Two points, really. The first is on the world’s fascination with “virginity” and America’s obsession over it. The second point is about the emphasis society tends to put on the act of sex.
Reading one of the Campus Progress web logs this morning, I ran across an interesting statistic – that just about or more than 50 percent of college students are “still virgins.” My question: why do we care? Why is it that, as a society, we treat losing one’s virginity as sort of a rite of passage in which a new person is born and the old, less mature person is gone? It’s to say, as if, a person’s accomplishment in life is based on whether or not that person has engaged in sex. With rite-of-passage teen movies like “American Pie” being a part of the popular culture, it seems the message we’re sending teens is: your worth and dignity is based on whether you’ve “done it.” Yet, they also get messages from the Christian-right about remain “pure” and “untouched” until marriage. The result is a clash of culture, in which, on one hand, the message is about the importance of having sex. On the other hand, the message is about “saving” oneself until marriage. What’s a kid to do, really, in that situation? If virginity is so special, how come the majority of us aren't even in touch with the person to whom we "lost" it? The truth is when it comes to virginity, there is nothing lost, and nothing gained.
Besides, what's the exact definition of a virgin anyhow? One who's pure in both thoughts and mind? One who's never orgasmed? One who's never had intercourse? One who's had intercourse but never orgasm? Does oral sex count? What about priest sex? It's all confusing, really -- yet we're still obsessed with the idea of virginity.
The fact of the matter is that there are more important things to worry about in one’s lifelong accomplishment than sex and “virginity.” We see movies like “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” but we don’t see movies like, “The 40-Year-Old Bum Who Hasn’t Done a Damned Thing to Make the World Better.”
Sometimes, I wonder why. Why can’t we just teach kids, from both the left and the right that sex is something amazing and wonderful that should only be had with responsibility, respect and readiness? Isn’t that a much better message than: if you aren’t having sex, you’re a loser or if you’re having sex, you’re a slut?
Wouldn’t it make the whole abstinence education debate much easier to digest? Wouldn’t it make birth control much more easily gotten? Wouldn’t it strike down patriarchy and society’s ideal of a family at its root? It certainly would. Just by changing our personal outlooks on virginity and sex, we can certainly make move the world in the right political direction.
Second point: why does society put such a strong emphasis on the act of sex? It is, after all, only sex. I don’t mean to sound like a frat boy here, but sex is just an act. It’s neither holy nor God’s gift. It’s neither divine nor special. It’s purely biological, just like any other activity that we engage in as humans. Sure, sex is certainly not making love, but it’s got a quality of its own. Just like going for a walk, having dinner or spending the afternoon with someone, sex is just an act. It only becomes special when the person with whom we are sharing it is special. Other than that, sex is just – sex. Why make things any complicated than life already is? To be sure, one should always be monogamous in a relationship, but let’s not treat sex anymore special than just a kiss. A kiss, after all, without any emotions put into it, is just a kiss.
Perhaps the wounds are still a bit too deep for me to bring this up - rest assured, I am not saying this as a political exploitation, using a tragedy to highlight a point; I am simply saying this to draw a comparison.
What happened at Virginia Tech is a heartbreaking tragedy, I will never, ever deny that. The time to grieve is now, and the nation will continue to grieve.
Consider this, however: at the time of this being written, 3311 Americans have died in Iraq, in addition to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Unlike the war in Vietnam, Americans seem to be removed from this war. They seem to be going on with normalcy as Americans are losing their lives every day.
The truth is that the loss of lives at Virginia Tech isn't any more or less tragic than the lost of lives in Iraq. Those who have died in Iraq also had hopes and dreams, parents and loved ones, lovers and friends. It breaks my heart that we mourn the deaths of 32 Americans, but we turn a blind-eye to the thousands of other Americans, simply because we're so far removed from them.
It is my hope that, through the tragedy, we can realize that the loss of any human life to a needless cause should be a travesty, and should be mourned. Only then, I hope, can public perception of the war in Iraq be more negative. If an angry mob of right-doers could take Don Imus off the air, I hope such a mob can also end the war in Iraq.
The only thing, though, is that it seems almost classless for us to be speaking about this now -- at a time when there is still so much hurt going on and so much grieving still to be done.
But either we make the wounds deeper and make the American people see, or they'll become stoic again after the wounds have healed. Thoughts?
On Monday, April 23, Campus Progress and American University will join forces on the AU campus to show the screening of "The Ground Truth," to highlight the true costs of the war in Iraq.
It's also supported by the United Methodist Chaplaincy.
The idea is that if we highlight the truths about the war in Iraq, and its cost and effects, more people would take a stand on the war. This is an effective way to raise conciousness about the war, as well as mobilize and motivate student activists to act and takea a standa against the war.
The "Wear Some Black" campaign was started by Emily Willard at American University. The idea behind that is to wear a button that says, "Wear Some Black Until the Troops Are Back," (or any sort of black at all) as a way to get the conversations moving and started about the deep wounds of war, its fiscal and human tolls.
A great deal of other schools have jumped on board with this, to include Old Dominion University. While the College Democrats here are the leaders in putting this together, some College Republicans members have also shown interest in making this a bi-partisan campaign.
The vision for this is to reach across party lines and work toward a dialogue and open-and-honest discussion about the Iraq war. It is my hope that every school in America will be on board with this campaign. If such anti-war sentiments change America's visions in the '60s, such changes are also possible now.
Anyhow, you're invited to this event. If you're interested in "Wear Some Black" campaign, we also need you.
The link to the facebook invitation is below. If you don't have facebook, shoot its organizer, Emily Willard, an e-mail at emily.willard@american.edu
Please remember that Campus Progress' terms of use do not allow promoting or endorsing any particular political party or candidate for office. Posts or comments that do this will be deleted.
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