All posts in category Perpetual Virginity

You could be a Perpetual Virgin if…

There has been so much mythology surrounding Perpetual Virgins that most people think they aren’t real.

When you hear the term “Perpetual Virgin” the first image that comes to mind is probably of The Virgin Mary. Or, perhaps you may think of Catholic saints, Vestal Virgins, or ancient goddesses. There has been so much mythology surrounding Perpetual Virgins that most people think they aren’t real. I used to be one of those people as I commented in my biography How I came to be a Perpetual Virgin. But a Perpetual Virgin is really just an average person with a not so average life.

First and foremost, a Perpetual Virgin is a Virgin that is naturally oriented toward living an unmarried, sexually inactive life — and makes a conscious decision to do so. But there are other things that define a Perpetual Virgin too, and I have comprised a list of them.

You might be a Perpetual Virgin if…

  • You believe that staying a Virgin is the way of life that is best for your personal happiness and well-being, and is good for fulfilling your goals in life.
  • You believe sexual purity beings you closer to God or spiritual perfection.
  • You would never even consider doing anything sexually that would even remotely damage or compromise your sexual purity.
  • You believe staying a Virgin makes you better suited for some kinds of religious service, or is the best lifestyle for following the spiritual path of your choice.
  • Your spirit is blissfully happy most of the time.
  • Your spirit is very vigorous and energetic most of the time.
  • You find the thought of marriage depressing.
  • You don’t believe in abusing alcohol, doing drugs, smoking, swearing, or anything that is not pure in nature.
  • You don’t particularly want, need, or crave the orgasmic aspect of sexuality, though you have a normal sex drive and there is nothing physically wrong with you.
  • You have a strong desire for sexual intimacy, but don’t want sex itself in any form.
  • You prefer to dress modestly, not showing too much skin, because you don’t want to attract unchaste sexual attention.
  • You don’t appreciate it when someone comes on to you in a sexually unchaste way.
  • You just don’t see what all the fuss over sex is about. It seems like a big deal over nothing. You get bored or disgusted watching sex scenes in movies.
  • You believe your virginity, your body, and your sexuality belongs to you and no one else — and you question the concept of “saving” them for someone.
  • You are not entirely comfortable with traditional gender roles and don’t want the burden of being bound by them that the loss of Virginity, or a conventional relationship would bring.
  • Your virginity means so much to you that you are willing to endure criticism, loneliness, persecution, ridicule or whatever it takes to keep it.
  • Your Virginity means a lot to you and you would regret it for the rest of your life if you traded it in for a relationship that didn’t work.
  • You don’t feel you need to get married to obtain happiness, fulfillment, or worth.
  • You personally view all sex, consensual or not, as a kind of rape.
  • You believe that marriage is slavery for the woman and prison for the man.
  • You don’t feel you need to have sex to prove that you are an adult or a “real” woman/man.
  • You believe that unmarried chastity better enables you to pursue your dreams and do a lot of good in the world because you are not confined by having to care for a spouse and children.
  • Sex does not represent a temptation for you.
  • You believe that a God/destiny guides your life and that you have been allowed to remain a Virgin into adulthood for a purpose.
  • You love being a virgin and can’t imagine life any other way.

If you are a Virgin and you recognized yourself in many of these statements, if you feel something stirring inside you, if overall this sounds rational or makes sense — then you might be oriented or “called” to the life of a Perpetual Virgin. You can explore it and see where it leads or you can ignore it and live a normal life. Either way… Perpetual Virginity is real.

5 Comments
by Miss Daphne on March 13, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Perpetual Virginity, Religion
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Posted by Miss Daphne on March 13, 2013

https://virginitysvoice.org/2013/03/13/you-might-be-a-perpetual-virgin-if/

How I became a Perpetual Virgin. Part 7

(Note: This is the last chapter in a series of posts that began in November 2011. Click here to read the previous chapters.)

Like everyone else I was raised on the notion that one day I would marry and have kids. I always assumed that sex, like death, was an inevitable conclusion. To never even try it would be against nature. So my knee-jerk reaction to this website that advocated that people should remain Virgins all their lives as a way to achieve “eternal youth, longevity, and a closer connection with God” was to run from it. “These people are nuts,” I thought as I shut down my computer. “The webmaster and everyone who posted comments agreeing with his crazy ideas saying that they were Virgins for life too were completely nuts.”

