I am 27 and still a virgin. What do I do?
I couldn’t even tell you how I came across the ‘advice’ column. It was an online spin off the “Dear Abby” I used to read in the newspaper, and the question, obviously caught my intention. I was interested to see what this so-called ‘expert’ had to say to this “poor” woman.
Her response was sickening.
She dared the reader to meet a new man everyday for the next 27 days. She had to introduce herself, get his name, have him sign an affidavit and then take a picture with him. Each day she had to send the picture and signed affidavit to this expert. Then, if she did, the expert was going to pay for a nice fancy evening out and a hotel room because she was convinced that the reader would find someone she clicked with and would be romping around in the sheets in no time, thereby solving her virginity problem.
Pardon me for being confused, but since when was virginity a ‘problem?’ Have we seriously degraded and casualized sex so much that virginity is more of a problem than STDs? Really?
Months ago, I was flipping channels and I came across a game show hosted by an old talk show host. Trying to figure out what exactly was going on, I stayed on the channel for a while. Basically, a single man was there looking for true love. The very ‘wise’ (and sadistic) show producers had scoured the earth to find three (apparently desperate) single women for him to choose from. Here’s the catch. Each of these women had baggage. Don’t we all?
These women, however, were forced to air their dirty laundry on national television and then Mr. Maybe had the power to either accept or reject their baggage. What a twisted view of forgiveness and grace! If he accepted her baggage, a woman moved on to the next round.
This particular man finally chooses a woman, but here’s the catch. Now he has to reveal his own baggage to see if she will return the forgiveness and acceptance. She had some pretty intense baggage that he had been willing to accept. His baggage: “I am the real 40 year old virgin.”
Here was a man who had somehow, someway managed to make it to 40 without ever being in bed with a woman. If that had been presented to me as his baggage, I would have been ecstatic. That is no baggage at all.
The killer: she rejected him based on that baggage.
The world’s take on life is extremely twisted. When a woman isn’t willing to accept a man because he believes in her enough to wait for her, something is wrong. When a woman feels that her intact virginity is a problem to overcome, we have a bigger problem.
This is why we are told to not be conformed to this world. The world is consumed with sex. I watched a documentary last night that chronicled the “past 5 million years of our evolutionary cycle.” Its basic conclusion was that we evolved ourselves into ‘sex machines’ and that our only (yes, only) purpose of life is to have sex- thereby fulfilling the primary evolutionary command: Reproduce.
Couple problems there.
1) I didn’t know evolution had commands; funny how that one closely resembles God’s first command to us (“Be fruitful and multiply…” ring any bells?)
2) If sex is all there is to life… I don’t even know what to say to that. No wonder we are where we are.
As Christians, we don’t fit this mold. In fact, we break it. When we live life in a surrendered purity, in a strength that says, “I will not compromise my integrity and I’m still going to live an abundant life” we shatter that mold.
Be willing to be a mold-breaker.
Purity After Pornography 
Gregory Donner said:
Sadly, what you shared is all too true. 😦 We live in what I can only describe as something out of the “Twilight Zone”, where even basic logic (let alone God’s commands intended to provide life to the full) is rendered meaningless. May we hold fast to the truth!
Pam said:
That’s so sad!
I think a guy who’s stayed a virgin even at 40 is a champion! When I was in high school, people did see virginity as a problem. There’s this “Sex is everything” mindset that a lot of people have, and it’s like somehow people believe that if you haven’t had sex, then you’re not really an adult, or you haven’t lived.
At the time I had similar views, but now I see so differently. I see so many of my classmates have gotten pregnant, or are so damaged by sleeping around that they’re not themselves anymore, and my heart breaks for my generation. I thank God I didn’t have a boyfriend in high school, because I was protected from all of that.
Good post! And you’re so right about the command “reproduce” being almost like “Be fruitful and multiply,” but one produces death (rape, addictions, broken families, broken hearts), whereas the second produces life!
Jenny said:
I agree that her response is sickening, but I disagree that virginity – involuntary celibacy – isn’t a problem. It’s in fact a serious one that the church needs to begin addressing. God created us to be sexual beings and marry. Paul said that we should marry if we have sexual desires because he recognized that those desires need to be met. When we unmarried Christians experience temptations and have fantasies, rather than encouraging us to marry and marry quickly so not to be distracted, other Christians (usually married ones) make us feel guilty for not being “content” in Christ. They expect us to stifle our sensual cravings but insist on satisfying themselves in their marital relationships. It’s no wonder that we singles turn to romance novels, extreme dating, pornography, etc., etc. Until the church admits that virginity is a problem that must be dealt with, these problems won’t disappear.
