quotations about virginity
So that virginity is gold, chastity silver, conjugality bronze; that virginity is riches, chastity an average income, conjugality poverty; that virginity is freedom, chastity ransom, conjugality captive; that virginity is the sun, chastity a lamp, conjugality darkness; that virginity is day, chastity the dawn, conjugality night; that virginity is a queen, chastity a lady, conjugality a servant; that virginity is the homeland, chastity the harbour, conjugality the sea; that virginity is the living man, chastity a man half-alive, conjugality the lifeless body.
S. ALDHELM
attributed, Widows in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Britain
Virginity is now a mere preamble or waiting room to be got out of as soon as possible; it is without significance. Old age is similarly a waiting room, where you go after life's over and wait for cancer or a stroke. The years before and after the menstrual years are vestigial: the only meaningful condition left to women is that of fruitfulness.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
"The Space Crone", Co-Evolution Quarterly, summer 1976
An isolated outbreak of virginity ... is a rash on the face of society. It arouses only pity from the married, and embarrassment from the single.
CHARLOTTE BINGHAM
Lucinda
Now piercèd is her virgin zone;
She feels the foe within it.
She hears a broken amorous groan,
The panting lover's fainting moan,
Just in the happy minute.
JOHN WILMOT
"Many Wild and Unaccountable Things", The Debt to Pleasure
How, in the 21st century, can you possibly justify putting a value on someone's sexuality? The idea of virginity puts a heavy price on women. Given that today we as a society are fully aware of other sexualities beside heterosexuality, how do you shove lesbians in this small, confined box? Not only is this idea of virginity sexist, but it's heteronormative and incredibly outdated.
OLIVIA RIZZARDI
"What Are You Worth? Examining the Social Construct of Virginity", Arkansas State University Herald, April 24, 2017
A wisely and purely educated virgin is so poetic a flower of this dull world, that the sight of this glorious blossom hanging some years after the honeymoon, with yellow, faded leaves, in unwatered beds, must grieve any man who beholds it with a poet's eye.
JOHANN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER
attributed, Day's Collacon