Yet no matter how much I tried to dismiss this site and its message, I kept coming back. And what kept me coming back were the people, adult Virgins like me, who posted there. Their experiences were so similar to mine — and for once I felt like I had a connection to someone. It was so reassuring it was to hear that I was not the only person going through what I was going through as an adult Virgin. And back in 2001 this was the only website that took Virginity seriously and affirmed it as something positive and acceptable for adults. I figured, why throw out the baby with the bath water? Yes, the site was a little off the wall to preach that people should purposely stay Virgins all their lives, but I decided to ignore that part. Instead, I’d just focus on the off-topic comments that people posted about saving yourself for marriage.

But something inside me started to change. The more I thought about my Virginity the more I realized how much it actually meant to me. Whenever I thought about having to give it up (even in the context of marriage) I would become extremely depressed. I realized how much my virginity truly enriched my life. It gave me freedom, clarity, and an optimism that other people didn’t have. I also realized that the feelings I had when I was going through that phase of wanting to lose my Virginity to the first guy that came along were coming more out of a desire to fit in and be normal than a genuine desire for sex. Furthermore, I realized that whatever feelings that I had about getting married and starting a family I had because I had been conditioned to think that it was inevitable and what I should want. It had nothing to do with what I subconsciously wanted for myself. But now I knew without a doubt that what I truly wanted was to remain a Virgin, always. And for the first time I realized that I could pursue another path other than the one society held up. I decided to take the road less traveled. I would choose to remain a Virgin for life. I would become a Perpetual Virgin.

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So that’s how I came to be a Perpetual Virgin. And though I am ending my story here, my life being the person that I truly am was only beginning. Over the next 12 years I would continue to grow spiritually and mentally to embrace this path that God’s grace has permitted me to follow. And if there’s one thing I want all the reluctant virgins and virgin-in-waiting to take away from my story it’s that any Virgin can be a Perpetual Virgin. I was once just like you.

How I came to be a Perpetual Virgin menu

17 Comments
by Miss Daphne on January 28, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Aging, Perpetual Virginity
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Posted by Miss Daphne on January 28, 2013

https://virginitysvoice.org/2013/01/28/how-i-became-a-perpetual-virgin-part-7/

The new “Virginity’s Voice” looks back at the top Virgin-related stories of 2012.

I would like to start by saying “Happy New Year” … and welcome to the new and improved Virginity’s Voice!

This day has been a long time coming. As you may or may not know, this site had been under construction for what had seemed like forever. Life often gets in the way of what you really want to do. But now Virginity’s Voice is back and ringing in 2013 with a new attitude! Some of the changes include a new look, an updated about page, a glossary of Virgin-related terms… and now you can keep up with Virginity’s Voice on Facebook! If you are not yet a follower of this blog I sincerely hope that you will become one because it will only continue to grow, evolve, and get better and better!

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Now, before I move on with the business of 2013, I would like to take a brief look back at some of the Virgin-related events of 2012. A lot has happened during the past several months that this site was under construction that I have been dying to comment on. So if you’ll indulge me for a while — here’s my belated list of the top 3 Virgin-related stories of 2012.

#3

Robert Pattinson gives his Virginity and gets screwed

The betrayal of “good old-fashioned lover boy” Robert Pattinson by Kristen Steward was one of the biggest Hollywood scandals of 2012.

Before Robert Pattinson got together with Twilight co-star Kristen Steward, rumors and speculation swirled about the gorgeous young actor’s sexual identity — was he a Virgin or not? Pattinson was like the human version of Edward Cullen, the character he portrayed in the film: a 107-year-old vampire who had never lost his Virginity, and had “old school” attitudes when it came to romance. Pattinson never came straight out and admitted that he was a Virgin. Real Virgins usually don’t go around advertising their Virginity, especially if they are over 18, and especially if they are movie stars. However, Pattinson did drop subtle hints about his Virgin identity from time to time. In an early Irish cinema interview with Paul Byrne when he was asked to comment about the message of abstinence in Twilight and about Edward Cullen saving himself for the right woman, Pattinson said “I completely believe in that.”

And for whatever it’s worth, being the “professional” Virgin that I am… I could tell that Pattinson was a Virgin. Don’t ask how if you don’t already know. It just takes an experienced one to know one.

Being the highly passionate being that we Virgins are, Pattinson fell hard for Steward and their onscreen relationship carried over into real life and soon became serious…. at least for Pattinson. “Friends of Robert have told us that this was the woman that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with,” stated Us Weekly magazine.

