More Than an Empty Bed
April 1, 2002
No one actually wants to be a virgin. At least that's what you'd think from surfing the channels of popular culture. A virgin wandered onto the set of Seinfeld a few years ago, and after getting over her initial shock, Elaine kindly reached out to her over lunch, filling her in on the rules of casual sex. Virgins are all but silent in the debates of contemporary sexual politics. It is easy to get the sense that just as it is one's right to drink Pepsi and drive a sleek new car, it is one's right to get laid every now and then. It's healthy, isn't it? Good exercise. Invigorating. There is, of course, a counter-movement in conservative Protestant churches, led by parachurch bishop Josh McDowell, that aims at convincing teens to wait until marriage for sex. But let's be clear: McDowell's message is aimed at teens, who are expected to wait for sex until they get married at the ripe old age of 19-or maybe 23 if they go to college. There is no such movement among persons in their twenties, thirties, or forties. Adults are single in greater numbers than ever before, but the singles who usually speak in public discussions are sexually active. Why is it that Christian adults who are single tend to be silent about their virginity? Perhaps it is partly because unless one is in that rare category of being "called to be single" (a phrase that evokes the image of a missionary in a pith helmet), they are very frequently deeply ambivalent about their status. Life is good, but there are many unfulfilled longings. A sense of absence, loss, and shame all come along with virginal sexuality at one time or another. ... In the essay On Virginity, by the Greek church father Gregory of Nyssa, it is the virginal body that is productive and fruitful. ...
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