Project 365 here 365Pieces
[Flash 10 is required to watch video]
So in school for the past week or so, the main topic of conversation has been sex. Not in an “Oh my god, penises and vaginas! *giggles* ” way. We’ve been talking about our attitudes towards it and all that mature shit. Our class is lucky like that because we’re a pretty tight unit and talking about things like is no big deal. Well, to most of us.
It began in SPHE when we were talking about pregnancy etc. We were discussing (well, the teacher was talking at us about) the consequences of having sex. We had to say what we thought some consequences would be and a very popular choice (besides pregnancy and STDs obviously) was “having a bad reputation” or “people losing respect for you”.
I was a bit thrown aback by this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think it’s uber-cool if you’re off having sex. But I just don’t see it as my place to judge someone on because of that. Now, I’m not one of those ”Oh, i don’t judge people” people (believe me, I’m an asshole, just like everyone else), but to me, if you’re young and having sex, it doesn’t change you in my eyes.
Why though? Because to me, having sex is no big deal. Like, I’m a virgin like (ha, as if that needed clearing up), so I can’t talk about the actual act, but the idea of people having sex just seems like such a normal thing to do. I’m not being blasé about it (ok, maybe I am) but like, is it such a big deal that there’s young people having sex? It seemed like it was in that SPHE class. While I can see why people would call you a hoooor if you’re off shagging every guy/girl you can find, I don’t think it’s right to see someone differently (usually in a bad way) if they’ve had sex. It’s a teenager’s perogative to want to try new things, sexual or otherwise.
So I was thinking, how many people in our class are not virgins? For me anyway, only 3 people came to mind. So I did some research. I wasn’t going around being sneaky and saying “Oh, so do you think he/she’s done the deed?”, I was asking people straight up (ok, so there was some sneakin’ too…). At first they’d be like “Emm, what?” but like i’d explain how I was only wondering etc. Ok, now I realise that I sounded like a real creep. But like I said earlier, our class are pretty comfortable about this sort of thing so it wasn’t as weird as it sounds. Most were like me and were fine about saying that they were virgins, but then I asked this one guy and I don’t think he understood the way I was asking the question. I think he thought I was being all “Oh, everyone’s had sex!” and “You’re a loser if you haven’t”. Wrong. I was not. I got the feeling that he was trying to impress me or some weird shit like that (seriously, me?). He was like “You want to know who’s not a virgin? YOU’RE LOOKING AT HIM”. I was like “Oh, ok then” and he then looked all confused at me. He really thought that I expected everyone to have lost their virginity. Like wtf… Meh, this guy was probably telling the truth but the manner in which he said that to me just got to me, just like it got to me when people answered the consequences of sex wuestion with “I’ll have no respect for you”.
Ok, I got a little off topic there. But point is, being a virgin is something shameful to people. Why should it be? Just like why should it be shameful if you have had sex at 15/16? It doesn’t matter. We’re teenagers so not having sex is the most natural thing in the world. Just like it’s natural to want to have sex when you’re a teenager.
Seriously, it doesn’t matter. Get off your high horse if you need to impress people like that. Similarly, get off your high horse if you need to put people down like that.