On July 21, 2012, Pattinson had addressed rumors that the two had already secretly married in an interview for Blackbook Magazine: “No one ever knows what is true or what isn’t … It’s not. At least, not yet. But it is true that Kristen has always done something to me that others haven’t.” Pattinson said.

A few days later, US Weekly broke the news of an affair between Steward, 22, and her 41-year-old Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders, a married father of two. The magazine had published a cover photo of Steward kissing Sanders, prompting swift public apologies from both.

“I’m deeply sorry for the hurt and embarrassment I’ve caused to those close to me and everyone this has affected. This momentary indiscretion has jeopardized the most important thing in my life, the person I love and respect the most, Rob,” Steward said in a statement.

At the time, Pattinson had reportedly just bought a $5 million home in Los Angeles and was planning to propose to Stewart within weeks. He was not only blindsided and totally “devastated” by news of the affair — he was reportedly “horrified” by Steward’s public apology. Shortly afterward, moving trucks were spotted outside the home the two had shared, and Pattinson had fled to who knows where.

No one need wonder anymore if Pattinson is a Virgin. Steward definitely screwed him figuratively and literally. There are some in the Virgin community who say that getting romantically involved with a non-virgin is suicide and that Pattinson brought it all on himself. Who can really say? Meanwhile, it was reported in November that Pattinson had taken Steward back and photos had emerged of the couple together in public. Then it was reported in December that they had got into a huge fight over the Christmas holiday and had broken up again. Then a few days ago they reportedly got back together again and celebrated New Year’s Eve together. Whatever. The damage has been done.

But that’s OK, Virgins. We still have Elijah Wood.

#2

Hollywood salutes Virginity in Snow White and the Huntsman

Virginal Snow White (Kristen Steward) charms a pure white stag in a scene from “Snow White and the Huntsman.”

Note: “Spoiler Alert!”

Ironically, the sex scandal involving Kristen Steward cheating on Robert Pattinson with her director Rupert Sanders brings me to my #2 Virgin-related story of 2012. The film Snow White and the Huntsman starring Kristen Steward and directed by Rupert Sanders was a watershed event for the positive portrayal of Virgins on the silver screen.

Released on June 1, 2012, SWATH takes the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale and gives it a radical new vibe with a Snow White who is not only the “fairest” but the most courageous of them all. She doesn’t just sit around singing “someday my prince will come.” This is a strong and independent Snow White who frees herself from the tower where she was imprisoned, learns from the huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) how to fight, and returns to the castle wearing a suit of armor and leading an army of her people to vanquish the evil queen (Charlize Theron). She is a cross between The Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc: an icon and warrior whose power comes from her purity, especially her purity of heart.

SWATH is the first major Hollywood film I’ve seen in which the Virginity of a character in a leading role is accepted, respected, and fully recognized. Usually, whenever Virgins appeared in films they were there for the audience to laugh at. (Example: Steve Carell as “The 40-year-old virgin”)  Or — if they were heroic figures who were supposed to be taken seriously — their Virginity was downplayed and not talked about. (Example: Tobey Maguire as “Spider-Man”) SWATH is unique in that it features a serious heroic character whose Virginity is not only front and center, but a key element of the story. The words “Virgin” and “Virginity” are never used, but the film practically bends over backwards to make it clear that Snow White is Virginal. Her purity is mentioned frequently. Animals instinctively sense it and connect to her.  She is approached by a pure white unicorn-like creature in one scene and her innocence calms a raging troll in another. It is her innocence and purity, not her physical appearance, which makes her beautiful and a threat to the evil queen.

This is not your typical Hollywood film that caters to a pop culture audience. There’s one very striking scene when Snow White is shown locked inside the prison tower kneeling and praying “The Lord’s Prayer”. In another surprising twist at the end, Snow White doesn’t marry the prince (Sam Claflin) — or the huntsman, the man she truly loved, whose kiss woke her from eternal sleep — but remains single and rules the kingdom perhaps as a “Virgin Queen” like Elizabeth I, devoting herself to her subjects.

The only issue that I have with this film is its star. Why they chose Kristen Steward to play Snow White is one of the greatest mysteries ever. I don’t think she was at all right for the part (I would have like to have seen it played by an actual Virgin) and her acting was mediocre. Even so, SWATH is a thrill to watch, and I give special credit to the writers (Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, and Hossein Amini) and the producers (Laurie Boccaccio, Gloria S. Borders, Sarah Bradshaw, Helen Hayden, Sam Mercer, Palak Patel, and Joe Roth) for bringing this marvelous film with its positive and affirmative image of Virgins to life.

One can only wonder as we move into 2013 if the times could finally be “a-changing” in Hollywood. As Virgins become more visible in society, could SWATH be the start of a trend for them also becoming more visible as serious characters in films? Let’s hope.

#1

Cabaret icon Pam Shaw goes public about being a Virgin at 70

PAM SHAW, 70 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN

Pam Shaw, a Virgin at 70

70-year-old Cabaret singer Pam Shaw, star of the London and Las Vegas stage for over 43 years, revealed that she was a Virgin to UK newspaper The Sun on May 9, 2012. She explained that she did not believe in sex before marriage and that she never questioned the fact that she would remain a Virgin for as long as she was single.

This photo shows a flyer for her show as a cabaret star.
Photo Credit: Huffington Post

Pam Shaw who resides in Wigan, England and goes by the stage name “The Sexational Pam” has had a long illustrious career on the stage, in television, and on radio. In the 1960’s she was a popular Las Vegas performer and did a show with “It’s not unusual” singer Tom Jones, one of the most popular vocalists to emerge from the British Invasion, during a week-long stint at Bolton Casino. She also rubbed shoulders with male sex symbols like James Bond actor Roger Moore and opened shows for comic Ken Dodd and crooner Englebert Humperdinck.

She said that men often made false assumptions about her sex life, or lack thereof, because of her looks and career in the entertainment industry.

“Men saw the outfits I wore on stage and thought I would be easy. But I’ve never really been intimate with a man, just a bit of kissing. I had a sexy stage name and dressed sexy but that was all for my career,” she said. “There has never been time for me to get a man. I worked so much that sometimes I’d only have an hour’s sleep each night. I wouldn’t entertain the idea of sex outside marriage — and marriage meant giving up on my dreams.”

Personally, I find Pam’s story to be an inspiration. Virgins like me have few older role models who have lived such a successful and exciting life.

Unfortunately, society and the media being what it is, Pam’s story was twisted and sensationalized. Her picture was splattered across every newspaper, blog, and social media outlet in Britain and the US portraying her as a “weirdo” or a pathetic figure desperate to “lose it.”

Some of the headlines included: “THE 70-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN! SO TRAGIC!!!” 

“70-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN SAYS SHE’S READY TO HAVE SEX!!!”  

And “70-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN LOOKING TO GET LAID!!!” 

I read a number of different articles on this story and nowhere did I see Pam quoted as saying that she was “looking to get laid.” What she actually said was — “I feel I am ready to give marriage a go and maybe go to bed with a man. You are never too old for anything.”

“My standards are still very high, though,” she said. “I’m hoping to bag a tall, dark and handsome millionaire.”

My feeling as a Perpetual Virgin is that if she stayed a Virgin for this long she might as well keep going. But if marriage to “a tall, dark and handsome millionaire” is what she really wants, I think she should go for it.

I applaud you Pam for keeping your flame burning for this long.

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And that’s my pick of the top Virgin-related stories of 2012. May 2013 be fantastic!

2 Comments
by Miss Daphne on January 13, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Aging, Blogging, Celebrities, Holidays, In the News, Movies, Perpetual Virginity
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Posted by Miss Daphne on January 13, 2013

https://virginitysvoice.org/2013/01/13/the-new-virginitys-voice-looks-back-at-the-top-virgin-related-stories-of-2012/

How I came to be a Perpetual Virgin. part 6

Someone once said “Everybody is afraid of dying until it hits you! After that you don’t give it a second thought.” That quote popped into my mind as I was thinking about what to write for this post and it’s ironic how much it sums up my own experience of being absolutely terrified of becoming a 30-year-old Virgin. Like so many others, I had brought into everything bad that society said about adult Virginity — that adult Virgins are abnormal, freaks, losers, and failures as women. I had been so brainwashed by this garbage that I had, in fact, looked upon turning 30 as a sort of death, because 30 was the “final deadline.”

According to society, you should lose their Virginity before your 18th birthday because you are considered an adult at that age, and no respectable adult should be a Virgin. And though it’s “disappointing” if you don’t make this first deadline, it’s OK, there’s still time. The second deadline comes at age 25. If you still haven’t had sex by then, society says, you definitely have issues, but there’s still hope because you’re not over the hill yet. But once you hit that third and final deadline, the big 3-0, and you still haven’t lost it — you are officially condemned to social oblivion. Three strikes, you’re out!

Fortunately for me being “out” had it’s benefits. Once the unthinkable had happened — I greeted my 30thbirthday still as pure as a newborn babe — all the fear and anxiety I’d experienced over the prospect of getting stuck with an “expired” V-card vanished. By the time I turned 31 and the “final deadline” had faded into the rear view mirror, all the things that society said about Virginity and sex didn’t matter so much anymore. Everything started to look brighter and clearer, and for the first time in a long time I felt a sense of peace because I was no longer at war with myself. I was no longer fighting the Chaste woman who I was meant to be, and I was no longer trying to destroy the Virginity that was so much a part of me.

Now that I had accepted the fact that I was different, I suddenly felt extremely lonely and isolated. I felt alienated from everyone else around me because I was the only adult Virgin I knew. I wondered if there were any other people like me. I decided to find out, and there was no better place to start than online.

The first significant pro-Virgin website I found was one whose title page declared that Virginity and Celibacy was “a way to longevity and a healthy life.” FINALLY! In an anti-Virgin world where everything was all about sex, I had finally found something that I could relate to. I was so thrilled to have found such a site that devoured its pages without even stopping to comprehend what I was actually reading — like a starving man shoveling heaps of food in his mouth without taking the time to taste it. But the highlight of it all was viewing the website’s guestbook and the tons of comments left by Virgins, many of them my age or older. What a relief it was to finally know that I was not the only one, and that I was not so odd after all. And there were male Virgins, too. More of them than I would have expected there to be. In fact, the males seemed to outnumber the females, not that I had any complains.

My excitement came to a screeching halt, however, when I became aware from closely reading the various messages that this site was about LIFELONG CHASTITY, and advocated staying a Virgin for your ENTIRE life. No sex. No marriage. EVER! Somehow I had missed that part coming in. I couldn’t believe it! As far as I knew, Perpetual Virginity was the stuff of myths and legends. I had never heard of people who chose to permanently remain Virgins in real life; I didn’t even know it was possible, let alone an option. At that time, I was still technically practicing abstinence until marriage. I had always planned on getting married and having sex eventually, because I assumed that marriage and sex, like death and taxes, were inevitable. No matter how much I enjoyed being a Virgin I understood that one day it had to end, because “you can’t stay a Virgin all your life!” or so I had been told. Going through life without ever having sex was unnatural, so I believed. It wasn’t normal and it wasn’t right.

I continued to scroll down through the various messages in the guest book where people spoke about how committing to lifelong Virginity brought them a greater sense of purpose, made them feel closer to God, brought them eternal happiness, and so on. “These people are a bunch of flakes!” I thought. “I search for other Virgins and this is what I find??? This website is nutty and I won’t waste anymore of my time with it!” I exited out and shut down the computer.

 Continued…

How I came to be a Perpetual Virgin menu

6 Comments
by Miss Daphne on January 24, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Aging, Perpetual Virginity
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Posted by Miss Daphne on January 24, 2012

https://virginitysvoice.org/2012/01/24/how-i-came-to-be-a-perpetual-virgin-part-6/

How I came to be a Perpetual Virgin. part 5

I entered a three-year period of self-pity and self loathing over my virginity, and I experienced a growing sense of panic the closer I came to my 30th birthday. Losing my virginity seemed easy enough. I knew that all I had to do was put on some skimpy outfit, walk down to the nearest bar, and pick up any guy that was interested. No relationship would be necessary because I was in a hurry. A one-night stand would do just fine. All I wanted was to have sex, fast, before I was 30, so I could join the human race. The problem with this plan is that it never even made it out of the thought stage. My mind tried hard to sell it, but my heart wouldn’t buy it. I don’t know how other women do it — but there was no way I could have ever gone through with it.

Inevitably, my 30th birthday came. I went around in a haze for much of that year not knowing quite what to make of things. But after I realized that the sky had not fallen in, the sun still rose everyday, and the seasons still changed… I gradually began to come back to my senses. I was a 30-year-old virgin. I would just have to accept it. I would also have to accept that I was different. I was not like other women, and I was not what society defined as a “woman.” Society defined womanhood as something you would see in a commercial for Victoria Secret. Being a woman, society said, meant being sexy and free with your body. It meant having sex with numerous men — and the more sexually experienced a woman was the more womanly, mature, and strong she was supposed to be. And it’s not just the media that communicates this message. In the everyday world of women you are expected to be sexy to get a man and to get all the sex you can out of him… and if you play your cards right in bed, you can get money, a wedding ring, or both. If you are not doing this you are not a real woman. This, in so many words, is what mothers tell their daughters, it’s what girlfriends tell their girlfriends, it’s what just about any woman will tell another woman.

Knowing that I could not meet these expectations and that people would not look upon me as a “real woman” really hurt. It made me feel small, inadequate, and inferior. On the other hand, accepting who I was very liberating. I finally felt at peace because it was such a relief to let go of those expectations, and there was no longer that pressure to try to live up to something that I could never live up to. I no longer had to try to be something that I was not, could never be, and really didn’t want to be.

I realized that during that period of anxiety about turning 30 and still being a Virgin, I had been at a crossroads. Everyone comes to a crossroads in life where they must choose the path they want to follow and the type of person they want to be. My choice had been between staying a Virgin or becoming promiscuous. I had chosen to stay a Virgin. Yet deep down I still felt that it was time to move on… but to what? I knew that promiscuity was not an option, but I also knew that I couldn’t go back to being a “virgin-in-waiting”. I had mentally and emotionally outgrown the “true-love-waits” scene and the whole idea of pre-marital abstinence. But, even though I was no longer waiting for my prince to come — I would continue to wander aimlessly down the road of abstinence until marriage, for whatever it was worth at that point, because it seemed to be the only viable option for remaining a Virgin.

Continued…

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7 Comments
by Miss Daphne on December 30, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Aging, Perpetual Virginity
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Posted by Miss Daphne on December 30, 2011

https://virginitysvoice.org/2011/12/30/how-i-came-to-be-a-perpetual-virgin-part-5/

How I came to be a Perpetual Virgin. Part 4

I left elementary school looking forward to having a normal high school experience. So I was very upset when I ended up at an all-girl Catholic High School. I had wanted to go to a Catholic co-ed high school across town, but my parents wouldn’t have it because they said that it was too far and not as good. Obviously, I had wanted to go to the other school because it had boys. I was not fast like some girls who could pick up boys on the street after school and on weekends. I knew that if I did not come into contact with boys in my day-to-day environment, it was likely that I would not date. I was right. I didn’t even go to prom mainly because I did not have a date. So aside from continued bullying, my high school years were uneventful.

By the time I got around to dating in college I discovered that it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. The “relationships” I had never came to much. Guys just couldn’t accept that I would not have sex with them, and before long… they would dump me, or I would dump them.

When I entered the working world at 25, I started to question my beliefs about the Bible and Christianity. So many things that I had been taught no longer made sense to me… but then, but I suppose they never really did. I had never belonged to a church. My mother had been open-minded in allowing me to make up my own mind about religion and never imposed any beliefs on me as a child. But I considered myself a Christian because I had been raised in a Christian culture and it was all I knew. I tried to renew my faith. One day, I decided that I would read the Bible from cover to cover to get a better understanding of its teachings. But I had barely started reading Genesis before I put it down even more confused than when I started. And so, I decided that I would no longer be a Christian. I did not see the point of going along with something that I could not fully accept just because other people said it was right. The way I saw it, I was doing Christianity a favor by staying out of it. There were already too many people who call themselves Christians that don’t believe in or practice anything that the Bible says, not to mention those that make up their own version of what is clearly written in the scriptures. People like that, in my view, did nothing but bring the church down. As for me, I would rather be an honest non-believer than a bogus “saint.” At least I had the integrity to admit that I was a non-believer and move on to a religion that I could fully embrace as there are Many paths to God.

I may have left Christianity but I still maintained a strong belief in God, and my search for another belief system led me to the New Age Movement. I started reading books on New Age philosophy and the ancient spiritual traditions of my African ancestors. I didn’t agree with everything the New Age Movement advocated either, but unlike Christianity that said “IT’S THIS WAY OR THE HIGHWAY” — New Age spirituality was flexible.

A couple of years later, I began to have doubts about my virginity. Now that I was older I began to question the logic of this vow that I had made so many years ago. I had made the vow to remain a Virgin when I was a Christian, and now that I was no longer a Christian what was the point of keeping it? Everything that I had ever seen about Virginity or Chastity had described it as “a religious thing,” and more specially, “a Christian thing.” Keeping your virginity was portrayed as something that was only for Christians — not people like me. If I was no longer a Christian, I thought, shouldn’t I be having sex? There was nothing to keep me from it now. The vow I had made was a Christian vow that no longer applied.

