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The Journal of Sex Research

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Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual

Experiences. By Laura M. Carpenter
a
Reviewed by Carol Cassell
a
University of New Mexico, Health Sciences, Center for Health Promotion and Disease
Prevention , MSC11 6140, Albuquerque, NM, 87131 E-mail:
Published online: 05 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: Reviewed by Carol Cassell (2007) Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences. By Laura
M. Carpenter, The Journal of Sex Research, 44:2, 216-218, DOI: 10.1080/00224490701263918

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 REVIEWS
sexuality in Uganda by Shanti Parkh. Here, Parkh
describes how age-old methods of sexual initiation are
threatened by new technologies of sex education, includ-
ing television and public health campaigns.
The same themes unfold again and again from essay
to essay. Development programs turn local communities
into sites of contention as differing interest groups seek
to establish criteria for what is natural and what is devi-
ant, what is moral and what is culturally appropriate.
The dance between development dollars and sexual
practices takes place in a profoundly imbalanced public
arena, as parties struggle over competing discourses,
intentions, meanings, and unintended consequences.
All the while, ‘‘Targeted groups are portrayed by experts
and elites as either ignorant or, more benignly, as objects
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of pity when they are presented as voicing reasoning
about their sexual and reproductive bodies that is non-
science based,’’ the editors explain (p. 41). Here, ‘‘the
idiom of rationality and the project of education often
become vehicles through which class or racial distinc-
tions are marked,’’ (p. 41). Inevitably, the discourse of
scientific facts, ‘‘can readily function as a tool for car-
ving out social superiority,’’ (p. 41). And the pattern
repeats itself over and over again across a range of sex-
ual and reproductive health programs.
Yet the struggle for autonomy and self-determination
to defend culturally specific meanings remains impera-
tive. Garcia Marquez (1982) addressed the difficulty of
finding words or a framework to understand and make
sense of ‘‘otherness’’ in his 1982 Nobel Lecture: ‘‘It is
only natural that they insist on measuring us with the
yardstick that they use for themselves, forgetting that
the ravages of life are not the same for all. . .’’ The strug-
gles for autonomy described in Sex in Development echo
the dilemma described by Marquez when he said, ‘‘The
interpretation of our reality through patterns not our
own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever
less free, ever more solitary.’’
To ground their research, the authors and editors cite
Carole Vance’s studies of sexual anthropology, Allan
Brandt’s studies of sexually transmitted diseases, and
Michel Foucault’s studies of sexuality and social con-
trol. Yet it often feels as if they fail to add new revela-
tions to this conversation, instead borrowing from the
same often opaque, often dense language to describe
how systems of surveillance, patterns of control, and
regimes of regulation repeat themselves anew from con-
tinent to continent. The patterns of development and
coercion described herein feel exhaustingly familiar.
For many, the story of sexuality and difference is a
story of social control of desire and the mechanisms that
compel people to list, quantify, and confess to any
number of the most basic human acts. Parkh begins
her report by quoting Foucault, explaining, ‘‘These sites
radiated discourses aimed at sex, intensifying people’s
awareness of it as a constant danger, and this in turn,
created a further incentive to talk about it’’ (p. 125).
216
In many respects, this quote says it all. After a gener-
ation of structuralism and permutations of GLBT and
queer studies, the study of sexuality still lives under this
shadow, struggling to find its own voice.
References
Collins, C., Alagiri, P., & Summers, T. (2002, March). Abstinence-only
vs. Comprehensive Sex Education: What are the Arguments?
What is the Evidence? Progressive Health Partners, AIDS Policy
Research Center, and the Center for AIDS Prevention
Studies. AIDS Research Institute, University of California at
San Francisco Policy Monograph Series. Available at: http://
ari.ucsf.edu/pdf/abstinence.pdf.
Crimp, D. (2002). Melancholia and moralism. Essays on AIDS and
queer politics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Marquez, G. (1982). The Solitude of Latin America (translation). Nobel
Lecture, December 8, 1982. Available at: http://nobelprize.org/
nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1982/marquez-lecture-e.html.
Accessed July 24, 2006.
Murray, S. O. & Paine, K. W. (1988). Medical policy without scientific
evidence: The promiscuity paradigm of AIDS. California Sociol-
ogist, 11, 13–54.
