Just a warning to any minor who stumbles across dear Libby, some content may be more inappropriate than normal.

I adore Ovid, ever since I first translated him. I've always had a strong liking for Daphne, and I even dressed up as her for Halloween once in college. Despite the fact that she was a strong devotee of Diana and that Diana/Artemis is my favorite goddess, I always liked Daphne for some other reason. Maybe for the courage to end her mortal(ish) life to become a tree.

Well we are reading The Metamorphoses in my Roman Culture class and my ever amusing professor made her usual set of comments that got me thinking. Daphne is this radical militant virgin who dedicates herself to just one god. The ancients didn't approve of only worshiping one god, however, and the popular favor was with Apollo. So radical virgins are wrong and Apollo was right to run after her for sex.

Now rape is still not something accepted in our society, but would Daphne still be looked down on for being so radical? It's one thing to accept it as not your cup of tea and continue with your own pleasures, but it's another to stand there and judge her for not wanting children or commitment to a male sex partner.

Is virginity the new societal shun?

There's that rumored allure of female virginity that makes it a conquest to take a woman's virginity. However, the male virgin is not seen as so ideal for women of these days. A virginal bride is not something completely lost these days, but it's that willpower that others find too hard to keep. More kids in middle school are getting knocked up these days making the unexpected high school pregnancy seem not as sinful as society once saw it.

But is there something beyond the willpower that is admirable about a virgin? Is virginity really so radical? The claim of virginity is something either whispered softly or proudly declared. It's a secret you withhold in embarrassment or it is a part of who you are. Is this a claim you want to hold on to very long though? You don't encounter people who live their whole lives as virgins. There isn't a whole community of virginal senior citizens, but there are those commendable individuals who wait until marriage, until true love, until something better than what's been offered. It's commendable but not attainable for the whole. There's that bewitching puppy love, the revolting passion of youth, and all those hormones on overdrive. There's trickery, deceit, and revenge - the evils of the heart.

Then there's this song, not about virginity per say, but the choice of sex.

Do you remember
we made love on the floor
and you still haven't called
So I'll wait 'til they're closing the bars.

I made a wish
but the match never lit.

There's a break in the preceding music for a crescendo of love. Nate holds the last word, gives it a few extra syllables, and there's an idea of beauty and of wonder. Then a sort of pleading is left in his voice, a sense of dying hope, and then a wish that never comes true. It's all a choice and everything that happens is an effect of your choices and the choices that you don't get to make.

Labels: virginity