people.

But within that cis he construct of virginity. The study authors highlight three cognitive frameworks of how people tend to perceive the idea of virginity. It's either a gift, a stigma. or a process. So virginity as a gift. This is purity culture. And for women who perceive virginity as a gift, they tend to be more open about their virginal status because of course, according to patriarchy, virgins are celebrated, right?

On the flip side of that, of course there's a lot of shame associated with sexual experience. Then there's virginity seen as stigma as something that you do not wanna be, You feel shame for being inexperienced. But on the flip side of that, you're potentially loud and proud once you're doing it, whatever the it is for you. So for me growing up, I was raised with virginity as gift, but by the time I was graduating high school I was full blown virginity as stigma, and the way that I negotiated that for myself in my 18 year old brain was, I'm way too horny to wait for marriage. That seems ridiculous, but this is also supposed to be a big deal. I mean, where were you when Joey and Pacey had sex? For the first time on Dawson's Creek. Okay. I was in my parents' bedroom sneaking that episode because I wasn't supposed to watch Dawson's Creek. And then the next day at high school, everybody was talking about it.

And I remember it being kind of, uh, watching it being, And I also remember, and I also remember watching it being like, This is kind of boring. You know? I'm sure they did like a fade to black kind of thing, but it was this, ugh. It was such a big deal. It was such a big deal. And of course, Pacey was no  t a virgin because in the very first episode of Dawson's Creek, who was he  having sex with?

In the classroom? Yeah, the teacher. The teacher. There was a lot of shit going on in Dawson's Creek. Okay. In retrospect, the biggest difference between the purity culture messages I was raised with and the pop cultural messages, I was sneaking in in the late nineties, early odds was marriage as the line. So according to church, I needed to be a virgin when I got married. According to pop culture, I didn't need to be a virgin when I got married.

In fact, that might be weird, but it was still framed as a gift that you give to a man that you love. Love became the metric, and honestly, it making love the line of when first sexual intercourse is acceptable, it really didn't do me any favors either, because what I did was convince myself at 18 that the older guy that I was dating who was in his early twenties,, who I, I really just hung out and watched him play halo and smoke weed and get drunk on the weekends. I convinced myself that I must love him because what I wanted from him was to put his penis inside of my vagina so I could no longer be a virgin.

Also, partly due to a friend of his, also an older guy telling me that I would likely get dumped because I'm a virgin, and that was too much of a burden for any guy to take on of, of being someone's first. And, you know, hearing myself describe all this stuff out loud, I, I'm shocked that I even made it here.

Back to our study though, there's the gift framework, the stigma framework, and then there's the process framework, and the process framework is kind of virginity neutral. It's more the approach of, Yeah, at some point this thing called sex will happen and before it I will have been allegedly a virgin and afterwards I allegedly will no longer be one. And it's just part of the process of maturation. And I really, really wish I could have been more of a process thinker.

But the stigma and concern of virginity is so real. 

The study noted that previous research found that both non virgins and virgins say that they prefer a partner who has at least some sexual experience. And when it comes to self disclosures, virginity status was consistently rated as the most uncomfortable disclosure across gender and sexual orientation. So regardless of whether you see it as a gift or a process or a stigma, everybody's out here with some very warped ideas about virgins , and of course, gender differences and sexual double standards quickly emerge. So this study found that among cisgender men, they were more likely to view virginity as a stigma. Cisgender women, meanwhile are likelier to see virginity as a gift.

And I think it's worth noting women tend to have broader definitions of what constitutes quote unquote having sex and in opposite gender dating scenarios as well. Women tend to disclose virginity status more often than men, but what the study really highlights, aside from the gender differences, is how virginity disclosure depends a lot on the dis disclosee the researchers looked at virginity disclosure to peers, to family, and to religious figures. 

So sexually active women disclosed the most of their friends while sexually inactive or virgin men, Disclosed the least to their friends. See, it fucks everybody. It fucks everybody. When it comes to disclosing to family, Female virgins disclosed the most while male virgins, again, disclosed the least male virgins are really keeping it close to the vest, close to the chest, close to the vest.

Why would it be a vest? Is it the chest? Oh God, I don't know.

And that definitely resonated with my purity and chastity culture, upbringing, which is all about female virgins. You're wearing a promise ring, you're doing a daddy daughter dance. You are openly like it is.

It is part of your public facing identity and something that your parents are actively interested in you at least maintaining the appearance of a virgin. The script flips, however, when the script kind of flips, the script flips, However, in disclosures to religious figures. So again, female virgins disclosing the most. Whereas sexually active women disclosed the least and lied the most to your religious figures. And that kind of shapeshifting of virginity disclosures sums up so much of why the whole thing is honestly more trouble than it's worth. 

To quote the study authors, female public declarations of abstinence are celebrated due to sexual suppression of women, but with peers, virginity loss is expected. Meanwhile, the opposite is true for men, particularly young men who are expected to be sexual initiators regardless of context. And that right there is why it fucks all of us.

It writes the script for cisgender young men saying, Hey, guess what? You are gonna need to initiate this stuff. And if you are not hot and horny and getting it in, then you're gonna be some kind of weirdo. 

I would love to know though, from listeners, have our broadening understandings of gender and sexuality steeped into virginity culture at all? Does Gen Z for instance, give as much of a fuck about virginity status as millennials did? 

And I would also love to hear from any other unladies navigating the confounding construct that is virginity, whatever age it might be.

It is one of those many, many things that is straightforward kind of to understand and to get from a feminist perspective of like, I, I know that it is made up and yet, and yet I care about it. I worry about it. People are weird about it. That's very real and very valid, and I don't think we talk enough about virginity outside of high school and even college age. And as much as I love Steve Carell, I think it's unfortunate that the 40-Year-Old Virgin stereotype and stigma, it hasn't budged enough, let's say. 

It also made me wonder whether disclosing virginity status or number of partners are essentially two sides of the same slut shaming coin. Because if you disclose that you're a virgin, you're a prude. If you disclose that you have had one night stands and or more than like four sexual partners, you're sloot and that's unladylike for slut.

[OUTRO]

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Unladylike is a Starburns Audio production, written and executive produced by me, Cristen Conger. Tara Brockwell is our senior producer. Katherine Calligori is our associate producer. Engineering and post production is by Ali Niklou. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow. Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin.