The Virginity Issue
Gaby Wood, Observer features writer, recently penned the fact that: "Virginity, it seems, is the new black. Or, at least, the latest Michael Jordan trainers".But, although I bow to an obviously greater and more heavyweight cultural commentator than I, I feel it necessary to move this statement on to its next stage - because I have realised that engagement is actually the new virginity. Oh yes, dear readers, I mean it, even if my parents now know there will be no blood-stained sheets a-hanging outside our house the day after the wedding.
I suppose I must confess that I've not been at home with my intact hymen for a remarkably long period of time (I'm originally from Scotland - long nights and cheap beer), but being engaged has really made me reminisce about a time I had completely forgotten.
You see, it has come to me that the last days of your single life can never be repeated again - much like losing your virginity, but hopefully carried out with the lights on and not in a shed at the back of a games field, with a tennis racket half stuck up your arse (not on purpose I may add).
And therein lies the beauty of it. In the months leading up to the completely inauspicious and really quite hilarious moments that resulted in the end of my not very well guarded "innocence" I had no idea it was going to happen. That is, unless you count the odd urge to grab boys in my class I had hitherto no reaction to and a growing appreciation of muscular forearms.
However, with my new-found virgin status, I feel happy to say, I have a chance to really prepare and make a "special moment" out of having sex for the first time as a married woman, something that I missed out on first time around as a young woman - even though my sobriety at the actual moment may still fall into question.
All of this must come from the over-indulgent thought that once you reach the grand old age of 30 you feel there's not much left that's not already been plundered, pillaged and taken away for good, never to be recovered. In this day and age, there are not many women who will get to the being-engaged-state without having done most of the hedonistic, nihilistic, general debauchery that makes you a "rounded" person - and great in the sack - needed to cope with a relationship and bag a good man in the first place.
But, thinking of the number of late-night conversations I've had with girlfriends about losing our virginity that are all really quite emotional, funny and not without their individual trauma, it's no wonder, in this day and age, that by the time we get around to planning a wedding we still want to wear white and make ourselves feel pure and untouched again. This is despite the fact that the people who created the traditions we emulate are turning in their graves demanding repentance upon our souls.
Through all this fussing around with our wedding day and making it all "perfect", all this pressure we put on ourselves to have our moment, maybe shows that deep down in our souls we probably feel the need to make things right - reset the balance somehow. Now, we all have this chance to ENJOY the lead up to such an important moment with a male without seeing him hoick its trousers up and get back into the driving seat to light a cigarette.
Whether I will then relax into the position of wife and enjoy myself or tense up, rigidly focussing on a faraway point wondering when it's all going to be over, is another matter.
posted by Sadie Kenshall @ 8:51 AM
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