Reuters. (2006, May 31). AIDS drug cost protest in NY leads to 21
arrests. Available at: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/
N31349827.htm. Accessed June 1, 2006.
Siplon, P. (2002). AIDS and the policy struggle in the United States.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Warner, M. (1999). The trouble with normal: Sex, politics, and the
ethics of queer life. New York: Free Press.
The Tilling of Virgin Soil
Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Exp-
eriences. By Laura M. Carpenter. New York: New York
University Press, 2005, 295 pages. Cloth, $60.00. Paper-
back, $20.00.
Reviewed by Carol Cassell, University of New Mexico,
Health Sciences, Center for Health Promotion and Dis-
ease Prevention, MSC11 6140, Albuquerque, NM
87131. E-mail: carolmcassell@yahoo.com.
For most of us, the experience of having sexual inter-
course for the first time is inevitably etched into our mem-
ories, for good or for ill. Laura Carpenter, in this readable
and informative book, explores the transition from being
a virgin to becoming a non-virgin; an experience she
labels ‘‘virginity loss.’’ Carpenter charts the beliefs and
experiences of young adults and argues that most people
describe their virginity loss in terms of a metaphor,
mostly as: a gift, a stigma or as a rite of passage=a process.
For those who viewed virginity loss as a ‘‘gift,’’ the
experience is recalled in romantic terms and usually
involves a longstanding chosen partner. For the ‘‘stigma’’
group virginity was thought to be a burden to be shed as
soon as possible and with any available and accessible
partner, in some cases someone never seen again, or as
 REVIEWS
a ‘‘hooking up’’ arrangement. For those in the rites of
passage category, labeled ‘‘processors,’’ virginity loss
was more about becoming an adult and often involved
pragmatic planning like being prepared with contra-
ception or condoms. Carpenter notes the emergence of
a fourth metaphor, one that frames premarital virginity
as an ‘‘act of worship’’ toward chastity and includes it
in her study. She also discusses the more recent phenom-
enon of ‘‘born-again virgins’’ who often re-commit their
dedication to abstinence after a religious awakening.
Given our societal interest sex and in our well-
documented personal quests seeking sexual pleasure, it
seems odd there wasn’t a ‘‘pleasure seeker’’ metaphor.
Perhaps there weren’t enough people who fit into that
category or perhaps she just choose to not include that
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metaphorical frame into her study. For whatever the
reasons, there is a sense of something missing. It is very
likely that frame would have added an interesting set of
experiences to the study. Still, her narratives describing
people’s array of experiences within four metaphorical
frames and how they made sense of the meaning of their
transition from virgin to non-virgin are frank, and many
times, poignant.
To her credit, Carpenter is straightforward about her
study’s limitations. She states: ‘‘Because I did not ident-
ify participants using probability-based methods, my
findings cannot be generalized to young Americans as
a whole’’ (p. 9). In particular, she says that she cannot
‘‘make claims about the prevalence of beliefs and beha-
viors in the populations overall’’ (p. 9). On the other
hand, she softens that point by making the claim beyond
those limitations: ‘‘Because my sample was quite
diverse, I am confident that the range and variety of
perceptions, processes, and broad patterns by gender,
sexuality, and other aspects of identity that I discovered
through my interviews are present among other young
adults who grew up in the metropolitan United States
between the mid-1970s and the late 1990s’’ (p. 10).
Carpenter used a friendship snowball (one-to-one
referral) sampling method to recruit participants and
then conducted personal interviews. Over the course of
18 months in 1997 and 1998, she interviewed 61 young
adults, ages 18–35, about their virginity loss experiences.
These included 33 women (22 self identified as hetero-
sexual, 7 as lesbians, 4 as bisexual), and 28 men (17 self
described as heterosexual, 9 as gay and 2 as bisexual).
All but five of the men and women were no longer vir-
gins when she met them; thus, about 9% of her sample
was virgins. What were virgins doing in a study about
sexual intercourse experiences? Simply put, the weakest
part of the research and therefore, the book, is the sam-
pling methodology.
