Idolizing Virginity
This article originally appeared on TheYoungCatholicWoman here.
Once, while sitting on a panel answering questions at a high school girls’ retreat, I heard a statement from a fellow retreat leader that I’ve heard time and time again:
“Your virginity is the most beautiful gift you can give to your future husband.”
Such statements are completely well-intentioned and aimed to help us recognize the gift of virginity but, this time in particular, I found the statement jarring. While I’m grateful that virginity is a gift that, by God’s grace, I was able to save for my marriage, the idea that this is my greatest, most beautiful gift is a concept I find disturbing. By the same token, I find it disturbing on behalf of my friends and sisters in Christ for whom this is not the case. Many of these friends have, understandably, dealt with increased levels of shame, in addition to the idea that their marriage is or will be damaged because of a past mistake.
In a majority of the chastity talks I’ve attended, it has seemed like virginity is emphasized while those who have already lost it get a small shoutout about redemption at the very end. Yes, fornication is a sin and we should repent of it, but this overemphasis on virginity ends up idolizing a quality that is only meant to be a physical representation of an ontological reality––not the standard for chastity.
There’s a balance between idolizing and degrading this gift.
Why should we aim to preserve our virginity?
I am adamantly against using “fear tactics” when speaking about chastity and sex. Chastity is a crucial topic to cover, and one to cover well. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines chastity as “the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being” (CCC #2337). Chastity is something that should be ordered according to one's state of life, so chastity for the unmarried means refraining from sex in order to save virginity exclusively for marriage. However, when speaking to teenagers in particular, using statements like “If you give this gift away, you can never get it back,” and “If someone handed you a piece of gum they had already chewed, would you want to chew it?” can not only leave the audience feeling afraid or ashamed of mistakes, but they also don’t really get to the heart of the matter.
We aim to preserve our virginity because we are meant to live in God’s image (imago Dei) and likeness and, in the context of marriage, the expression of sexuality manifests that imago uniquely. When a man and woman have committed their entire selves, their very souls, to each other in the sacrament of marriage, sexual union becomes a physical consummation of a spiritual, emotional, and mental reality. Virginity signifies that this type of union is meant to be revered, honored, and saved for marriage, but it is not where the importance of the sacrament lies.
IS VIRGINITY THE GREATEST GIFT I CAN GIVE IN A MARRIAGE?
No––you are.
To believe virginity is the greatest gift in a marriage seems to miss the point of marriage entirely. Sex is not the penultimate part of a marriage, it is not the goal for married couples to reach. Holy marital unity, based in charity, does not find its meaning in sex––sex finds its meaning in holy, marital unity based in charity.
Our sexuality is a part of us, making our virginity (if we’re in that state) a part of us as well. The vocation of marriage is a call that beckons us to bring our entire selves, including our sexuality, and surrender them to another person who gives themselves entirely in return. In his Theology of the Body, Pope Saint John Paul II says it beautifully: “The body in its masculinity and femininity has been called ‘from the beginning’ to become the manifestation of the spirit.” Put simply, your body is a physical representation of spiritual realities. Masculinity and femininity, when joined in marriage, represent a beautiful, complete picture of Trinitarian love.
Overemphasizing virginity as “the most beautiful gift” misses the fact that virginity is a manifestation of a spiritual reality that is not robbed when virginity is lost; chastity, and the spiritual reality of it, does not begin and end with virginity. The most beautiful gift in marriage––or any vocation––is the gift of self.
John Paul II uses this term based on a passage from the integral Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes: “...man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (GS 24:3). Only man and woman are able to give themselves––body, mind, and soul––completely as a gift to God and to one another.
IF VIRGINITY IS NOT THE GIFT OF SELF, WHAT IS?
Your feminine body is meant to manifest your feminine soul. Virginity is not where this is hinged. While we shouldn’t lie and say that losing your virginity doesn’t matter or doesn’t affect marital unity, we have to recognize that what John Paul II calls the “spousal meaning of the body” is intrinsic––this means it cannot be taken from you, whether you lose your virginity or not. This spousal meaning is essentially the truth that both man and woman were made to give themselves fully to another person, and this ability to give oneself is etched into our physical makeup. We can give and receive each other as man and woman spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
Furthermore, no one walks into marriage with perfect purity and chastity. This is worth repeating: no one walks into marriage with their gift of self unscathed.