Jessica said:
Marriage will not, does not and cannot cure sexual sin. I work with so many married women who are still addicted to pornography, masturbation, and fantasy. The two are not mutually exclusive, but I think that’s a mindset many people believe, “Well, if I just got married, I wouldn’t have this problem.” And they are wrong.
Outside and inside marriage, our sexual desires and fantasies have to be surrendered to God’s control. We cannot look at God and say, “Well you gave me these desires and until you give me the spouse to fulfill them, I am going to do whatever I want.” What are we to do with all of the nine, ten and eleven year olds who fall to pornography?
Pornography, masturbation and other lust sins come from our lack of self-control and our refusing to surrender to God’s plan for our lives. If that plan includes being single for a season, it includes being single for a season and during that season we will have sexual desires because we are sexual beings but a shot-gun wedding isn’t the answer. We may desire marriage, and that desire is perfectly God-honoring and legitimate, but we must be willing to give it over to God.
It isn’t easy. I am 25 and as single as the day I was born. Still a virgin, and still very much a sexual being. I have my days when I look at Heaven and say, “Really?? Could you just cut out the whole estrogen thing for one moment and make my life a tiny bit easier?” But, the way I see it, a life of purity is a life of surrender and worship. I can worship God with my sex drive both outside and withing marriage. Outside of marriage, I surrender those drives to Him believing that His plan is absolutely perfect and that if I believe that and trust that, He will do exceedingly, abundantly, beyond. I see my virginity as a sign of hope and faith, faith in believing God’s plan for my life extends into all of my life, including my sexuality and hope that one day He will meet the desires of my heart in a way that I could have never guessed.
Jenny said:
“Marriage will not, does not and cannot cure sexual sin.”
But it’s the only biblically-supported solution and method of prevention. And it’s being ignored as such. Paul says that those who can’t control their sexual desires should marry (1 Cor. 7: 2, 9 & 36). I find it rather odd that the Christian community as a whole doesn’t promote this. In fact, most outright oppose it. Instead, everyone (not just you) casts a solution in terms of self-control and surrendering to God. Well, Paul gave this advice outright assuming that we can’t control ourselves.
Yes, there are problem marriages, and those need to be dealt with. There the issues might be communication with a spouse, misconceptions about women’s sexuality, etc. But those don’t stem from struggling with desires without a legitimate sexual outlet.
You (age 25) and I (age 30) as lifelong singles don’t have husbands to meet our God-given needs. If we can surrender our passions and focus on God (1 Cor. 7:35), then there’s no problem. But if we can’t control our desires, we need to marry. It’s easy to say that it must not be in God’s plan (1 Cor. 7:8 & 20) because husbands haven’t fallen into our laps, but note that throughout 1 Cor. 7, Paul is talking about men and women actively deciding whether or not to marry or stay married. It’s a personal choice and a deliberate action.
Again, it’s not wrong for us to marry (1 Cor. 7:25 & 28), but we’re told it’s better to marry than to be tempted back to our prior activities (1 Cor. 7:9).
Jessica said:
Since I speak on issues purity including being content and serving in your singleness (in a talk titled, “True Love Does Not Wait”) I am going to do my best to stay on topic with this. The fact that it all boils down to is that marriage is not, in fact, a prevention of sexual sin- it is an outlet for desire. It is a God-provided outlet for a God-given desire. This means that I need to, as a single woman, develop the habit of living my life in a way that is submissive to God’s plan for me. If a woman struggles with sexual sin, she struggles with sexual sin. There is a difference between being sexually frustrated and sexually addicted. Fact is, as Christians we are given all things that pertain to Godliness. At no place in Scripture are we excused for a lack of control outside (or inside of marriage). We have to stay away from the I’m not married excuse. Young women can’t get tied up in sexual sin and then say, “Well, God, this is really your problem, because You gave me my desires and haven’t given me a way out of them.” He promises a way out of temptation; a way to escape it where we are right now, not where we will be in five years. Think about a 13 year old addicted to pornography (which I was). There is no running out tomorrow and getting married, so there has to be another hope, and there is– in Him. It isn’t a matter of ‘if we can surrender’ it is a matter of we are supposed to surrender. Just because I have surrendered my drives doesn’t mean that I don’t have them any more and that I don’t desire marriage, it just means I have surrendered that desire to Him. So much more I could say, but that’s the basic idea.
Fact of the matter is, I have worked with women who have Godly husbands who they love but they have found that their pornography addictions have only been intensified by marriage. Why? Because the sex of pornography is not the sex of marriage, and their bodies still crave the sex of pornography. We aren’t dealing with sexual desires as much as we are dealing with sinful desires that are fueled by our sex drive.