The Experience Project has a website, called "I am a Virgin". Its an interesting site because it doesn't promote any sort of distinction- virgins by choice, virgins by ideology- basically anyone that is a virgin posts their thoughts on this condition.

Anyway, there is a thread on this site that basically discusses why people feel they are virgins. Here are some of the reasons, posted in the last few weeks:

Mine: father = trust issues

Shyness, Ugliness, Size, Dad issues

Shyness, friendless, picky, unconfident, dooooomed. lol

Again, that sense of having a crippling stigma, being a reject from society, and most importantly- having deep psychological problems ie. problems with one's father- positively Freudian- speak to how much virginity has been, at a base level, pathologized in our society, and how in this one aspect, traditional feminism is failing- failing to assert that virginity, too is an honourable choice for young women- and for the men that choose to support them and also make similar choices.

In many subcultures, as I observed in my theorizing about prostitutes in Johannesburg, South Africa- sexuality can be percieved as a language. Through the vehicle of sexual acts- the little yeses, the little no-s- the type of sex, like dry sex or with a condom or which particular person, or time of day, or how often, or how much money, or how many partners- women are able to provide a rich commentary on their internal state through their judicious exercise of their negotiated sexual acts. Which leads one to the essential question: if sexuality and undress are a language- is true that those don't play are essentially mute? That they cannot comment in feminism's most cherished idiom? That the "good girl" is essentially voiceless, and the "bad girl" is the only way that someone can fight back and "get over" those that have left her, or not afforded her respect- by putting her body on the line?

Or is true, that just as the good girl is seen as limited, so, too, is the bad girl- because she cannot truly say no? That at some point, she has to say yes- to BE bad- or she has no power?

She has choices, it is true, but it seems that they are rather hobbled in orientation- what you buy, instead of whether you buy- who you sleep with, rather than whether young women sleep with someone at all.