What does virginity mean to you?

I know there are wildly different opinions on this one. Some think it's an outdated and/or patriarchal concept while others just want to lose it at the earliest opportunity to anyone willing to take it. I was raised in church and was taught it was a priceless gift to keep for my wife on our wedding night. That's what I did and still what I think.
I'd particularly like to hear from you if your views have changed over the years in either direction.

 

If you ask one hundred people to define "virginity", you'll get one hundred answers. Even Merriam-Webster's dictionary give over half a dozen different definitions of "virgin", all of which depend on context. (Extra-virgin olive oil, anyone?) If we just constrain ourselves to the subject line of your thread, my *personal* definition of a virgin (human being, that is) is someone who has never participated in vaginal "penis-in-vagina" intercourse. This applies to men and women. Of course, if you step beyond traditional "church" definitions of "sex", things start to get a bit cloudy. If a guy inserts his fingers in his girl friends vagina and it's the first time for either of them, did either or both of them just lose their virginity? (IMHO, no.) If someone in the ass, or has been fucked in the ass, does that represent lose of virginity? (IMHO, yes.) If, in the previous situation, if the person who was "pitching" used a strap-on, was it just the person who was "catching" the one who lost their virginity? (Beats the hell of me!) Does engaging in oral sex (fellatio or cunnilingus) constitute loss of virginity? (Not in my book.)

If half of the people who also respond to this thread tell me that I'm totally wrong, I a) won't be surprised, and b) won't disagree with any of them. After all, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

 

And yet when you ask someone when did you lose your virginity, people tend to have a definitive answer rather than saying well it depends how you define virginity. So for the sake of my question, whatever you consider the point of virginity being taken or lost that's what I'm talking about.

 

I personally think the whole concept is flawed and yes, probably a coercive and largely patriarchal political/religious one. In what other field of activity do we consider experiencing something for the first time a loss of some cherished state of inexperience? I'm not saying that first experience is insignificant - far from it - just not what it's been framed as by the church and societal norms.
That said, I suppose if you're going to use the term at all it would refer to involvement (giving or receiving) in penetrative sex whether vaginal or anal. I don't know if any of you encountered the term "heavy petting" in your youth, but I kind of think this was a euphemism for sexual activity that spanned the gap between making out and having penetrative sex.
Not confident that there's one right answer here, but that's what I would say about it. I'll echo buzzgunner in saying I won't argue with other points of view.

 

My wife and I considered virginity to refer to never having penetrative sex, penis in vagina or anus. Of course, no matter how you define it, she was not a virgin when we married. If you define it differently, I may or may not have been a virgin.

 

Means absolutely nothing to me, although I would have to say that I don't expect to encounter much virginity at over 80 years of age!

 

I suppose its when you have full penetrative sex. Im not religious but i waited until i was 20 before having sex. I had fumbled with some tits and fingered a pussy before this though. But i still consider my virginity going on that day when i had sex the first time. It was with a condom though and was with my friend who was in a relationship. Quite a first time. She loved taking my virginity. We have had sex a few times since over the years. There will always be a special place for her.

 

Never gave it much thought, at the time. But I decided it was nothing worth keeping. Never enjoyed giving anything away better.

 

I don't think the word has any modern relevance any longer.
By definition, it is the insertion of the male penis into the female vagina. Some definitions include deposit of semen.
A woman being a virgin at marriage was a VERY big deal pre-1960s. The farther you go back, the more important it was.
Today, very few people place any significance to it. Maybe 5% of the population expect their spouse to be a virgin