Planned Parenthood Wants to End the Idea of Virginity
By Anthony Scott Jun. 30, 2023
In a tweet, Planned Parenthood wrote, “The idea of virginity comes from outdated — let’s be real, patriarchal— ways of thinking that hurts everyone.”
Attached to the tweet was a picture of a billboard that read, “Virginity is a social construct.”
LOOK:
Here was Twitter’s reaction:
Planned Parenthood previously published an article titled “VIRGIN TERRITORY: WHY OUR SEX EDUCATORS DON’T USE THE TERM VIRGINITY.”
In the article, the lead sex educator for Planned Parenthood, Chrissy Cmorik, wrote, “Virginity is a social construction that is meant to keep women in their place.”
“It isn’t a medical term and in our classes we teach medically accurate information,” said Chrissy Cmorik, lead sex educator for Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest. “Virginity is a social construction that is meant to keep women in their place. Very rarely does anyone talk about male virginity. It is almost always a term used to describe young women.”
Instead of focusing on the loaded term of “virginity”, extensive research has found that discussing abstinence and the various forms of birth control during sexual health classes are much more effective at helping teens take control of their reproductive health and make decisions that are right for them. In the long term, that means that excluding shaming words like “virginity” from her curriculum helps Cmorik’s students delay their first sexual experience, avoid unintended pregnancies, and reduce their chances of getting STDs.
