Defining Virginty

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Jordache

Guest
#1
#1
I am getting fed up with the number of comments, prayer requests, stories, etc on here and on the net at large that are written by people with the ridiculous opinion that you can have your virginity taken from you. Virginity is something that can only be given and not taken. It is more than a piece of skin or a flow of blood. I repeat. If you didn't give it up, you still have it. And if you have given it then you can regain it in a spiritual sense. It is ignorance that perpetuates this shame yielding idea that if someone is violated sexually they are no longer a virgin. It is even more ignorance that perpetuates the idea that this physical deflowering only occurs with sex. I hate be blunt, but if all you consider to be virginity is an intact hymen then you have just idealogically de-virginized a whole group of girls who had an awkward fall on her bike, used a tampon improperly, or had some other everyday accident that just happened to involve the wrong body part.
Come on people. Why are shaming people for this? It's not our jobs to judge someone's purity. We do not see their hearts. It's also not our job to define what Gods idea of purity it.
So girls, if you've had one of these accidents, or if you have been violated, this doesn't make you any less a virgin.
 
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MissCris

Guest
#2
#2
...out of curiosity, do a lot of women go around announcing that their hymen is no longer intact? I mean, why would something like that even be a topic of conversation that would lead to people shaming these women?

[h=2]Search Results[/h][h=3]vir·gin·i·ty[/h]/vərˈjinətē/
Noun

  1. The state of never having had sexual intercourse: "he lost his virginity in college".
  2. The state of being naive, innocent, or inexperienced in a particular context: "his political virginity".

Anyway...I think it's weird if people are arguing about someone else's virginity, or purity.
 
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MidniteWelder

Guest
#3
#3
If I'm driving down the road just minding my own business, and somebody smashes into me from the opposite direction...
Did I not get in a car crash because I wasnt meaning to?
 
DuchessAimee

DuchessAimee

Senior Member
#4
Apr 27, 2011
3,922
129
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#4
Jordache said:
I am getting fed up with the number of comments, prayer requests, stories, etc on here and on the net at large that are written by people with the ridiculous opinion that you can have your virginity taken from you. Virginity is something that can only be given and not taken. It is more than a piece of skin or a flow of blood. I repeat. If you didn't give it up, you still have it. And if you have given it then you can regain it in a spiritual sense. It is ignorance that perpetuates this shame yielding idea that if someone is violated sexually they are no longer a virgin. It is even more ignorance that perpetuates the idea that this physical deflowering only occurs with sex. I hate be blunt, but if all you consider to be virginity is an intact hymen then you have just idealogically de-virginized a whole group of girls who had an awkward fall on her bike, used a tampon improperly, or had some other everyday accident that just happened to involve the wrong body part.
Come on people. Why are shaming people for this? It's not our jobs to judge someone's purity. We do not see their hearts. It's also not our job to define what Gods idea of purity it.
So girls, if you've had one of these accidents, or if you have been violated, this doesn't make you any less a virgin.
Click to expand...


I understand what you're trying to say, but with all due respect, it isn't an intact hymen which categorizes virginity, it is sexual intercourse. Unfortunately, if someone is raped, and it is their first sexual experience, it does mean they are no longer a virgin. Your virginity can be taken from you. Now, the shame and what not that comes with rape and molestation can (and should) be healed with Christ and counseling, but it is simply a fact that your virginity can be forcibly removed.
 
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MidniteWelder

Guest
#5
#5
You are correct Aimee,
The act is not subject to ones own interpretation
just as if I decided to repress the memory of a car "Accident" it doesnt erase the act as if it never happened.
As well in cases of rape or premarital relations this is also why the Lord required the man to pay the father the dowry just as if he was going to marry the girl he had the relation with.
 
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MidniteWelder

Guest
#6
#6
I feel it should be added though that I also agree with Jordache that renewing and being born again as a new creation through Christ is also a spiritual renewing of the mind which can include spiritual revirginization ...not that it erases the acts of the past, but that they are overlooked as far as the east is from the west through love, repentance and forgiveness if one has asked for repentance and forgiveness.
And a renewing of the mind through Gods word will have a beneficial effect on the believer.
 
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Jordache

Guest
#7
#7
Duchess, that is what I am saying.
 
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Jordache

Guest
#8
#8
Except that I don't agree that virginity is taken from you.
 
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presidente

Senior Member
#9
May 29, 2013
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#9
MidniteWelder said:
You are correct Aimee,
The act is not subject to ones own interpretation
just as if I decided to repress the memory of a car "Accident" it doesnt erase the act as if it never happened.
As well in cases of rape or premarital relations this is also why the Lord required the man to pay the father the dowry just as if he was going to marry the girl he had the relation with.
Click to expand...

And if a girl had hidden the fact that she was raped, and pretended to be a virgin, and her father married her off as one, she could still be stoned for her deception. I don't see an exception for this in the law God gave to Israel.

It is highly unethical to lie to your spouse and pretend to be a virgin before marriage. It's a form of fraud, and it was so bad that it was punishable by death in the Old Testament, along with crimes like premeditated murder, blaspheming the Lord, withcraft, adultery, male homosexual activity, cursing ones parents, and beastiality.

If a woman has been raped, she can let her potential spouse know some time before he proposes (or before it is agreed to.) He should know that before marriage and make his decision knowing that, not find out later.
 
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presidente

Senior Member
#10
May 29, 2013
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#10
Jordache said:
Except that I don't agree that virginity is taken from you.
Click to expand...
I think you have your own personal idiocencratic definition of virginity that is not shared by the rest of society or dictionaries for the most part.

If a girl is living a godly life and is a victim of rape, the rape doesn't make her any less moral of a person, but physically, intercourse strips her of her virginity.
 
