The Virgin Spring

I am a 21-year-old man. How do I know if a girl is really a virgin? My girlfriend has told me she’s a virgin, but I can’t be sure. Thanks, and be cool.
–Inquiring Mind

You don’t know, my inquiring young friend. That’s kind of the point: virginity is irrelevant. The traditional evidence that a woman is a virgin is the presence of the hymen, a piece of membrane that covers the external opening of the vagina. The hymen tears during a woman’s first sexual intercourse; hence, the tradition in many conservative religious families of displaying the bloody sheets after a newly-married couple has consummated their relationship for the first time. However, there are innumerable ways for a woman’s hymen to tear before she’s ever had intercourse—during sports activities, using a tampon, random jostling—and some women aren’t even born with a hymen. There are also endless ways to fake the first bleeding (inserting a pouch of goat’s blood being among the more gross methods), and with the popularity of hymen-reconstruction surgery on the surge in Europe, there’s just no way of knowing what the hymen even means anymore. (I point you to the 2006 case in France where a Muslim man had his marriage to a Muslim woman annulled the next day because he discovered she was not really the virgin she claimed to be before the wedding. This court decision was initially supported by France’s justice minister—a Muslim woman– and sparked a wave of requests in hymen-reconstruction surgeries in Europe.)

All this just goes to show that virginity isn’t really important and it’s damn near impossible to prove anyway. Honestly, why do you care? So what if your girlfriend may have had premarital sex? If she’s lying, it’s probably because she correctly suspects that you’re the kind of dude who’d freak out about it, which is totally lame on your part. If she’s telling the truth, well, there it is. I haven’t noticed any great assertions of virginity on your part, so why does it matter if she’s one or not? All I can say is, be cool.

Lesbians On The March

I have noticed that you rarely publish letters by lesbian or bisexual women in your column. What’s up with that?
–Represent

Excellent question, grasshopper. It’s absolutely true, I don’t print very many questions from lesbian and bisexual women, primarily because I don’t get very many questions from lesbian and bisexual women. A good ninety percent of the e-mails I get are from men. I’ve wondered about this for a while, and my feeling is that despite the fact that I promise anonymity for all letter-writers, most women are simply too uncomfortable to send even a confidential letter to my column. And with good reason—if a woman sends me a letter about her sex life, she’s taking much more of a risk than a man. The consequences for a woman admitting to not always having pure, heterosexual thoughts and desires are far graver than for men, and I think the fear of being judged and punished is so ingrained in women that very little can make us feel safe.

So let me put this out there for all you women readers, particularly the lesbian and bisexual ones: your letters are safe with me. I do not reveal names, I usually try to remove all identifying markers from letters, and I will never show your letter or share your contact information with anyone else. I invite your letters and I will do everything I can to represent your concerns in the column. Also, I invite all my women readers to weigh in: why do you think that women don’t send in questions as frequently as men? Send in your responses and I’ll print them in next week’s column.

Suckas Get Exposed

Do gays and lesbians really exist?
–Just Askin’

Yes, they do. Next, please.

Very Cultured

Your advice to the married 52-year-old man who is in a sexless marriage was entertaining reading (November 8th, 2008), but your answer to “look elsewhere” was not in good taste. We as human beings should adopt certain standards, and you as a columnist and advisor should not ask people to look elsewhere.  I have my story to offer as an example.  Right now I am 54 years old. I got married at 38 and had all the fun and frolic of married life for two months, but since then I have been alone.  I had an aged and bed-ridden mother who expired last year and an unmarried sister at home.  I have been content in looking after them and although I had all the emotion and needs of a normal human being, I never ventured to go out and see women “elsewhere”. I have never needed to consult counselors, doctors or the so-called “consultants” to overcome my feelings. Even today I have the normal feelings of a normal human being, but I am content with my own pleasurable ways.  Looking “elsewhere” is not part of our culture.  Sex is certainly a part and parcel of who we are, but it is not the only thing that defines us. Please stick to our culture’s one man/one woman policy and continue your good work for the years to come.
–Defending Our Culture

I hate to say this, but if I had gotten into the sex advice gig for the purposes of promoting “good taste”, I wouldn’t be printing letters from balloon fetishists and chronic masturbators. Good taste is not the name of the game here because sex is not in good taste. It’s weird, joyous, pleasurable, undignified, and possibly embarrassing, but it is most certainly not tasteful—unless you’re into some weird food-fight sex play. Some of the stories I’ve heard…but I digress.

