Enlightenment and virginity

Abstract

This paper attempts to demystify the vexed question of female virginity using the light of reason and a sceptical, feminist viewpoint. Starting with a historical and cultural survey of beliefs about virginity, it goes on to ask the ontological question What is virginity? In the process of answering this question, it examines biological, historical, psychosexual and cultural evidence to reach the con clusion that virginity does not really exist, since it cannot – at least, in the contemporary world – be defined or measured. Virginity is still idealised in many communities because male hegemony persists; a belief in the importance of virginity is a measure of social control of women. Fortunately for many women, however, it has always been and still is possible to fake virginity, in the twenty-first century as in all previous ages.