I had just come on break when our translator asked me,

"Are their any virgin girls in America?"

At the time I was serving as a gate guard on FOB Diamondback in Mosul Iraq and was about halfway through my deployment. The question took me aback. What, did he think that American girls are somehow not born virgins? Or that doctors de-virgify them when they're born, kinda like the way boys get circumcised? Keeping in mind that something had probably been lost in translation I tried to explain as best I could.

Yes, we have virgin girls in America. Under a certain age, say 12, the vast majority is going to be virgins. Same as anywhere ('cept those places that allow child marriage maybe). After that the percentage is going to keep going down so that it would be hard to find one after say, 30.

That aside, I launched into the rant I'd been holding back since I understood his question. It touched on a personal gripe of mine. Why would sex be considered the defining act between purity and non-purity, between innocence and adulthood, between saintliness and wretched corruption? For that matter why does the before-sex catagory get a name and the group that experienced it not get a name? It seemed backwards. You don't give special names to those who haven't skydived, gone to college, or killed a man (more on that last one in a bit). I felt that you gained from sexual experience, not lost, and you should a special name for you newfound status.

I felt, as I told the translator, that murder was the defining loss of innocence. That there was nothing inherently bad about sex. But there certainly was a loss of innocence when you take another's life, whatever the circumstances. I know that by my definition the vast majority go their whole lives as unstained as the day they were born. Which is as it should be. It also felt a little weird coming from a soldier, in a warzone, in full battle-rattle and with a bullet in the chamber. It just seemed wrong that those on deathrow wouldn't automatically be considered impure but a newlywed couple would. To my mind there is a world of difference between a hooker and those little shits who go into their school and shoot random people (I don't think it's a very great assumption to believe the shooters are all virgins).

That was about as far into my rant as I got before I had to go back out onto position. My break was only an hour long. I'm not really sure how much I convinced the translator or whether he was just humoring an angry soldier by sitting quietly and nodding his head.

In case anyone was wondering, I never had to shoot anyone in Iraq. Though some in the coalition forces tried my patience.

Views: 385

Tags: America, innocence, military, murder, stereotypes, virginity

Comment by Matthew on February 20, 2010 at 11:13am
Like its a great thing. These people consider the women defiled if they have had sex before marriage and in some of the countries in the Mid East, the woman can be killed, but men will not be for having sex before marriage.

What a great double standard! Another reason why religion is a pox on world.
Comment by Galen on February 20, 2010 at 11:55pm
Under a certain age, say 12, the vast majority is going to be virgins. Same as anywhere ('cept those places that allow child marriage maybe)

Even then, it's not typical for "child brides" to be younger than their teenage years and, even when they are, most of those countries consider it mistreatment to consummate the marriage before puberty.

Point being, even in countries with child marriage, virginity is still very much the norm for those 12 and under.
Comment by forsaken demogorgon on March 8, 2011 at 4:04pm

The purity word you are taking it extremely badly and religious manner.  Think pure as a mc donald food just recently prepared, now think impure as same food you are being served half eaten by some other guy.

Now, do u see both food as same.  Does the value of the second food decrease or not?  That is what virginity means to people with religious beliefs, and it exists even in people who are atheist like me.

 

There are people who justify having sex by saying its trying before buying.  But if the car(girl) has been ridden every week for past 5 years, then is it a Tried car? or a Used Car?

 

Try to understand the person behind the religion, he asked because he doesn't eat half eaten food from someone else's table.  He eats fresh food everyday.  Would you not question in a country where food is half eaten all the time, "Does your country even have fresh food?"

Forsaken Demogorgon

Comment by forsaken demogorgon on March 15, 2011 at 5:57pm
Can someone think about this and reply something.... are u guys there?
Comment by Reggie on March 19, 2011 at 12:23am

Try to understand the person behind the religion, he asked because he doesn't eat half eaten food from someone else's table.  He eats fresh food everyday.  Would you not question in a country where food is half eaten all the time, "Does your country even have fresh food?"

 

Everything is recycled.  He drinks water whose molecules comprised all manners of piss passing through the urethra's of all manners of beings over the eons.  This notion of purity is code for ownership.  Comparing women to cars or fast food is dehumanizing and insulting.  Their religion or culture doesn't give them a pass or excuse the treatment of women as chattel. 

Comment by forsaken demogorgon on March 21, 2011 at 1:46am

     It was metaphorical,  the word purity being compared to the sins  is also extremely demoralizing.  The metaphor of food was brought up cause a psychologist said that sex is the basic need like food, water.  Also, males tend to ... ahem.. 'eat' the ... u know...

     I see the way that man was talking but the man doesn't understand that why he thinks like that.   You don't understand it, so I am just explaining the view of the person behind the religion.  BUT yes his directness and rude words were just like that of a ignorant person who doesn;t try to see how other people can see and think.

Women are compared to the richest wines to the most beautiful flowers.  Women are compared to the moon, to the angels, and godesses, if my analogy of food is so wrong then all poems, all songs .. ALLL movies made in the name of LOve should be dehumanizing and insulting.  A metaphorical comparison is not to enforce but to enhance the definition of what the mind sees and understands.

Forsaken Demogorgon

Comment by Reggie on March 21, 2011 at 9:31am

Oh, no.  I do understand it and the person behind it.  I just don't accept it.  Comparing women to the richest wines or to the most beautiful flowers is insulting and dehumanizing because you are comparing a person to property that is designed to be consumed or adorns a corner of the room for the pleasure of the senses.   

 

And eating food and "eating the...u know" are nothing alike.  I do not masticate and digest a woman's flesh.  That love songs or movies about love or language carry some of this mysogynistic taint is evidence that we have only just emerged to a more enlightened view of women in some places.

Comment by forsaken demogorgon on March 22, 2011 at 1:09am

I am not saying you eat eat.  You put your mouth on it, stuff... The comparison you made of recycling in it self is also dehumanizing then.

If it is nothing alike then will you, do the same to a woman who just had multiple sex with some other men?  Will you dare to indirectly eat those men's stuff?  It is just a human's nature, some people can eat from someone else's plate but some people can't.  It is just a hygienic mental barrier that is both learned as well as born identity.

Forsaken Demogorgon

Comment by forsaken demogorgon on March 22, 2011 at 3:50pm

On the end note women are not recycled but reused.  Recycled means to change something completely into new and then use it, but women are not physically completely changed when they change partners, they are just reusing body, and so are the men when they change girlfriends.

Everything is not reused.

Everything is recycled but people are recycled slow, after giving birth yes, after dying yes, but not in one lifetime.

Forsaken Demogorgon

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