Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences

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Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences

by Laura M. Carpenter

3.73 · rating details · 22 ratings · 9 reviews

Nervous, inexperienced, confused. For most, losing your virginity is one of life's most significant moments, always to be remembered. Of course, experiences vary, but Laura Carpenter asks: Is there an ideal way to lose it? What would constitute a "positive" experience? What often compels the big step? And, further, what does "going all the way" really m

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Paperback, 295 pages

Published November 1st 2005 by New York University Press

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Apr 09, 2011

Sam Grace rated it

Recommends it for: sex educators, intellectual voyeurs

Recommended to Sam by: Miminichter

Shelves: academic, anthropology-recs, youth-sexuality, ma-research

Before I started reading this, I read the back cover; when it promised "a rare window into one of life's most intimate and significant experiences" I got worried. Yeah, getting to the "truth" of sex requires an intimate view, but I shuddered a little imagining the fetishization of youth bodies that I imagined was to come. Now that I've finished it I realize that much of my original aversion was unwarranted. Carpenter does tell stories about sex in ways that bring you, the rea...moreBefore I started reading this, I read the back cover; when it promised "a rare window into one of life's most intimate and significant experiences" I got worried. Yeah, getting to the "truth" of sex requires an intimate view, but I shuddered a little imagining the fetishization of youth bodies that I imagined was to come. Now that I've finished it I realize that much of my original aversion was unwarranted. Carpenter does tell stories about sex in ways that bring you, the reader, close to the speakers' experience, and in that sense it IS voyeurism, but she does it in a way that honors the voices of her informants and highlights their willingness to share their experiences so that we can all gain a deeper understanding. On ethical terms alone, I was relieved.

Now that I've qualified my review with my main reservations, let me move on to what this book actually offers. It is not, as the title suggests, principally a portrait (intimate or otherwise), but rather begins with a sociological taxonomy of United Statesian virginity loss. The categories are three: 1) the gifters, 2) the stigmatized, and 3) the processers. That is, the ways that people born between 1962 and 1979 conceived of losing their virginity when they actually lost it as well as at the time of their interviews in 1997.

Let’s begin with a rough sketch of how the book is organized. As I said, Carpenter’s goal is to identify the ways that people conceive of virginity loss with particular attention to how that shapes their experiences of it. Her first chapter (after the outlining introduction) is also devoted to that goal, but rather than look at how particular voices have talked about it, she does a broad review of thought on virginity loss in the United States from colonization on. She mostly focuses on how virginity loss was framed by white people from different classes, but she also devotes space to how virginity – and monogamy and sexual agency – was framed by and for African Americans dealing with the structural constraints of slavery and oppression. (Despite the long history of Asian and Hispanic – as well as other “white ethnic” immigrants in the United States, she gives no space to those frames.) Having built a foundation, Carpenter now moves onto setting the stage with her own data in a short chapter on defining virginity loss today that essentially functions as an introduction to the following three chapters, each delving into the specifics of one of her categories of virginity loss discourse and experience.

The next three chapters – A Gift of One’s Own, An Unendurable Stigma, and A Natural Step – are the real meat of the book. She begins each of these chapters with a pop culture analysis; in the Gift chapter, for example, she discusses the public virginity of Britney Spears. She uses the pop culture example to highlight the elements of the particular theme that she will expand on with her own interview data. Then she chooses a series of case studies – about six per chapter – to represent the breadth (rather than the essential core) of how each theme can be experienced. These case studies are presented for analysis and intellectual consideration rather than titillation, but the author does not bundle away the affective element of their experiences and I found my cheeks heating up more than once in the coffee shop where I read.

Her ethnography is presented without judgment, but she still brings in connections to value-laden concepts, such as contraceptive use. It is only in the final two chapters that Carpenter explicitly links the frames she has carefully laid out to public health interventions. The first of those chapters pays attention to the subject of abstinence and how its framing – even by those who believe in remaining abstinent until marriage – differs from the A-H legislation defining federal funding for abstinence programs across the country. The final chapter – Virginity Lost – takes the conversation beyond the boundaries of abstinence intervention to consider what the actual needs emerged in the conversations about virginity loss with her informants, and summarizing her recommendations. However, the book does not really end there. Carpenter’s methodological appendix is easily as rich as any of her non-ethnographic chapters, and provides a useful resources and reference for youth sexuality scholars like me. (less)

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Nov 14, 2010

ONTD Feminism rated it

Lj user owl_eyes_4ever says, "Virginity Lost was a very fun and informative read on the views on virginity. Interviews over 60 people of various race/ethnicity and sexual orientation, although only a small number of them are virgins at the time. To sum it up briefly, virginity loss fits into one OR two of three categories: stigma, gift, or rite of passage, often being both the 3rd and one of the first two. The first chapter discusses the history of virginity loss and how its value, or "...more

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Aug 25, 2009

Tiny Pants rated it

Shelves: academic, borrowed-library, sociology, cultural-studies

Though not a page-turner, Carpenter brings a good game and an eminently readable peace of social science. Genuinely remarkable as an example of grounded theory, the author solicits a range of subjects' recountings of how they lost their virginity (or in a few cases, why they still have it). From this, she develops a framework based around the metaphors individuals use for describing virginity, and uses her findings to formulate intelligent public policy interventions (a goal to few sociologists ...more

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Aug 08, 2011

Zelazuid rated it

I found this interesting to read and very informative.

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Jan 23, 2011

Erica Reichert rated it

Shelves: sexuality, stigma

Provides a good argument for comprehensive sex education.

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Jul 18, 2007

corinne rated it

Recommends it for: parents

I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed with Laura Carpenter's work. Although I think she's spot-on regarding the topic, the book is neither intellectually invigorating nor a practical page turner. I think that if you're not in touch with youth culture you can learn a lot. But, most of the research to me (at 25) seems redundant. She doesn't take the knowledge to the next level by incorporating any form of theoretical analysis, either. But, if you’re a parent looking to better understand the life o...more

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Jul 18, 2008

Cassandra rated it

Not a lot. It was pretty repetitive. However, the author did a good job of including information about many different groups of people (i.e. people of color not usually included in studies; people who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual, religious and non-religious people, etc.). Though there wasn't much information out there for these groups, the author at least included them, which will be important for future authors on the subject.

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Jul 24, 2011

Danyel rated it

I found this book facinating to read. The interviews were candid and the research was solid. I feel that the groups of people she sampled could have been more broad.

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Mar 25, 2007

Victoria rated it

Recommends it for: anyone who shares my weird obsession with sexual anthropology

This one was pretty relevant to my work as a sex educator, but was not what I would call gripping non-fiction. Very informative and added some new insight to the topic of virginity. Beware for education purposes, it seems a little off if you're working with youth.

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