NOTE: THAT HEADLINE IS A JOKE. IT’S APRIL FOOL’S DAY.
In today’s edition of “Make Shit Up About Man Boobz,” we have this highly upvoted comment from the Men’s Rights subreddit attacking me (us?) for all the evil virgin shaming we supposedly do around here.
The total ridiculousness of this comment is fairly obvious. But I would like to take a moment to clarify a few things.
Being a virgin, or celibate? Not inherently funny.
Being a virgin, or someone who has had literally one sexual encounter with a woman ever, and writing post after post about how evil and icky vaginas are in an attempt to get other men to swear off women forever – that’s pretty funny. That would be a bit like me writing a travel guide to Denmark, or Albania, or any other place I’ve never been to.
Having trouble getting a date? Not inherently funny.
Having trouble getting a date because you’re a loathsome tool who hates women? Funny.
Using a sex toy? Not inherently funny.
Dudes pontificating about how sex toys and sex robots will soon make icky real women obsolete? That shit is fucking hilarious.
Also, sex toys themselves? Yes, they can be funny. I mean, the legendary Fleshlight is a disembodied vagina/mouth/asshole-replacement in the form of a giant clunky flashlight-shaped thing. That’s sort of funny. Attaching this giant clunky thing to an iPad so you can pretend that the iPad (or at least an image on it) is giving you a blowjob? That’s comedy gold!
Here are some other sex toys that are hilarious and/or seriously disturbing, courtesy of Scary Sextoy Friday, perhaps the world’s greatest blog. (All links are NSFW.)
Vibrators shaped like Santa Claus.
A dildo designed to look like poop.
Sorry. I got carried away with the links. That blog is like crack.
I’m really surprised Scary Sextoy Friday hasn’t featured the Drilldo.
^ or the Baby Jesus Butt Plug (I found out about this because someone compared The Sims 3 ghost babies to it… disturbing), or the Vamp (sparkles! put it in the fridge for a more realistic experience!), or the internally spiked cockring…
I can’t believe I forgot to post this earlier.
I’m guessing it’s NSFW.
Such majestic imaginary creatures.
I tried looking for unicorn-shaped sex toys (taking a detour into ‘unicorn sexuality’ which wasn’t as ‘interesting’ as I had hoped) and found nothing bizarre. Just some alternate shapes for dildos. Internet, why must you fail me???
I did find the Cthulu dildo though…
http://boingboing.net/2010/12/11/cthulhu-sex-toys.html (NSFW)
Anyway, I gotta clean my history now.
@CWS: I found one. Here you go.
And while my Google search is still up, here’s a review of a uni-dildo: http://essinem.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/sex-toy-review-unicorn-horn-dildo/
Ok. I’m a male virgin 22 years old. I’m also a member of a web forum called Love-Shy.com which you’ve had articles about in the past. As incels we are probably the opposite of the MGTOW people who say they want nothing to do with women. Incels want to have a woman in our lives and the frustration you may see on the site is a result of their inability to get a woman.
As for myself I have really bad social anxiety which leads me to not even be able to approach unknown women. I have anxiety that i’m going to make a fool of myself talking to women, or even worse she would say something nasty or laugh at me. I also have anxiety that i’m going to come off as “creepy” because my social skills aren’t that great and i’ll probably be nervous and my voice will shake and stuff which will be very awkward for both of us. So I just avoid doing it, if I see someone I find attractive I just wish that I could say something but I never do.
I’ve also tried online dating where I don’t really have the anxiety that I would have in real life but most of the women I tried talking to ignored my messages or stopped talking to me after a few messages. A lot of people also view my profile and don’t message me.
The reason why I like Love-Shy.com is because I find I can relate to everyone on the site, they know what it’s like to be a virgin at 22 years old. To never have been on a date and have to watch family members, friends dating. Watch tv and you see storylines about dating. Listen to the radio and you hear love songs, it’s pretty much impossible to go a day without being reminded of the fact that you’re alone.
The reason why I wanted to write this is because i’ve seen you criticize the website but it’s a very old post and now that you’ve brought up the topic of virgins I figured it would be a good time to do it.
