ambergris

It strikes me that unquestioning acquiescence and mindless cheerleading are pretty much the exact opposite of the qualities which make effective activists. Or, indeed, useful human beings. (Not of course that people have to be useful, but it's generally better for their self-actualization if they are.)

What I am seeing is this awful dynamic where women who have already been socialised into believing that their own opinions and thought processes are not to be trusted, because hi, that is what bullies and abusers do to people, are being further cowed into not asking questions, not dissenting on even the most minor points, and, I suspect, in a large number of cases (including my own) not saying anything at all. They have to walk on eggshells if they don't want their commenting privileges revoked, and even that may not be enough, because it's in the nature of eggshell-walking that you can never tread lightly enough unless you actually have the power of flight. Which, you know, most humans don't.

I mean, the only two comments I've made there have been met with swift thread-closings, and that's after spending at least half an hour drafting and redrafting them so they actually get published and I don't get banned. And I'm sufficiently paranoid and a sufficiently nuanced writer that I could possibly get another two or three through before my thoughtcrimes were noted and the banhammer fell, but my problem is that I am not often moved to comment by stuff I think is 100% correct and awesome. I am driven to have my say on posts which I don't totally agree with. I am contrary. I am rebellious. I do not have massive amounts of truck with authority. I am too much of a goddamn feminist, is my trouble.

I feel like this would not be a problem if Melissa just quit pretending her site was for anyone other than her and her BFFs. It would make the onerous task of moderation significantly easier if the only people allowed to comment were those who have already been vetted. Obviously one could never be allowed to suggest this because that would be telling Melissa how to run her site and OMG DEHUMANISING! And it might make it harder to get donations.

But now! I am going to unsubscribe, because life is too fucking short to keep obsessing about my exclusion from a party I am no longer interested in attending.

If you poke around Scarleteen for a bit you will find plenty of cogently argued explanations of why virginity is an inherently heterosexist and patriarchal concept that makes zero sense in twenty-first century Western culture. If this site had been around when I was, say, nineteen, it would have spared me several years of figuring this out for myself.

Instead, the label of virgin was a millstone around my neck. Oh, it's not that it was something that was generally known or talked about. That was partly why it was a millstone. Part of me wanted to be out, to be visible; to point out 'hang on, we still exist, and it would be cool if you acknowledged our existence beyond groups of American teenagers wearing silver rings.' But mostly, I thought it was nobody else's freaking business. It seemed odd to be defined by something you hadn't done. I mean, there are so many things I haven't done, most of them having far more impact on my everyday life than not having had sex. Like driving a car, or smoking, or getting a full-time job, or buying a house.

I was possibly groping towards a concept of asexuality when I wrote, some years ago: 'I am a virgin in the same way that other people are straight or gay'. Obviously this statement makes no sense because you're not comparing like with like. 'Virgin' isn't a sexual orientation, it is a statement about something that you haven't done. Our culture is sort of hazy about what exactly it is that you haven't done, but it's generally assumed to be penis-in-vagina penetration (or vagina-around-penis envelopment, to be slightly less androcentric).

But then, I don't think I was trying to make a statement about my orientation. I didn't have issues with my orientation. I was straight. This was slightly disappointing for a young feminist who'd read enough 70s-era theory to believe that the practice of penis-in-vagina sex might be inherently oppressive (as well as aesthetically unpleasing) yet also wished to maintain her liberal credentials by being totally cool with all shades of sexuality. Sadly, I just didn't fancy girls. I thought girls were cool and breasts were pretty and nearly all women were much nicer to look at than nearly all men, but the idea of kissing them left me totally cold.

So, boringly enough, I was firmly on the heterosexual side of the spectrum. But I did wonder whether my eternal virginity might qualify me as queer. It was certainly a marginalised state that I didn't feel able to talk about, one that might lead people to judge and discriminate against me, one that wasn't 'normal'.

I was looking to define myself by what I (wasn't) doing, rather than according to who I was. My orientation itself was basically irrelevant. Did it actually matter to which sex I was attracted, when the fact that I wasn't having sex, had never had sex, and would never have sex had more impact upon the way I saw myself and the world around me? The aspect of my sexuality which put me in a minority was, unsurprisingly enough, a lot more influential than the one which put me in a majority. And the only word I could find for it was 'virgin'.

The trouble with 'virgin', apart from the fact that any definition of the word falls apart as soon as you look at it, is that a virgin is what you are before you have 'sex'. It assumes a before and after that doesn't exist for everyone. About the only thing the label has going for it is that it doesn't imply a deliberate choice the way that 'celibate' does. Nor does it suggest you didn't have a choice, the way that identifying as asexual might. It leaves the question of volition wide open.