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Old 07-02-2009, 05:39 PM   #17
WildChild
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Western USA
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Ah the power of words, thoughts and perceptions. They have brought nations to war. What we have here may not be resolvable, not to everyone's satisfaction. Dictionaries can vary in their definition depending on the culture that produced them, time period and whether it is a common usage dictionary, as is Websters.

I find some truth in all that has been said here. It really is a cultural concern and definition. In some cultures (sadly still in today's world) just the suspicion that a girl is not a virgin can lead to her death to protect the family "honor". In those cases presence of an intact hymen is required and rape isn't an excuse. She is still at fault for having been raped - even if it was incest. It's ugly, it's wrong, but that's reality.

Taking the current, more western view, anyone who hasn't has sex is a virgin, not withstanding that the original word applied to women. While we may understand that lack of or in some cases presence of a hymen is not proof positive of sexual activity, our culture still holds some strong prejudists there. There is no physical way to tell if a man is a sexual first timer. Lack of skill is not an indicator since some who have been at it for years are still clumsy.

Perhaps we need some new vocabulary it fit a new attitude?
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