Is Virginity Necessarily Good?

Last night I taught my last class for a while.  Well, I didn't really teach. I proctored my final exam.  They did really well - this is the hardest-working group I've ever had.  But that isn't what I want to talk about.

Two weeks ago, they handed in their final paper.  A bunch of them wanted me to grade them right away, so they'd know how well they needed to do on their final exams.  In my first semester, I would've just told them that of course they should always study hard and reach for the stars for any test.  Two years in, I just told them to talk quietly amongst themselves or study while I graded in the last hour of class, if they really wanted to know so bad.  I was secretly grateful for the chance to do it in class, as opposed to after putting the little angel to bed when I could be doing other great things, like reading The Bitch in the House or watching Big Love on HBO on Demand.

While I was grading, though, I couldn't help but eavesdrop. 

Student 1:  "So your daughter ran into the fireplace with her head?"

Student 2:  "Yeah - she's only two, but she's already a handful, just like her daddy."

Student 1:  "You'd better be careful.  You're going to have to sit at the door with a shotgun when she's sixteen."

Student 2:  "Nah.  I hope she dates a lot."

Student 3:  "You don't want that.  She'll come home pregnant."

Student 2:  "No, she won't.  I'm going to teach her all about that stuff."

Student 1:  "But then she'll just have sex!"

Student 2: "Exactly."

At this point, I couldn't pretend to not listen anymore.  I chastised them for distracting me with such a conversation, but I, like the other students, wanted to know why any hardcore father (he is hardcore - he even stayed home from class the night his daughters' dog died) would throw his baby girl out to the wolves that are teen-aged boys.

Student 2:  "The only reason I'm still married is because I had a lot of sex before I met my wife."

We were flabbergasted. We asked for MORE, MORE on this subject. 

Student 2:  "I know so many people who got married young, sometimes to the first person they'd slept with, and then ten years down the road,they wonder if they're missing something.  I am happy where I am because I know what I'm missing, and I'm just fine with missing it.  I want my daughters to go into marriage with their eyes wide open, and sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs along the way to get that perspective."

I went back to grading my papers, but part of me was thinking about my own premarital sexual escapades.  I did some really dumb things, and some even dumber people. It's true.  I also had my heart broken, stomped on and driven over with a Jeep Cherokee.  I did learn what worked and what didn't, how to switch it up, how to ride out the plateaus, and when to cut ties and bail...before I got married.  It is true. 

That said, I can't bear the thought of the little angel going through what I did, physically or emotionally.  I know she's going to have her heart broken.  I know she's going to like someone who doesn't like her back, maybe even love someone who doesn't love her back.  I hope she is pretty, but I don't want her to be too pretty.  I hope she is sensitive, but not as sensitive as I am.  I hope that by the time she gets married, she knows what she wants in a traveling companion and understands that no man can ever fulfill a woman. The woman, the person, has to do that for him or herself.

I'm not sure what my position will be on sex when the little angel is hanging around the condom basket in high school health class (she won't be going to school in Kansas, no sirreee).  I'm not sure how forthcoming I'll be about my own experiences, but I won't lie to her if she asks.  I hope she doesn't have to grow up too fast, but I'm not sure how she can avoid it, unless we move to a bubble.  Small towns are no safer, folks.  I grew up in a very small town.

I found K.'s perspective on sex education rather interesting, though. As a good Lutheran, I believe we should try as hard as we can not to sin - we should not plan to sin.  At the same time, as a good Lutheran, I believe in grace.  I hear the argument that preaching anything but abstinence is like encouraging your kid to fornicate.  But I also believe that the kids will be a fornicatin', and I don't want my child to get any horrible diseases or have a baby when she's still a baby, if it can be so easily avoided with a little education. Which is the worse sin?  Discussing fornication or withholding information that could save your child's life, literally and figuratively?

I'm also fascinated by this concept of playing the field in your youth as marital aid.  I can see his point.  I was just talking to my girls yesterday about how I would've liked to have been a younger mother in theory, but in practice, I was sooo enjoying the road trips on $50 and the beer-soaked parties and the roller blading and the sleeping late of my twenties.  In my twenties, I did not know what I wanted in a man - that was clear from my persistent pursuance of loner types who were long on sultry glances and short on phone calls.

I do know that I would never have clicked as well with my beloved if I hadn't learned the hard way how to recognize a good man, a kind man, a man who would treat me with respect and make me laugh instead of cry when he could.  You can't learn that stuff in school. You can't watch it on television and have it translate. You can't buy it in a store.  You have to live your bad kisses and your heartbreak and your mismatched priorities and your boxers-or-briefs and your morning breath to KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, hopefully before you walk down the aisle.  And you have to have lived all that stuff to remember that that's what's out there when you're tempted to stray or bored or just sad or mad or hormonal.  Remembering you chose your spouse because he was the best match for you out of all those many people you did date, you did audition, those other people who just did not make the cut, because your man was the best for you.  You hope.  You hope you chose best, because you had choices and you knew what was out there.

Or maybe not.

Thoughts?