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graceword

Guest
#11
#11
Being a Christian science student, I try to reconcile my faith and facts. I am in the biological field and the fact is that as long as sexual intercourse of any kind takes place, virginity is gone.
However, from a spiritual point of view you have a point. Sexual purity is more than a Hymen. There are so many virgins that are impure. Let's remember that purity is from within to outward.

Whether you're still a virgin or not, it's an every day choice you must make to be holy and blameless before God. Openly and in secret.
 
Liamson

Liamson

Senior Member
#12
Feb 3, 2010
3,078
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#12
I can have cake, or I can eat cake but, if I eat my cake then I no longer have cake. I can't have my cake and eat it too.
 
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1still_waters

Guest
#13
#13
I find it harmful to tell a woman she isn't a virgin if she's been raped, but has never had consentual sex. A woman is never at fault for being raped, yet when you tell her she's not a virgin because something she didn't willlingly give up was taken away, it seems as if indirectly you're telling her she was at fault for the rape.

Under normal circumstances, virginity is tied to consent and will. That's just the normal mental construct we work with when discussing virginity. So when you tell a woman she's not a virgin if she's raped, in a way you make her guilty for her own rape, seeing consent is so intrinsically tied to virginity in the human mind.
 
maxwel

maxwel

Senior Member
#14
Apr 18, 2013
9,338
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#14
I am of the firm opinion that other people's virginity is none of my business.

And if you try to explain your sexual history to me... I'll run away.

: )
 
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presidente

Senior Member
#15
May 29, 2013
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#15
1still_waters said:
I find it harmful to tell a woman she isn't a virgin if she's been raped, but has never had consentual sex. A woman is never at fault for being raped, yet when you tell her she's not a virgin because something she didn't willlingly give up was taken away, it seems as if indirectly you're telling her she was at fault for the rape.
Click to expand...
How is that saying she is at fault? If she lost her virginity because of a rape, it wasn't her that did it. It was raped. So how would that be saying it's her fault?

Under normal circumstances, virginity is tied to consent and will.
Click to expand...
No virginity has to do with whether one has had sex before, not whether the sex was consensual.
 
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1still_waters

Guest
#16
#16
presidente said:
How is that saying she is at fault? If she lost her virginity because of a rape, it wasn't her that did it. It was raped. So how would that be saying it's her fault?



No virginity has to do with whether one has had sex before, not whether the sex was consensual.
Click to expand...
Because virginity is so tied to consent in the human mind. Like I said in the previous post.

So when you tell a woman she's not a virgin if she's raped, in a way you make her guilty for her own rape, seeing consent is so intrinsically tied to virginity in the human mind.
Click to expand...
And in my oh so humble opinion, I don't see why a guy would even make such a point of saying a woman isn't a virgin if she went through something like rape.
 
RickShafer

RickShafer

Banned
#17
Sep 8, 2012
4,367
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#17
To much importance is put on the material/physical.
I would think the body of Christ wouldn't be a place for that.
God makes all things new, and changes lives.
- Is the hymen that important?
 
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presidente

Senior Member
#18
May 29, 2013
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#18
1still_waters said:
Because virginity is so tied to consent in the human mind. Like I said in the previous post.
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My guess is that most native speaker English women don't think that way. If you did some kind of survey to find out if women considered if a woman had been raped as a virgin, that she lost her virginity, I think most people would agree that she had.

Mainly, my concern is that if you read the Bible with this idea in mind, you'll come up with some loopy interpretations of Deuteronomy, if you can make an interpretation work at all.

And in my oh so humble opinion, I don't see why a guy would even make such a point of saying a woman isn't a virgin if she went through something like rape.
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I do. Of course, you wouldn't bring it up if there was no reason. But if she went around telling people she was a virgin when she'd been raped, she might mislead her future husband. She needs to be open about this sort of thing to the man she will marry, not redefine the past, or simple words, to make herself feed comfortable. It's a lot better for her to marry a man who accepts her than to put a man in a position of feeling deceived until after the wedding and maybe even defrauded. There is no reason to go into marriage like that. If you tell innocent young women that the definition of 'virgin' includes raped women, some of them may foolishly put their husbands in this situation.

If a raped woman told her dad she was still a virgin and got married off as if she was a virgin in Old Testament times, she could have been stoned for it. Not for the rape, but as a result of her deception.
 
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MidniteWelder

Guest
#19
#19
Liamson said:
I can have cake, or I can eat cake but, if I eat my cake then I no longer have cake. I can't have my cake and eat it too.
Click to expand...

Humble pie is best rather than wanting to have cake and eat it too.
:D
 
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1still_waters

Guest
#20
#20
presidente said:
My guess is that most native speaker English women don't think that way. If you did some kind of survey to find out if women considered if a woman had been raped as a virgin, that she lost her virginity, I think most people would agree that she had.

Mainly, my concern is that if you read the Bible with this idea in mind, you'll come up with some loopy interpretations of Deuteronomy, if you can make an interpretation work at all.



I do. Of course, you wouldn't bring it up if there was no reason. But if she went around telling people she was a virgin when she'd been raped, she might mislead her future husband. She needs to be open about this sort of thing to the man she will marry, not redefine the past, or simple words, to make herself feed comfortable. It's a lot better for her to marry a man who accepts her than to put a man in a position of feeling deceived until after the wedding and maybe even defrauded. There is no reason to go into marriage like that. If you tell innocent young women that the definition of 'virgin' includes raped women, some of them may foolishly put their husbands in this situation.

If a raped woman told her dad she was still a virgin and got married off as if she was a virgin in Old Testament times, she could have been stoned for it. Not for the rape, but as a result of her deception.
Click to expand...
Agreed she should inform him, but I wouldn't view a woman as any less of a virgin, just because a man violated her in the worst way possible.
 
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