Besides, I was getting too old for this abstinence stuff, I thought. People who promote abstinence tell you to “wait” for this fairy tale to happen about some prince who is supposed to be your “true love” coming along and making you his bride before you can have sex. It’s easy to believe in when you are in your teens and early twenties and marriage seems just over the horizon, right after college. But as you grow older and there is no prospect of marriage in sight, the abstinence fairy tale only seems to become more and more of a joke with each passing year. I mean, there I was 27 years old and still as pure as the day I was born. I wondered if I was normal. Society said that I should have lost my virginity ages ago, and that if I didn’t lose it before 30, I would certainly be abnormal. I decided that sitting around waiting on a prince that wasn’t coming because of a Christian vow that was no longer relevant was foolish and that it was time to move on. I decided it was time I lost my virginity.

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by Miss Daphne on December 27, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Perpetual Virginity, Religion
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Posted by Miss Daphne on December 27, 2011

https://virginitysvoice.org/2011/12/27/how-i-came-to-be-a-perpetual-virgin-part-4/

How I came to be a Perpetual Virgin. Part 3

It was the 1980’s. I was 12 years old and in sixth grade. My classmates and I were all beginning to experience the changes that come with puberty. The boys sexually tormented the girls at every available opportunity. They would grab the girl’s breasts or behinds as they walked by them in the classroom or in the halls, look up their skirts as they walked up the fire escape after a drill, and try to lure them into isolated places to kiss them.

Today, this would be called sexual harassment and would be grounds for the boys to be suspended from school or their parents to be sued, but back then it was just “mischief.” If the teacher knew about it, it wasn’t taken seriously since nothing was ever done about it. And although the girls pretended to be upset they weren’t entirely innocent. They egged the boys on and played along with everything that happened. There were even a couple of times when the tables were turned and the girls sexually harassed the boys. And what the girls did was considerably worse than anything that the boys ever pulled. I just looked on. I never got involved and I hardly had to worry about being bothered as I was the class nerd, a total outcast, and not on anyone’s hot list.

Sister Martha, the school principal and Mother Superior at the convent next door, was a very patient woman but had a hard time containing her growing outrage with the immature sexual antics of kids too young to know what they doing. The last straw came one day during recess. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but apparently the boys had done something that finally crossed the line. I was standing alone by the wall as usual, so I was not involved with whatever had happened when whistles started blowing and all the supervisors came running toward a group of kids huddled together at the center of the playground. The group was broken up, and Sister Martha shouted at the supervisors that recess was over and get the kids inside. It was not time for recess to end but we were driven off the playground and herded into the classroom where we were made to be quiet and put our heads down with the lights out.

A few minutes later, Sister Martha came in, and she was not pleased. She proceeded to give us a talking to that would turn out to be a defining moment in my life. I’m paraphrasing here, but what she said went something like this: “What happened at recess was unacceptable! It has come to my attention that this sort of behavior is becoming a problem and it must stop! I realize that you are at that age when you are becoming curious about sex and your bodies but there is a thing called self-respect. Sex is meant to be something special shared between a man and a woman who love each other within the bonds of marriage. When you treat it as something cheap you not only devalue what is meant to be holy but you also devalue yourselves when you treat your bodies so carelessly. God wants what is best for you and your virginity is a gift from God. The thing that would please God most is for you be respectful of yourselves and to stay pure until you are married… because your body is the most beautiful gift that you could ever give someone.”

I remember that last part word for word. It was a revelation! And at that moment, at 12-years-old, I vowed that I would remain a Virgin until I married. It was as simple as that. There was no Virginity pledge, no purity ring, no T-shirt, no bumper sticker. I never told anyone about it. I didn’t even tell my parents and they never knew. It was just a private affair between me and God.

People who would try to find a reason to explain why I and other Virgins are Chaste would say that it is because we were “brainwashed” by religion. Nonsense! You may be able to manipulate some kids for a while and have them to superficially go through the motions of being abstinent, but you can’t change who and what they are inside. You can teach kids about abstinence but no one can be made to be Chaste that was not already intrinsically Chaste to begin with. This is why abstinence education has no effect on the average kid and why the majority of Virginity pledges don’t last. Looking back, I realize that I have always been Chaste. When I used to go to the convent next door to the school for reading lessons I found myself fascinated with the life there and I had a closeness with the nuns that the other kids did not. Sister Martha’s speech just the nudge that was needed to start me down a path that I unknowingly was already on. There must have been thirty other kids in that classroom that day who heard the same speech. I have run into some of them over the years and whenever I did they would always tell me about this or that girl who had got pregnant before finishing high school. I’m probably the only person out of the class who still remains a Virgin to this day.