I found those, but I was hoping for one in the shape of an actual unicorn. I guess the equine would be a little extraenous to the purpose. 🙁
Ah well, if the whole writing thing doesn’t work out I could always go into business selling fantastical beast-themed sex dolls…
Not because I’m interested myself in having sex with a silicone unicorn, btw. Just because I have a weird sense of humour, and I know someone out there is interested in having sex with a silicone unicorn.
Chris, I know what it is to be a 21-yo virgin who never dated and never kissed. I hope you can overcome your issue or at least learn to deal with them and not let them make you miserable. Good luck on that.
I was also a 21 year-old virgin. I think young 20somethings have an unrealistic expectation that they should be having sex or otherwise they’re not normal, but fact is I never was shamed by any of my partners for my inexperience… in fact some women find that endearing or hot (my first was a casual hookup with a girl my age that had a virgin fetish).
My first was actually a 24 yo virgin. I guess one of the tricks is not to let your life revolve around the absence of sex.
This. I lost my virginity young but then I didn’t get laid again for several years, and you know what I did about it?
Got my degree, worked on a whole bunch of exciting projects, traveled across the country, and on one notable occasion snuck into the set of “House” while they were filming. I didn’t like not having sex, but I didn’t treat not-having-sex like an activity. I had a lot of other things to do.
I won’t claim that made it all okay and made me never lonely or frustrated. But I do think that a dog-grooming forum or a sculpture forum or a Korean War history forum are better places for a virgin to be than a virginity forum.
(Also, 21 is not unspeakably old. My boyfriend lost his virginity at 25.)
Also I think Love-Shy has a lot of guys who aren’t constructively coping with loneliness, but raging out at women for not nominating one of their number to give them the sex they deserve. There’s a lot of anger and entitlement there.
Also also, it’s important to know that when you lose your virginity nothing really changes. If you have low self-esteem, you’ll wake up the next morning devirginized and with low self-esteem. If your social skills are bad, you’ll wake up with bad social skills. If you don’t have a lot of friends, you’ll wake up without a lot of friends. Sex is fun, but sex isn’t going to fix any problems other than “not having sex.”
That’s very true. The morning after my first time, I was mind boggled about the fact that nothing had changed. I didn’t feel more confident, more mature, older, less pure, less innocent, more connected to the guy, not part of a people-who-had-sex group, not even more experimented, I had no more sex-appeal and all my other issues were still there, unchanged. I felt like something should have happen, almost as I expected to be given a cookie or to be struck by lightening. Our society make such a big deal about it, and there was… nothing.
However, when I had my first ‘sexual’ experiment, a few month earlier, (not a very pleasurable time btw) I spend th following week laughing uncontrollably because of the ridicule and awkwardness of the situation.
Our culture approaches virginity and the loss of virginity in such a messed up way, and it’s obvious from the extremely flawed language we use to talk about it. The word “virgin”, being a noun, seems like it describes a kind of person. Like virginity is a trait. Really, all it does is say something about whether someone has had a particular kind of experience. We don’t do that with any other experiences. There’s no word that means “the kind of person who has never bungee-jumped”; although you can borrow the sex term and say “bungee-jumping virgin.” Usually, though, we would just say “that person hasn’t bungee-jumped before,” and not make any sort of claims about who they are because of it.
And then there’s euphemisms for the loss of virginity like “becoming a man” and “making a woman out of her”*, which seem to suggest a person’s adult status is determined by how their genitals have been interacting with other people’s genitals. It’s like, you have sex once, and suddenly you gain 5 years’ worth of maturity! Magic!
All of this language works together to create the impression that having sex fundamentally changes us. We become different, better people after our first sexual experiences, so it’s really really important to have sex that first time, ASAP. But of course, that doesn’t actually happen. Sex can be really fun, but having it one time can’t actually change who you are.
I guess what I’m saying is, it doesn’t really make sense to be preoccupied with one’s status as a virgin or non-virgin. I get feeling sad and frustrated and lonely because you want sex or a relationship, but there’s no reason to obsess about whether you’ve had sex once or never, because it doesn’t actually say anything about who you are as a person.