The virtue of chastity is not measured by how much or how little you fall physically with your sexuality. Being a virgin when you get married isn’t always a sign that you were chaste or pure. I know women who have lost their virginity and regretted it but went on to preserve their personal purity far more than those who walked into marriage with their virginity intact but their personal purity still an uphill battle.
There is more than one way to sin against chastity, as Jesus tells us: “...but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt. 5:28). We have a Savior who came to show us that sin is more than skin deep––He looks to the heart. He asks for our will to be aligned with His and for our body to follow suit. The heart can get away with terrible things, even if the body, perhaps, seems to be in line.
Chastity is meant to be a lifelong commitment––it doesn’t begin and end with whether or not you save your virginity for marriage. Saving your virginity is a standard we should strive to meet, but the above Gospel verse shows us that this is not the standard for maintaining chastity. This is not an excuse to go out and sin without consequence, but it is a reality we need to recognize, one that should motivate us to strive all the more for virtue.
WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF IDOLIZING VIRGINITY?
Overemphasizing virginity doesn’t seem to take into account the stories of women who had it stolen from them. Sometimes these painful stories get a brief shout-out at the end of purity talks, but not enough recognition to really do justice to this kind of suffering. Whether you lost your virginity through a horrifying act against you or through a mistake of your own volition, chastity and purity are not virtues that others have more access to just because they are virgins. Your gift of self cannot be taken away from you––and that is the greatest, most incredible gift you will give your spouse. Every word of any talk on chastity and purity is for you as much as it is for the woman who is still a virgin. Losing your virginity does not make you a second-tier woman or wife.
Overemphasizing virginity can actually do the opposite of what it’s intended to do: point towards the beauty of sex. If virginity is made the focus of chastity and femininity, it becomes that much more unsettling to give it away––even if it is to consummate a marriage. I have known several women who have fought very hard not to lose their virginity prior to marriage, only to experience deep anxiety when trying to have sex with their husbands once they’re married. When we say that virginity is the most beautiful gift we can give in a marriage or that if it’s given away you can never get it back, our minds cannot always keep those statements separate from married life. These declarations can still leave us feeling like once we’ve given our virginity away we’ve lost our greatest gift, so anything after that––even in marriage––is an incomplete or less pure version of us. Furthermore, idolizing virginity places the emphasis on “giving away your virginity” to your spouse rather than giving your entire self and expressing it physically to consummate and renew the vows you made at the altar. The point of marital intimacy is a gift, not a loss.
Once again, this is where the beautiful reality of the gift of self comes into play. Giving away virginity to one’s spouse is only the beginning of a life of revisiting the promises you made at the altar––to surrender the care of your very self to another and allow that surrender to bring forth life. The gift of self is given over and over in marriage, the mystery deepened each time a couple gives themselves emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and yes, physically.
While someone who is a virgin when she gets married may experience this unity differently because she experiences it exclusively with her spouse, a woman who is not a virgin is not deprived of the beauty of this mystery. Even if not a virgin, her marriage is the first time she experiences giving herself fully, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully with a man who is doing the same in turn.
HOW SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT VIRGINITY?
We serve a God who redeems every part of us and leaves no stone unturned. Even more than that, He loves to redeem every part of us. As Jesus tells us in the Gospel of Luke: “I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance” (Luke 15:7). He redeems the broken parts of our sexuality––virgin or not––and Heaven rejoices when we turn our hearts, minds, and bodies over to His mercy.
In order for chastity talks, articles, panels, and other outlets to break the unintentional idol we can make out of virginity, emphasis has to be placed on God’s mercy. The gift of self is worth protecting, which is why we should encourage young people especially to strive to preserve it for their vocation, but we can’t make virginity the center of the conversation. Instead, we need to turn our gaze to the incredible gift of our sexuality, especially the unique complexity of our feminine sexuality, and how God seeks to love and redeem us in every aspect of it. We also need to remind everyone that their gift of self cannot be taken from them, no matter how deep or wide their sin may reach. Each one of us, every day, has the chance to begin again, and the realm of sexual sin is no different.
Your identity and virtue cannot be collapsed into one quality––He’s too big for that. Whatever brokenness there might be in your sexual history, whether it involves a loss of virginity or not, walk forward bravely into your calling and hear the words He spoke to the woman caught in adultery, a woman who represents all of us: “‘...Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go. From now on do not sin any longer’” (John 8:10-11). So, the most beautiful gift you can give your husband? It’s you. The broken, messy, unrepeatable, redeemed, incredible you.