Despite her acknowledgment of the study’s limita-
tions, Carpenter mounts a strong defense of her meth-
ods and the significance of the results. Me thinks she
doth protest too much. For example, the methodologi-
cal appendix is nine pages, with a table covering four
pages listing the participants’ names and demographics
(including their social class!). To add to the scholarly
heft, the chapter notes are very detailed and cover 33
pages. Notwithstanding the tinge of citing overkill, the
notes and the bibliography are excellent reference
sources for future research on first sexual experiences.
The strength of this book is found in the author’s well
written descriptions of the social forces surrounding the
changing rules, interpretations, and experiences about
chastity and virginity (Introduction, Chapters 1 and 2).
Carpenter provides a lively and detailed narrative about
virginity from the sexual revolution era, when being a
virgin as a young adult meant being a ‘‘Virgin Geek,’’
to our current days of abstinence education in schools
wherein being ‘‘Virgin Cool’’ (at least for females)
means achieving status by declaring that one will wait
until marriage to have sex. She also provides well-
researched descriptive sociological and historical
‘‘backstories’’ on the concepts of metaphors to put into
context the participants’ use of metaphors and stories
about their first sexual intercourse experiences. Carpen-
ter also discusses how those experiences have influenced,
or not, the respondents’ now adult lives (Chapters 3, 4,
and 5).
The chapter on abstinence (Chapter 6) is especially
timely. In many communities, Americans are taking it
to the mattresses, so to speak, over a topic that has
erupted off and on again for years: the teaching of
sexuality education in public schools (e.g., abstinence-
only-until marriage education versus comprehensive
sexuality education).1 The author does an excellent job
of holding the flaws of abstinence education up to the
light while providing solid information about the reality
of the sex lives of young people today.
One of the most significant aspects of the book is its
‘‘comparative analysis of the effects the gift, stigma, pro-
cess=passage, and act-of-worship metaphors have on
young people’s physical health and emotional well-
being’’ (p.15). A strong point is Carpenter’s explanation
of how the meaning of ‘‘virginity loss’’ differs by gender
and by sexual orientation. Specially, she captures both
heterosexual and homosexual relationships and sexual
encounters and explores what ‘‘going all the way’’
means for young gay men and lesbians. Following that
discussion, Carpenter explores the enduring social sig-
nificance of virginity loss, and its implication for indivi-
duals and society overall. She observes: ‘‘Given the
myriad changes in understandings of sex and sexuality
in recent history, one might expect that American youth
would be on the verge of abandoning the concept of
virginity loss as out of date or irrelevant’’(p.55). Instead,
Carpenter found that young adults are redefining
virginity loss and re-interpreting virginity loss in more
1
John Santelli, Mary Ott, Maureen Lyon, et al., ‘‘Abstinence and
Abstinence-Only Education’’: A Review of U. S. Polices and Pro-
grams, Journal of Adolescent Health, 38, 2006: 72–81.
217
 REVIEWS
individualized ways. And although the four primary meta-
phorical frames used in her study—comparing virginity
loss to a gift, a stigma, a process=rite of passage, or an
act of worship—have historically been associated with
particular genders, religious beliefs, and other aspects of
social identity, she notes that ‘‘these links are weakening
and growing more flexible over time’’ (p. 55).
I agree with Carpenter’s conclusion: ‘‘We would do
well to give teenagers the tools to make their virginity-
loss experiences as healthy, safe and happy as possible’’
(p. 207). However, I would add the hope that their
experiences will also be sexually pleasurable and self-
affirming. Although she makes a good case that having
sexual intercourse for the first time has a long cultural
tradition of being framed as a ‘‘loss’’ of virginity, I can’t
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help but wonder ‘‘what-if’’ Carpenter had used the term
‘‘sexual debut’’ as the organizing principle of her
research. (In Sweden, it is the term used to define first
sexual intercourse as a positive developmental step to
sexual maturity.) Or if she had simply had used the
phrase ‘‘the first time’’ to describe an individual’s first
sexual intercourse experience without tagging it as a
‘‘loss.’’ Alas, those points await to be made in a book
yet to be written.
Virginity Loss is a worthwhile addition to a sexual
science library and a good resource for educators teach-
ing sexuality courses in colleges and universities.