*Note that becoming a man is something male people actively do, whereas being made a woman is something that female people passively have done to them. Oh, and generally, only a man can do it to them. I guess that means female people who have only had sex with other female people never reach adulthood?
Other people have talked about the fucked-up-ness of the whole “virginity” concept very well, but I wanted to pull out this paragraph and add that this is an incredibly normal experience, even for people who are totally confident, sexy, capable adults. It’s also not because women are “ignoring” you per se, and you’ll probably be happier if you don’t think of it that way. Women on dating sites are generally there, like you, to meet someone they want to date. Which means if they’re already hitting it off with a guy who messaged them three weeks before you did, they often won’t answer. If they happen to be busy at work and know they won’t have time to do much chatting in the next few weeks, they often won’t answer. If they see your picture and think, “He may be nice, but I really only go for blonds/Japanese men/guys with beards/guys who are at least 25/whatever,” they often won’t answer. If they read your profile and think, “We have totally different interests,” they often won’t answer. And so on, and so forth. It’s not you doing something wrong or being somehow “bad” – it’s them quite reasonably not wasting your time if they do not believe dating you is a thing that would happen, and there’s loads and loads of reasons for that that have nothing to do with you, or have to do with you only in entirely value-neutral ways.
Also, incidentally, on the virginity issue, one more way that it’s kind of silly: one time, a few years back, I took a poll of friends on how they defined “losing” one’s virginity. Based on their definitions, I lost my virginity at 18, 19, 19 again, 21, 21 again, 24, 25, and 26. That’s how dumb this term is – it’s such a silly, fuzzy concept that based on asking about 15 friends, I lost my virginity on eight separate occasions, according to their assorted definitions. And you know what? Not one of those occasions was particularly special. A couple were even downright unpleasant. None of them were things to build an identity around, and as others have said, I think you’ll be a whole lot happier if you work on seeing yourself not as “Chris, the guy who hasn’t engaged in this one arbitrary and often overrated activity” (I like sex a LOT, but that doesn’t mean it’s not frequently massively overrated), but as “Chris, the guy who is really awesome at [things you are awesome at].”
(Oh, and last but not least? Two bits of approaching-women advice: As a fellow shy/socially anxious person, I’ve found it actually often helps if you outright say, “Hi, I’m kind of awkward and shy around people I don’t know well.” People’s reaction to that is a lot less likely to be “that’s creepy” and a lot more likely to be “that’s kind of endearing.” Also, I recommend not starting out by approaching women because you find them hot – approach women because you think they seem like cool people, regardless of whether they’re hot. The point of talking to women should not be, “I NEED SOMEONE TO DEVIRGINIZE ME, STAT!” but rather, “I need practice in talking to people, and this person seems like she would be pleasant to talk to.” If somewhere down the line the conversation turns into flirtation, that’s cool, but that’s a thought for “down the line.”)
>>>But I do think that a dog-grooming forum or a sculpture forum or a Korean War history forum are better places for a virgin to be than a virginity forum.
Exactly. Men who actually go their own way don’t spend time on MGTOW forum, they spend time on forums about their interests. If you dedicate a lot of time to forums revolving around explaining how you totally don’t think about women or sex, guess what, you’re dedicating a lot of time about thinking about women or sex.
Totally extremely yes. Because:
A) If you treat every social encounter as being about the possible loss of your virginity, every social encounter is going to play merry hell with your emotions. Every time a woman smiles at you is going to be “YES THIS IS FINALLY IT” and every time she says “well, better be going now, have a nice day” is going to be a crushing agony of rejection.
B) If every social encounter is playing merry hell with your emotions, you’re going to act really weird. I don’t care how socially skilled you are, it’s hard to be balanced on that precipice between ecstasy and defeat and not turn into an awkward, stammering, sweating, panting wreck. Which chicks are not into.
C) Making friends whom you don’t have sex with is a worthwhile endeavor in itself. Interesting people have a lot to offer in the way of teaching you, of supporting you, of giving you a sense of self-worth when you teach and support them, of introducing you to exciting new places and people, and simply being good company.
