Virginity was tied to salvation. But purity wasn’t just a matter of salvation or faith; it also was and is about worth, about value. And it made the wheels of society turn. Without it, heteropatriarchy would have no power. Jessica Valenti says, “The lie of virginity—the idea that such a thing even exists—is ensuring that young women’s perception of themselves is inextricable from their bodies, and that their ability to be moral actors is absolutely dependent on their sexuality.”[5] Virginity as the measure of a person’s (especially a woman’s) morality means that nothing else matters—not what
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