Very Graphic, Graphic Novels
Step Up Love Story: Futari Etchi. By Katsu Aki. Japanese
edition: Tokyo: Hakusensha, 1997-. Paper, $10.99=
volume. French edition: Boulogne: Senpai=Pika Édition,
2004-. Paper, 7.1 Euro=volume.
Reviewed by Martha Cornog & Timothy Perper, 717
Pemberton Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19147. E-mail:
perpcorn@dca.net.
Step Up Love Story is a Japanese graphic novel (in
Japanese, manga), now up to volume 19 in Japan. So
far, volumes up to 11 have been translated into French
and a good many into Spanish and German. It has
not been translated into English. This review is based
on the French edition.
The Japanese title blends English and Japanese. Futari
means ‘‘couple’’ and etchi means ‘‘H,’’ an abbreviation
for hentai, ‘‘perverted’’ or ‘‘sexy.’’ We’d probably trans-
late the title as something like Step-by-Step Love Story:
X-Rated Couple.
Why are we reviewing a Japanese-language manga
series readable to us only in French? Because it’s some-
thing most pointedly NOT available in America: a
unique, engaging, and quite intriguing blend of sex man-
ual and erotic soap opera.
218
The overall plot centers on the sexual life of 25-year-
old newlyweds Makoto and Yura, both shy and without
any sexual or dating experience and who meet through a
marriage broker. Arranged marriages are still fairly
common in Japan, though not in the majority. Aki uses
this premise so that he can take the new couple from,
sexually speaking, square one to square N. Currently,
the series is still being published in Japan, with, the
cover says, over 16 million copies sold so far. Each epi-
sode tells a mini-story and imparts a sex-related lesson.
Yura and Makoto are not the only characters. We
meet Makoto’s colleagues at work. One of the ‘‘office
ladies’’ (young women secretaries) has her heart set on
an affair with him, and two of his male buddies are
always flirting with Yura. Both sets of families play
cameo roles. Makoto’s erotophilic brother embarrasses
everyone with loud, suggestive, and funny comments.
Mokoto’s younger sister Jun loses her virginity with
her boyfriend, breaks up with him, and wonders if she
can ever have a ‘‘great love.’’ Yura’s older sister Rika
is the modern polyamorist: more or less in love with
her boyfriend Yamada, she also maintains casual rela-
tionships with several other men. Yura and Makoto’s
parents and grandparents also get into the story. So do
the neighbors: the couple next door hasn’t had sex in sev-
eral years, while another neighbor is a woman gynecolo-
gist who’s still a virgin. All of these characters allow for
lively plots as well as wide options for sex education.
Now this is a graphic novel, that is, cartoons—sexu-
ally explicit cartoons—although no genitals are shown
in keeping with Japanese censorship law in the 1990s.
Aki depicts the sex lives and fantasies of all his charac-
ters, in drawings both erotic and informative. And now
we reach the sex manual part. Throughout the narrative,
Aki has inserted diagrams, statistics, advice, and cau-
tions. (The statistics throughout the text are based on
Japan, but at the end of each volume, French equiva-
lents are provided.)
Here are a few examples. On their wedding night,
Makoto and Yura do not have sex due to fear and mis-
communication. But the next night, they resolve to take
the plunge. Makoto has removed Yura’s clothes. Lying
in front of him naked and beautiful, she thinks, ‘‘I’m
ashamed. . .’’ He thinks, ‘‘This time, it’s for real! It’s
not a video or a porn magazine!’’ But a sidebar cautions,
‘‘Stay calm Motoko! This isn’t the moment to lose your
head!’’ Mokoto takes off his underwear, and Yura sees
his penis for the first time. She puts her hand up to
her mouth, thinking, ‘‘So that looks like a—what? Once
by chance I saw my papa’s, but it wasn’t like that! This
one, it’s standing up in the air! And—real big!’’ He sees
her expression, covers his crotch with his hands, and
exclaims, ‘‘Uh, don’t look!’’ She’s still thinking: ‘‘It’s
really weird!’’ Sidebar: ‘‘The average length of a Japa-
nese penis is 12.7 cm’’—about 5 inches. (The average
length of the French penis is 14 cm or 5.5 inches, accord-
ing to the notes at the end of volume 1.)