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by Miss Daphne on December 1, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Perpetual Virginity, Sexual harassment
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Posted by Miss Daphne on December 1, 2011

https://virginitysvoice.org/2011/12/01/how-i-came-to-be-a-perpetual-virgin-part-3/

How I came to be a Perpetual Virgin. Part 2

If I had to pick a point to start my story from, I would start from when I was just beginning to confront the facts of life. My journey as a Chaste Virgin began when I was in elementary school. I had received a Catholic school education pretty much from kindergarten all the way through high school. I never attended a public school. My parents were not Catholic. My mother belonged to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and my father was Baptist (or so he said). I went to private schools where religion was taught because my parents felt that private schools offered a better education than public schools. Yet, religion was never something that my parents imposed upon me as a child. This was deliberate on my mother’s part because she wanted me to “have my own mind” and believed that I should be free to “make my own decision” about what church I should join, so I didn’t get much religion at home. But because I attended a Catholic school where I was very deeply immersed in the teachings, rituals, and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, I felt Catholic even though I come from a Protestant home.

After my parents, the adult role models and authority figures in my life were the nuns, priests, and monks that regulated my daily life. Society may view lifelong Chastity and those who live in it as strange or abnormal, but you tend to see it differently when you grow up around it. Growing up in the Catholic school system, Chaste people were an everyday part of my life. The principal, administrators, and a many of the teachers at my schools were nuns (I had one administrator that was a monk); and every other day the whole school would attend church services where the priests performed mass. I never questioned why the nuns and priests were not married and had no children, and neither did anyone else. In Catholic society lifelong Chastity was taken for granted, especially where the clergy was concerned, and no one thought anything of it. And I certainly wasn’t paying attention to such things in those days, because like any “typical” tween girl the only thing that I was concerned with was the latest clothing styles and whatever pop singer was at the top of the music charts.

And for the record, I was not sexually abused. I have absolutely nothing dishonorable to say about any priests or nuns that I knew, and nothing unfortunate to speak of involving any children that I went to school with. My childhood experience with Catholic priests and nuns was positive. And it was here that I was first introduced to the concept of sexual purity starting me out on what would eventually become my “calling” or the path which I would be oriented to follow in life.

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by Miss Daphne on November 22, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Miss Daphne on November 22, 2011

https://virginitysvoice.org/2011/11/22/how-i-came-to-be-a-perpetual-virgin-part-2/

How I came to be a Perpetual Virgin. Part 1

I used to think that Perpetual Virgins were a myth until I found out I was one. When I was growing up I imagined that I would have just a normal life. I would marry, have kids, and live happily ever after. I never set out to follow a Chaste path. But when I look back over my life in retrospect it just seems to be a natural fit, and I feel as though I am doing exactly what I should be doing and living the life that I was meant to live.

As corny as it sounds, I always knew that I was somehow different. This was something that I knew since the earliest days of my childhood. I never belonged. Other kids acted like kids; they were loud, rowdy, and rebellious. I, on the other hand, was very quiet, bookish, and mild-mannered; and it was often remarked by adults that I seemed mature beyond my years. While other kids tried to fit in, I followed my own rules. I did not mean to be different. I just didn’t see the point in going along with something just for the hell of it, especially if I didn’t agree with it, or knew it was wrong. So I did my own thing, and I was totally oblivious to what anyone around me thought. As far as I was concerned — who I was, was who I was. It never occurred to me that I should change or try to be like others. I guess you could say that I was a true nonconformist. But in the cruel world of kids where the nail that sticks up will be pounded down, real nonconformity is not popular or cool, and I paid a brutal price for it. I was teased and picked on without mercy from the time I started grade school up until the time I finished high school when I hung up my graduation robe, took my diploma, and never looked back.

The fact that I am different from other people I know has never been about any one particular thing as there are many sides to who I am. But the reason I am writing this story, and the reason that you are reading it, is to specifically look at how I as a Virgin came to embrace Chastity as my sexual orientation and/or sexual preference. It certainly wasn’t something that I just woke up one day and decided on. It’s a place that I gradually arrived at over the course of my entire lifetime, and I will reflect on this journey in posts to come.

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by Miss Daphne on November 17, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Miss Daphne on November 17, 2011

https://virginitysvoice.org/2011/11/17/how-i-came-to-be-a-perpetual-virgin/

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