The Virgin Factor

This past weekend I traveled back to my hometown to celebrate my Mamma’s birthday. I really don’t care to go back there, like ever. While I still have a few people I love there, that town has nothing for me to go back to. I left running and screaming. I’m not going back. I tell everyone if they want to see me, they can come to me. Seriously, when people stay with us we spoil them! We take them to the coolest places and introduce them to the yummiest food.

Anyways, one topic of conversation that came up was how for us girls, it was engrained into the depths of our souls that we were to remain virgins until marriage. The worst thing a girl could ever do was arrive at the altar and not deserve to wear a white dress! (Clutch the pearls!)

What religious sicko came up with this idea that virginity is the most valuable thing a woman can ever have? Like seriously, the D is so powerful and magnanimous, once it penetrates the V it’s going to change who I am as a human and alter my entire existence! I was raised with the ideals that if you gave up your V card before marriage, you were automatically some loose skank. In God’s eyes you were no longer pure. Who’s going to want you now? What’s worse, I was raised by women who seriously believed this garbage.

I remember hearing comments, “You can tell she gets around. Her body is all loose now.” Like okay, calm down Doña Cuca. Maybe chica just enjoys an extra Allsup’s burrito occasionally. I’m pretty sure she didn’t get that tummy roll from hooking up with your grandson. If anything, he probably gave her chlamydia.

But no one said a thing about the guys hooking up with the girls. Nope. No one said anything about the guys who were hooking up with a different girl every week. No one said anything about the guys who didn’t wrap it up and sperminated the girls. “Son hombres, no pierden nada.” The girls were the dumb ones who went and got knocked up. The girls should’ve known better than to go spread their legs. Hey, last I checked pregnancy was 100% caused by men.

Whew! Calm down Jessica!

Personally, I kind of always figured I wouldn’t remain a virgin until I got married. Mostly because it made zero sense to me. I always saw myself living with a dude before I got married because in my mind you don’t buy a car without test driving it first. I wasn’t about to go through all the expensive ritualistic wedding stuff only to realize I couldn’t stand the guy a month later, and then end up divorced or worse – stuck in an unhappy marriage. But even like that, I was the last virgin amongst everyone around me.

My thing was I didn’t want to give it up to some rando that was going to make fun of me with his friends or dump me the next day. Especially where I grew up. Most of the guys were just gross. I grew up with them, and most of them had already gotten with someone I knew. And everyone knew who was getting with who, and who did what, where, when, why, and how. For my own self preservation, I made it a point to not date anyone in town.

Now, when I did give it up, that dude was a little older than me. Because of all this insane virginity logic – You’re supposed to marry who you give it up to because no one else is going to want you if you’re not a virgin – That dude thought he had ownership over me. And that led to a whole lot of other problems no one ever prepared me for. Holy psycho! Lucky for me I figured out a thing or two and got myself out of that situation.

I grew up with girls who got married to please their parents because God forbid they become the talk of the town for their daughter having sex with her boyfriend! Like they had a quinceañera one year and a wedding the next. These parents had zero problem sacrificing their young daughters to marital hell as long as she could wear that white dress and please the town busy bodies and craning necks. Don’t mind her dreams of doing something great. Mama taught her how to cook, clean, and be a loyal housewife. She’ll be fine.

As a parent to a girl, I’m trying to be a realist. I don’t know who my daughter is going to grow up to be. She’s growing up in a world so different from mine. I just know I’m working hard to raise a good human. There will come a time when she does things I don’t agree with. I just hope that I can remember what it was like for me when I was her age so I can understand her. The world is already going to be an asshole to her. I’m here to lift her, not make life harder for her.