What Constitutes Loss Of Virginity?

My wife and I have been kicking around a question for a while: what constitutes loss of virginity?

For both of us, growing up and in early adulthood (up to mid-30s, I guess), we both have always assumed the it is simply the first time you fuck a member of the opposite sex. However, more and more, I'm seeing definitions like this one from Wikipedia.

"The traditional view is that virginity is only lost through vaginal penetration by the penis, consensual or non-consensual, and that acts of oral sex, anal sex, mutual masturbation or other forms of non-penetrative sex do not result in loss of virginity."

What confuses us is the "non-penetrative sex" part. If you're a woman and no man has ever inserted his penis in your vagina, but he has inserted his fingers (i.e. finger-fucked you), does that qualify as loss of virginity? If not, does that mean that a lesbian couple remain virgins, even though they've very likely done exactly that to each other on occasion?

The reason we keep coming back to the question is this. I'm the first (although not the only) man who's ever actually fucked my wife. However, when she was a senior in high school, she had a boy friend with whom she did almost everything except for fuck. That included him finger-fucking her for about an hour ever weekend during that school year, and eating her out almost as much. Does all that finger-fucking qualify as loss of virginity?

This is not a touchy subject for us, but more of an academic issue. Mainly, we'd like to now how to answer close friends if we get together and are asked if we were virgins before we met each other. (This is not an unusual question within our circle of friends.)

So, what say you all?

 

flirting

 

By Victorian standards, because the finger breaks the hymen as well, so I have heard it considered as amounting to the same thing---creating damaged goods (in that old mentality where women were objectified as mere property).

This creates a problem-----does that mean that one can lose their virginity in their very first gynecological exam?????

(...wait a minute!! That's why she keeps going back to him!!!! ...darn I should've gone to Medical School...)

 

I've wondered the same thing on and off for years. I was a 22 year old virgin, but I had oral sex at age 13. If I was a gay guy...??

 

We considered it from that point of view. However, my wife doesn't remember there being any tearing, pain, or even minor discomfort the first time he put his fingers inside her. That's one of the main reasons she kept let him do it all the time. It just felt good! (She decided from the start that he was never going to fuck her and she told him as much. She was too worried about pregnancy.) We're both of the opinion that her hymen had already parted before her boyfriend started petting her. (I hear that's not uncommon.) I suppose, if you were of a humorous frame of mind, you could consider that an immaculate loss of virginity, prior to ever being touched sexually by a man!

 

You lose your virginity when you start shopping around. A child is a virgin. You lose your hymen during penetration.
Virgin birth is before the sexual idea.
single cell division

 

Not necessarily. The definition of "child" varies from culture to culture. What we in the west consider children are frequently married and bearing children of their own in the middle-east.

Many woman never lose their hymens (at least not completely), even after decades if vaginal intercourse. And there are numerous causes of torn hymens other than sexual penetration. Vigorous exercise is one of the most common.

See? This is why I posed the question in the first place. If the answer were clear cut, I wouldn't have had to ask. I do appreciate all the discussion so far, however.

 

That is just a sliding scale it doesn't answer the question. Biological virginity is before the advent of sexual activity. The interest or attraction to sex remains strong throughout the whole process called sexual activity. The comment about hymen is just to say penetration does not take away virginity. Loosing virginity is having sex for the first time, to have the "hots" is having sex. The cultural interpretation is obviously a method of control interpreting virginity as having been saved for coitus with the one who takes her. So if you had sex with someone you loved before the one you were being taken by you weren't a virgin when you got married and probably a slut in your past life. So you see how that works, it's all a huge guilt trip to guaranty ownership and it is very objectifying to the human race.

Yes there is a fast definition for virginity that you can count on.
We choose the sliding scale so that we judge the value of the meat in the market.
Take this hand in holy matrimony?
You've got to be fucking kidding me.
No marriages like that in heaven.

 

Most meaningless boring question ever.

You're fucking married, and worried about this shit? Grow up, and grow a brain.

No offense.

 

I thought I answered it well no offense.

 

Bad questions don't necessitate bad answers.

 

What good are you then. It makes you not needed as a guide. People just say fuck you right back. It is the logical thing to do considering the prime directive of self interest. Your response makes you appear misogynistic toward pussies. just sayin

 

I'm not sure that I follow.

I pointed out the op has blatantly stupid hang-ups, how the hell is he wasting his life worrying about that, to the point that he makes it sound like some regular cause of puzzlement to him and his wife? Pathetic.

You addressed it reasonably too - it's a fine question to consider and answer, it's not a fine question to be overly puzzled by or interested in, like the OP. There's nothing wrong with discussing it in passing, and there's no reason it couldn't be brought up by a less insidiously boring OP, but this OP needs to take a serious look at himself.

 

Well let's get at it together. The issue of distortion of the definition of that seemingly stupid question, has profound effects on societies as it has been posed. To clear up confusion allows a new idea to appear because you are not still arbitrating the old, the question are you a virgin.

As far as approach to transmitting understanding, an understanding is shared thought. To say he has blatantly stupid hangups is not a though shared by him and he would never think to take your advice on that basis. So in order for him to look seriously at himself you have to take him seriously. I bet you we've informed here in way that people hadn't anticipated.

 

Let me make sure I understand this correctly. Are you saying that desire alone constitutes loss of virginity? If I'm a girl in my early teens and I begin to lust after a boy in one of my classes, right then and there, I lost my virginity!?!

I suspect that you're not going to get much buy-in with that definition.

 

Well it depends on what kind of change you want. What reason would that definition give to you? What decent thing would be unsettled by it?

 

Virginity has always referred to a change in physical state, not mental state. At least, by most accepted definitions. My original post was looking for a little specificity. You're perfectly welcome to believe that thinking about it is sufficient, but has no connection with why I started this thread.

BTW, I have have absolutely no you're talking about in your second sentence.

 

I said nothing about mental state. I've written more than two sentences in a couple of posts now so I don't know what sentence you are referring to.
What I said was sexual attraction is a sexual system function. It involves the release of hormones which titillate excitement. becoming sexually flushed I am not suggesting a "dirty mind"

 

The word means different things to different people. I don't really think it's that useful a word to use, because it's completely a matter of opinion (as is the use of language in general). The only thing you can do, is agree with your partner about what the word means, and come to your own answer. You need to decide amongst yourselves, whether losing virginity only occurs where there there is penetration by the penis, or in the case of lesbians, where they are doing a physical act that is considered to be sex. They can't penetrate each other with penises, so their definition of sex is different, but they still do THEIR DEFINITION of sex, hence they are not virgins under that definition. I personally consider a woman who has never had what lesbians consider sex, or had her vagina or anus penetrated by a penis, a virgin.

 

Or you can not associate it, virginity with an act. You can say it is and definitely is a state of being asexual. So the moment your gene sequencing has reached that threshold of puberty you are no longer an asexual being.Doesn't matter if you have engaged in sexual activity. The reason to come to a hard definition based biological observation is so that people will stop trying to decide if someone fits the bill. You do not have to organize your life around the question what is virginity worth to you because it is not something you did but something that happens to all of us. How could you loose virginity if you already have it?