D) When you start treating sex as less of a Big Hairy Deal and more of a thing that people who like each other do sometimes, you are a lot more likely to start having sex.
@Chris: I don’t have any opinions about the site you mention (which may mean I’ve forgotten posts made here since I started hanging out, or David hadn’t done a post on it for a while).
But I do have a question: is this site open to women who are also virgins, or is it only men?
Because I would wonder if a male only site would not fall into blaming women in which case then I’d say, yes, that’s why a site like this one might mock it.
I’d also agree with other comments you’ve gotten here, and note that at a certain age and state of being, it’s possible to think everybody around you in person and in the media and on Mars for all I know is having sex, and you’re the only one who isn’t. That’s a wildly inaccurate perception of the situation.
Here are the posts I made about the love-shy forums, which explain why I find the site problematic.
http://manboobz.com/2010/12/21/love-shyness-and-the-perpetual-resentment-machine/
http://manboobz.com/2010/12/26/campus-creep-out/
Ok a lot of people responded.
David: Yes i’ve read those two posts you wrote about the love-shy forums. I’m not going to come on here and deny that sometimes angry extreme things are said on there because they are. Although I do think it’s toned down a lot in the last year or so. When I first joined the site about 2 and a half years ago it had a lot more extreme users than it does now.
I don’t know how to quote on here but I want to respond to some things people said.
ithiliana wrote: “But I do have a question: is this site open to women who are also virgins, or is it only men?”
It’s a mostly male dominated site. There is at least one woman incel on there though and a few non-cel women (I have no idea why they’re there). Love-shy.com pretty much allows free speech so people aren’t banned unless they’re obviously trolling. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have thick skin though.
Polliwog wrote: “Also, incidentally, on the virginity issue, one more way that it’s kind of silly: one time, a few years back, I took a poll of friends on how they defined “losing” one’s virginity. Based on their definitions, I lost my virginity at 18, 19, 19 again, 21, 21 again, 24, 25, and 26.”
I think i’m a virgin by any definition. I’ve never even been kissed. I did get hugged by a girl once back in high school but I don’t think that would qualify under any definition.
Polliwog wrote: “The point of talking to women should not be, “I NEED SOMEONE TO DEVIRGINIZE ME, STAT!” but rather, “I need practice in talking to people, and this person seems like she would be pleasant to talk to.”
I don’t disagree but I would rather date someone instead of just losing my virginity randomly. Although I do worry that i’m going to end up an older virgin if I don’t do lose it soon. There are guys on love-shy.com that are in their 30s or even 40s who are still virgins.
@Chris I just want to chime in and say you’ve gotten some VERY good advice here. The only thing I would add is that, if you have friends/family members who are dating and they are people that you trust, you might ask them for brutally honest feedback on your online profile and your offline behavior. It can be hard to hear (and give) truly honest feedback, but I’ve had friends who were lovely people and just needed to hear things like “Hygiene is important!” But really, most important is to concentrate on living your life, doing interesting things where you meet new people, being the best (i.e. non-bitter) person you can be, and being genuinely interested in people as people and not only as potential de-virginizers.
Quoting: Take the text you want to quote, put it inside the following:
[blockquote]
TEXT
[/blockquote]
But replace the square brackets with the less than/greater than angle brackets. But the way you’re doing it is fine too.
@Chris,
First of all, quotes can be done with the tags (blockquote)whatever you’re quoting(/blockquote), only use angle brackets instead. 🙂
Now, that dealt with: I really feel for you. It can suck to want to be close to someone and not be able to. I’m like you, if you’re curious. I’m not really into sex outside of relationships. Back before I started having sex — and I was a virgin for years longer than most of my friends — a lot of well-meaning people would ask me why I didn’t hit a random bar with them, and they’d help me bring home a sexy someone. I’d tell them that it wasn’t my thing, even though I know it’s pretty awesome for a lot of people. So they shrugged, and said “cool!” and went and found sexy someones for themselves, as I stayed a virgin. It’s a perfectly fine choice if it’s what works for you (and it certainly is for me!) as long as you realize that you’re deliberately choosing to limit your options somewhat. You can’t blame women for that. I actually don’t think you are blaming women, but a lot of guys on “incel”-type sites seem to, and it’s toxic. Please try not to get wrapped up in it.
