Sexual Relationships 
Sexual Health 
The word "virgin" always stirs discussion on this site. There are those who want to retain a claim to virgin status despite some sexual experiences, and there are those who are very eager to tell those people that they are no longer virgins. And there are usually disagreements. I suppose the reason this question is important is that many (certainly not all) people - at least in my culture - as children are taught that retaining your virginity until marriage is important. By contrast, non-virgins are less worthy, less deserving of attention and respect, and have generally brought some shame upon themselves. However, most of us lose our virginity long before we get married, so there is much hypocrisy in this issue!
This question is usually asked without the asker defining "virgin," presumably because we all KNOW what "virgin" means . . . right? I know what a virgin is, and so do you, and so does the next guy . . . but we don't all mean the same thing. So let's consider some of the possible definitions.
1. "A virgin is a girl who has an intact hymen." There are several problems with this definition.
a. It totally omits the possibility of a boy being a virgin.
b. It stigmatizes those girls who are born without a hymen, or with a partially perforated hymen, or who had their hymen torn in an accident, or who were sexually assaulted.
c. It rewards girls who are sexually active and who later have hymenorrhaphy to "restore" them to virgin status.
d. A girl could be the blow job queen of the village, well known by every man and boy for miles in every direction but, if she had not yet had PIV sex, she would be classified as a virgin.
2. "A virgin is someone, male or female, who has not yet had PIV sex."
a. Again, a girl could be the blow job queen of the village but, if she had not yet had PIV sex, she would be classified as a virgin.
b. Lesbians who never had sex with a male would be virgins their entire lives.
c. Homosexuals who never had sex with a female would be virgins their entire lives.
d. The rape victim is not a virgin.
3. "A virgin is someone who has not had an orgasm as a result of sexual interaction with another person."
a. Under this definition, if the village blow job queen always gives oral sex but never receives any sexual stimulation in return, then she is still a virgin.
b. Anyone who tried but failed to reach orgasm with a partner would still be a virgin. There are people who go their entire lives without an orgasm although they routinely engage in sexual activity with partners. Would you call that person a virgin?
c. What about if your girlfriend gives you oral sex but doesn't finish you because . . . because she doesn't, like maybe she is scared or insecure? Are you still a virgin?
d. What about the rape victim? She (or he) is not a virgin under this definition.
4. "A virgin is someone who is innocent and naive about sexual matters." This definition isn't exactly the same as "child-like" but it's close.
a. This definition can apply to both boys and girls.
b. It does not stigmatize those girls who are born without a hymen, or with a partially perforated hymen, or who had their hymen torn in an accident. Whether you would call a rape victim a "virgin" under this definition is debatable (and I am NOT trying to be unkind to rape victims! However, under this definition, a rape victim would have some knowledge of sexual matters.)
c. The blow job queen is not considered a virgin under this definition.
d. Homosexuals and lesbians with sexual experience would not be considered virgins under this definition.
e. The problem with this definition is that sexual innocence is very difficult to define.
So, which definition should you use? Well, what is the reason why this issue is relevant? "Only virgins are worthy of marriage." (No, I don't believe that statement, but it is one of the justifications for making virgin status important.) The presence of a hymen does not insure that a girl has been chaste, and the absence of a hymen does not always mean that she has been sexually active.
If the importance of virginity is related to religious beliefs, that is not a very suitable occasion to be playing word games and hiding the truth. Would you really tell your religious leader, "Of course I'm a virgin, because anal sex doesn't count!?"
What is it about being a virgin that is so damned important that other people want to know whether you are a virgin? Is that a more important question?
What Girls & Guys Said
45 59I like D best
To me is a virgin who never did anything sexual!! And a person who gets raped may not be an actual virgin but I classify them as a virgin still as losing it wasn't their fault (if they lost it through rape)!
In the case of humans, it means, you've never had sex. Why is that such a hard concept for people to understand?
Read the other responses and you may understand the problem better.
What's to understand? Have you had sex: a guy cumming inside of you? No? Then, you're a virgin! End of story. Have you done a hand job? Yes. Still a virgin! A blow job? Yes. Still a virgin! Anal? Yes. Still a virgin... just not anally. What else is there?