Anyway, let’s get back to the issue at hand. I’m very happy for you that you’ve managed to go so many years without seeking some fun and frolic.  Good for you, Scooby-Doo. But if you look back at the advice I gave to the letter-writer from November 8th, I told him to talk with his wife before making any moves. It’s entirely possible that she would be supportive of him seeking sexual partners outside the marriage. Who knows? All I can say is that the longer the two of them stick around in a sexless marriage without talking about the problems causing it, the more likely it is that the frustrated partner is going to go out and do something secretive and dishonest. (That goes for sexually frustrated women as well.) Whatever your moral opinions about this may be, someone cheating when he or she is stuck in a sexless relationship is an eventuality that everyone involved is just going to have to get realistic about. My advice was for him to be honest about his frustrations and see if there was some solution that could be worked out to all parties’ satisfaction. I didn’t tell the hapless husband to lie to his wife or use the phrase “look elsewhere” at any point in the column.

As for this whole issue about “our culture”, that argument is getting pretty tired. You complain until you’re blue in the face that so-called Indian culture does not condone certain kinds of sexual behavior, but I can tell you from the letters I receive that a lot of members of the “culture” are having sex with multiple partners, cross-dressing, popping balloons on their hoo-hoos for kicks, and generally acting like a bunch of sexual cut-ups. More power to ‘em, I say. Not to get all egghead on you, but culture is not a discrete entity that can be easily defined by a set of strict parameters. No matter what the received wisdom may be about the cultural behavior and values of a given community, most members of that community violate, defy, or abandon those expectations every day of week and twice on Sundays. You may say that Indian culture dictates that one man and one woman should partner off earlier, only have sex for the purpose of making babies, and stay faithful to each other forever, but since so few Indians actually follow those precepts, can those values really be considered definitive of “Indian culture” anymore? I think not, and the sooner people start accepting and celebrating the diversity of sexual desires within own communities, the better.

Speaking For The Victim

Your advice to the mother from last week’s column (November 15th, 2008) not to let her grown-up son touch sexually her was bold and morally sound.  Considering that this was such sane advice, I am tempted to ask you what counsel you have for her son. His mother allowed him foreplay to the point of no return, so what else was the poor fellow to do? I have not heard of a mother letting her adolescent son pet and fondle her breasts. The sex urge is very strong at his age and there probably was no other way to let off steam.  If she denied him, wouldn’t it be something like forcing someone not to pass urine when he or she is hard-pressed to it? The mother should have known that there is more lust than love in young boys.  Given such liberties, an exasperated youth will not stop short of raping. Love is blind, but so is lust. There is a local saying that mother and daughter are women, pots and pitchers are mud.  Putting these together, it is no wonder that a desperate youth would find any woman fit for his purpose—even his own mother.

There are many associations that cry themselves hoarse about the rights and privileges of sexual perverts like gays, lesbians and trans-genders, whereas there is no one to speak for these normal healthy unfortunates who, like the son from last week’s column, have a genuine problem.  Sex is an obsession for them.  They turn into peeping toms and exhibitionists and feel guilty all along. Condemning the boy is easy to do, but unfortunately the culprit is also a sufferer. He also has a story to tell. I am not advocating sexual anarchy, but these were some of the thoughts that flashed through my mind on reading your column. I do not have any solution to offer for this problem in the given social set-up, but I would be interested to hear your opinion.
–Speaking For The Victim

Are you out of your ever-loving mind? First of all, I happen to run one of those organizations that advocate for the rights of “sexual perverts” and I can tell you right now that I don’t know very many queer men, women, or transgender individuals who sexually assault their mothers. No matter who it is you’re jonesing for, the desire for consensual sex is very sane. The desire to jerk off while “clenching” your mother’s breasts is very insane. Get a goddamn grip.

Moving right along, I find your insistence that males (particularly teenagers) are simply incapable of controlling their sexual urges to be very troubling. It’s this same misconception about male sexuality that allows people to excuse rape—which is not so far off from what this boy is perpetrating on his mother. If you actually read my advice from last week, you would see that I did insist that the mother take responsibility for her behavior. It’s true that she has been sending very mixed messages to her son, and while I’m going out on a limb here, it’s very likely that she was using her son as an emotional substitute for her absent husband. I also agree with you that vilifying the kid for his (admittedly) sick behavior is not very productive and that what homeboy needs is some serious professional help. But let’s not forget that this boy is 17 years old and really should know better. There are plenty of men (and teenage boys) out there who are capable of controlling when and where they express their sexual desires, and blaming the mother for her son’s behavior is no different from saying she “asked” for it. As for your little “local” homily, I have no idea what you’re trying to get at, but I hope to God you’re not meaning to imply that women are mud.  It sure sounds that way.