Look, I’m just a stranger on the Internet, but if you want my wise and savvy advice… If your social anxiety is something you wish you could change about yourself, maybe consider counselling to help deal with it? I say this as someone whose life is a million times better when she’s in regular therapy. Sites like LoveShy are going to give you a good source of compassion, but they’re probably not going to be able to help you change into the person you want to be. If I were you, I would set myself a goal I could control. A woman being interested in you is out of your control, but things like “learn to be more relaxed in social settings” is something you can do for yourself.
As I said, though, I’m just some random Canuck on the Internet. I don’t know your life.
You might be surprised. There are some weird definitions out there. :-p
Heck, for your benefit, I’m happily to personally define “virgin” as “person who has never been hugged.” Honestly, it’s already enough of a stupid and arbitrary word that I don’t see any reason that definition is any worse than the more mainstream ones. So congrats, you’re no longer a virgin! Now go out and do something more fun than worrying about being a virgin. 🙂
Also, I didn’t get kissed for the first time until I was 19. (Yes, that number is later than one of the other numbers I listed, and yes, the story that makes that true is fucking depressing.) I kind of obsessed over that, myself. And then a guy kissed me, and it was…profoundly anticlimactic. In many ways, I ended up feeling worse about it afterward than I had felt before, not because there was anything bad about that kiss (it was a nice kiss, from a nice guy), but because I’d invested so much meaning into it only to discover that in the end, it was pretty much just a guy putting his lips against mine, not a rite of passage or a meaningful change in my life or my identity.
And what terrible thing would happen if you did end up an older virgin?
I get that you don’t want that, and I understand, and I sympathize – but what I and others have been saying is that there’s nothing more objectively bad about being a 40-year-old virgin than about being a 40-year-old person who has never eaten a cheeseburger, or a 40-year-old person who has never visited the Grand Canyon. Eating cheeseburgers, visiting the Grand Canyon, and sex are all enjoyable things to do, but none of them are Who You Are. They’re just…stuff. And the more you obsess about them and give them meaning they don’t have, the more disappointing it is when you do finally eat that cheeseburger and discover that it isn’t actually all that exciting, and you’re exactly the same person post-cheeseburger as you were before it.
I know this sounds counterintuitive, but I promise you it’s good advice: if you really want to have sex with someone, if you really want to find a relationship, the absolute best thing you can do is…stop thinking about it. Stop worrying. Stop wondering when it will happen. Stop fretting about what happens if it doesn’t. Find things that genuinely give you pleasure, and if, while you are doing those things, you encounter a girl who seems nice, say hi. Not because maybe she’ll be the one to sex you/want you/love you/date you/etc., but just because she seems nice, and that’s plenty of reason in itself. Some of those nice girls you say hi to may become friends, and some may become lovers, and some may say “hi” back and then never talk to you again, and all of those outcomes are okay. That’s the best thing you can do. The absolute worst thing you can do is to define yourself by your virginity, to spend time talking about it and agonizing about it and trying to make it mean anything more than not having eaten cheeseburgers.
(Note: I’m not saying that sex is meaningless. It can absolutely be incredibly meaningful, at the right time and with the right person. But so can a cheeseburger, if it has some reason to be invested with meaning. That doesn’t make either one a thing worth wasting your life on waiting for.)
Apologies for posting in the wrong thread earlier. Anyway, Chris, I’m also a semi-regular member of Love-Shy. I completely agree that there can be some hatefulness- but then again, I feel like LS should be a sort of therapeutic space, so I’m reluctant to speak out against it. It’s a place to get sympathy and understanding in a society that offers us so little. Anyway, a few woman incels have also expressed their frustrations in angry terms, and I’m never offended, because I understand the hurt behind it.
Personally I don’t have a problem with non-cels posting, although I think they should be aware that they are outsiders in a space that is not meant for them.