A person who is sexually innocent can be termed as virgin, in my opinion.
Including,
- has never had intercourse.
- has never touched anyone's privates.
- may have seen porn, may have masturbated, may have seen people having sex, may have fantasized but that's about it.
I read through this whole thing thinking the whole time "why is it such a big deal?" I could have just skipped to the end.
You are right of course.
With my first girlfriend, we never had sexual intercourse. She was too afraid to do it, and we only relied on oral for sexual intimacy. We both considered ourselves virgins because of that. No matter how much oral I gave or received, my desire to have sexual intercourse only increased. I felt like something was missing from my sex life even though we both had fun. It eventually became an extremely toxic feeling after 3 years on and off of being with her.
Well men prize it over everything else on a woman. Being a virgin as a woman is good as opposed to being a virgin as a man is bad. But those are the double standards society created.
Virginity is a social construct.
Everything is not a social construct. In this case, it depends on the definition of virginity.
For me a virgin is someone who has NO sexual experience.
So funny. I go to answer this, look down... see What girls said and first 3 users are blocked. That can only mean one thing. An awful lot of feminist twats are on this thread trying to say the opposite of my answer.
You can’t suck off 38 guys and still be a virgin.
So far as I’m concerned anything involving physical contact with a persons genitals by another person would end virginity status. Anything like web cam stuff as well. You can’t show someone all your parts and be all “I’m a virgin” so far as I’m concerned.
The idea of virginity is pretty much fabricated and very overhyped.
Even biologically speaking, some women may experience tear of the hymen without any kind of sexual activity and men literally have no difference in losing virginity.
I know this isn't an answer to the question but any guy who will only take a virgin bride, must be horribly insecure, not to mention, probably hypocritical. Why would an women want to marry him?
Probably 3 is closest if you leave out the orgasm part.
It means not having sexual intercourse. It means a penis has not entered a vagina or an anus... yet!
So, oral sex every day for five years but if you haven't had PIV or PIA, you're still a virgin?
Yes. That’s true.
My definition is someone is who is completely inexperienced with physical intimacy and the romantic bonds that come with it.
Iv never had sex with anyone. Of any sort. If iv never been with anyone neither will she. That is the standard I hold her to the same as myself.
I define it as something that is unimportant and not worth considering at all, it can disappear from the English language and it would probably do a lot of good
None of the above.
This is the correct definition:
A virgin is someone who has never done anything sexual with another person.
So what is "anything sexual?" If a girl strips down to just her panties with a guy, does that count as anything sexual? Or if they have phone sex talking about fantasies but she has never been naked with other person, is that sexual? What if they remain fully clothed and watch porn together? I'm not picking on your definition but just trying to illustrate the problem of developing a definition that seems fair and is agreeable to most people.
@OlderAndWiser You mean letting a man view her in her underwear? Are you proposing that she loses her virginity by doing that? Because that would be absolutely absurd! That's the same as wearing a bikini at the pool!
@OlderAndWiser I'm talking about physically sexual acts.
Talking about fantasies is not losing your virginity. Neither is watching porn. (Even watching someone else have sex LIVE right in front of you wouldn't be losing your virginity. Though I wouldn't personally do that.)
Oh for fuck's sake, this again. Virgin a. k. a has not had sex before. This definition includes all possible genders.
If you don't specify what you mean by "had sex" then people will look for wiggle room. If you mean PIV, then that means the village blow job queen is a virgin.
so you would consider just touching someone's genitals as "loss" of virginity?
I think of virginity as a state of being innocent, naive, and ignorant of sexual matters. If a 16 year old girl gives her 4 year old brother a bath, that does not cause her to lose her virginity. If she has given a hand job to 30 different boys, then she is not entirely innocent.
Good, see you already have a word for it - innocence. No need to make things complicated.
You are right - of course - because it's you!
You also agree that virginity does not imply innocence. I understand there's some derogatory connotations to the word "virgin" in our contemporary pop-culture and some people deem it necessary to reconsider "what it means to be X" for whatever X. On the other hand, that's just unnecessarily convoluting.
If you suck cock or take in the ass, your not a virgin, even if your vagina is unused...