What exactly is the big deal with being a virgin?

Please can someone tell me what exactly is the big deal with being a virgin?

For context my name is Efemena, I’m 24 years old and yes, I’m a virgin.

Covid, like for many of us, completely wrecked all the exciting plans I had going on, so I for some reason decided to torture myself further and began a gruelling degree through a particularly gruelling pandemic.

A couple of weeks ago I moved into my uni house after spending the last 15 months at my childhood home in the depths of the countryside. Worried that I was now unable to hold a conversation with frankly anyone anymore, I was pleasantly surprised that I had instantly clicked with one of my housemates.

I think my 16 year old self would have fallen in love at first sight with his blatant athleticism, green eyes, shaggy hair and wondrous smile, but my 24 year old pessimistic self just hopes that life doesn’t hit him hard with a vast trauma driven weight gain like my own.

After around 12 days of immense bonding via lots of banter, play fighting and late night talks, we decided to spend the evening together binge watching Sex Education on Netflix. We got to the scene where Otis and Lily were very unconvincingly and rather uncomfortably attempting to lose their virginity to each other (which is a weird concept in itself, to ‘lose’ your virginity), and my housemate very casually drops a question I had managed to avoid for 24 years.

“How many people have you had sex with?”

Many things went through my mind at this point. The first being ‘I can’t believe you have the audacity to ask me that question’ and the second being ‘it’s not that big of a deal, I don’t care that people know I’m a virgin’. And then the following thoughts jumbled somewhere between ‘why is it assumed that by a certain age people should have had sex’ and ‘this is actually none of your business’. In the split second that all these thoughts took place, I ended up just calmly responding with ‘I havent’.

Despite his obvious effort to pretend that this wasn’t (in his eyes) a big deal, his eyebrows darted to the top of his head, which seemed to pretty much give it away. At first he said ‘ahh right’, which was then, after a few seconds, followed by ‘are you joking?’. Why would pretending to be a virgin be a remotely good joke?

By the way, this is a good joke:

My granddad started walking five miles a day when he was 60. Now he’s 97 years old, and we have no idea where on earth he is.

And these are bad jokes:

I’m a virgin.

And, what do you call a fly without wings? A walk.

Maybe I’m out of touch here but why is it funny that someone wouldn’t have had sexual intercourse? There are so many reasons why people are virgins, and without trying to psychoanalyse the inner mind of virgins all over the globe, a reason that is reasonable enough is that some people JUST DON’T WANT TO HAVE SEX. And no, that’s not very funny.

After a very ill-attempt at small talk, after this ‘revelation’ we basically just sat in silence for the remainder of the night, which was very unusual considering thus far there hadn’t been a moment of silence between us. I couldn’t help but fixate on the silence and think of what was going through his head. Was he thinking that I was weird, that I had something wrong with me? That I was super religious? That I was unattractive and that’s why it hadn’t happened? Before you knew it, I was growing very insecure about something I hadn’t ever given much thought to.

For me personally, there are many reasons why I haven’t had sex, and the fact of the matter is (without going through a whole backlog of history), I haven’t felt comfortable enough in my own skin and also with anyone else to even think about taking that plunge. I really respect people who are able to embrace all of themselves enough to then embrace strangers/ new connections with others without a whole mindfield of self doubt, but knowing me, myself and I, that wouldn’t work for me, not at this moment of time. I truly can’t wait to meet someone who excites me, who I feel comfortable with and can be emotionally intimate with. I bet they are going to be an amazing human being, and I’m so happy to wait for whenever the universe introduces us.

And I personally don’t think that’s something to add to your joke book, or anything to make a big deal of. I am blessed with wonderful people around me who genuinely fulfill all my needs, and (yes I say this with inexperience but) I don’t think that ‘losing my virginity’ right now will improve my life in any way, other than maybe save me from encountering any more awkward silences!