The Ambiguity of "Having Sex": The Subjective Experience of Virginity Loss in the United States - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Sex Research, May, 2001 by Laura M. Carpenter

The experience of virginity loss offers one vantage point from which to explore the ambiguity surrounding sex and the consequences of that ambiguity for personal identity. Societal concerns about sexuality often crystallize around virginity loss, both because it is widely perceived as one of the most significant turning points in sexual life and because of the emphasis public health and policy professionals place on first coitus and sexual initiation. In this paper, I concentrate on two subjective aspects of virginity loss. First, to what sexual experiences do women and men refer when they talk about virginity loss or the first time they had sex? Which events do they posit as producing the transition from virgin to nonvirgin identity and who do they see as eligible to make that transition? Second, how do people interpret virginity loss? How do the meanings that individuals attach to virgin and nonvirgin identity shape their expectations and choices about the transition between those identities?

In answering these questions, I address several short-comings of the literature on early sexual experiences. First, relatively little research has explored the subjective meanings of virginity loss (di Mauro, 1995). Although first experiences with vaginal intercourse--which researchers often identify as "virginity loss"--have been staples of research on sexual behavior since the 1960s, the preponderance of literature on early sexuality has focused on its public health dimensions (Ericksen, 1999; Sprecher, Barbee, & Schwartz, 1995). Second, most studies of virginity loss have focused primarily or exclusively on the experiences of young women and on people who identify themselves as heterosexual, despite a growing body of empirical and anecdotal evidence that beliefs and behavior vary meaningfully across and within gender and sexual orientation (this evidence includes Elder, 1996; Hart, 1995; Holland, Ramazanoglu, & Thomson, 1996; Rubin, 1990; Thompson, 1995; Tolman, 1994). Third, many of the studies that are sensitive to meaning rely on data gathered more than a decade ago, before the advent of HIV/AIDS as a public problem and the full impact of the New Right backlash against liberal sexual ideology (e.g., Brumberg, 1997; Rubin, 1990; Thompson, 1995).

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

My analysis relies on an understanding of sexuality as profoundly shaped by social factors or socially constructed (Gagnon & Simon, 1973; Laws & Schwartz, 1977; Stein, 1989; Vance, 1991). Different cultural groups, both within and across societies, interpret different activities as sexual and imbue different sexual practices with specific meanings. At the same time, individuals actively interpret and reinterpret their sexual experiences over their lifetimes, thereby creating their identities as sexual beings. The patterned ways in which cultures and individuals approach sexuality can be understood as interpretive frames, schemas that enable people to "locate, perceive, identify, and label" occurrences within their life and the social world at large (Goffman, 1974, p. 21).

Diverse ways of framing specific aspects of sexuality, such as virginity loss, may be available in a given society at a single time. The frames that are available serve as part of the cultural "toolkit" with which individuals construct their sexual identities (Swidler, 1986). In the contemporary West, sexuality constitutes a central feature of identity; individuals are to a great degree defined by themselves and others, both socially and morally, in terms of their sexuality (Foucault, 1978; Giddens, 1992; Plummer, 1995; Weeks, 1985). Early sexual experiences, perhaps especially virginity loss, appear to be crucial steps through which individuals develop a sense of their identities as sexual beings (Gagnon & Simon, 1973; Holland et al., 1996).

In modern social life, identity (or self) comprises an ongoing project on which people expend considerable creative effort (Giddens, 1992). Sociologists typically theorize identity as a bridge linking the individual and society. One can usefully distinguish between social identity, the identities people attribute or impute to others, and personal identity, the meanings people attribute to their own selves (Snow & Anderson, 1987).(1) Social and personal identity are not necessarily congruent. For instance, a young woman may be perceived by her friends as a virgin (social identity) while knowing herself to be a nonvirgin (personal identity). Identity comprises multiple dimensions, of which sexual identity (incorporating virginity status) is only one. Various dimensions of identity are intertwined in ways that depend in part on individuals' interpretations of those dimensions. For example, people who interpret virginity as a stigma might associate virgin identity with "loser" or "geek" identity, whereas people who frame virginity as valuable gift might link virgin identity with traditional feminine identity.

Different interpretive frames imply different evaluations of virgin and nonvirgin identity. A person may embrace or distance himself from a particular social or personal identity, depending on his and others' interpretations of it. Should he desire a different identity than the one he has, he may work to obtain a new one, either in fact (as when a virgin seeks to lose his virginity) or in appearance (as when a virgin portrays himself as a nonvirgin). Not static, identity changes over the life course, as when people adopt new social roles or statuses. Transitions from one identity to another comprise rites of passage or status passages; virginity loss, entailing the transition from virgin to nonvirgin identity, constitutes just such a passage (Glaser & Strauss, 1971; Turner, 1969; van Gennep, 1908). (Although the literature on status passages typically assumes congruence between social and personal identity, transitions can presumably occur independently at either level.) Undergoing a rite of passage involves relinquishing one identity in order to replace it with another. Therefore, how people approach a status passage and how they conduct themselves afterwards depend in part on their beliefs about both the initial and new identities (as well as on the beliefs of those around them).