Sex and Insecurity

There are probably many people who are insecure about sex. I am one of those people. Women I assume generally feel embarrassed about the amount of sex they have had, as not having sex is for some reason valued in women. Men are more likely to be insecure about the sex they haven’t had.

I am one of those men. I am painfully insecure about it. As in cripplingly insecure. I do not think it is even because of the embarrassment or the judgment from others. I am pretty open about my virginity, even in my non-anonymous circles.  I think it is something deeper than that, I don’t care so much what people think.

I get depressed just thinking about how people have sex. Every person, every girl I meet who has been or is in a relationship, I just feel sad. “She has had sex” I quietly say to myself. I look at most everyone and realize, “they have had sex.” And I get depressed. It has reached the point where even movies where people have sex in them make me sad. I watched horrible bosses for a few minutes with a girl the other day, and just began to feel terribly uncomfortable. “All these people have had sex, including this girl sitting next to me.”  I thought to myself. Luckily we stopped watching.

Why this huge feeling of inferiority at not having sex? I have burnt probably far too many CPU's on this silly question, especially since the answer is so clear.

My failure to have sex is a symbol of every failure of my life, and in general the failure of my life. In basically every way I am a failure, and not having sex is a manifestation of that failure in every way.

Up until this point in my life I am a complete financial failure. Surely if this were not the case I would have many more suitors to choose from.

I am in a biological and evolutionary sense a complete failure, by definition. In the biological scheme of things I was made for one purpose. Not only have I failed at that purpose, I have failed at even having the possibility of being a biological/evolutionary success. This is failure in the worse possible way. A small failure is not getting all the promotions you want so having a lower paying job. Bigger is to have never having obtained a job after trying many times. I haven’t even put in an application (in the biological sense). Not even one!

It is not because of what others think of me when they see that I am a virgin that bothers me. It is what I think of myself when I realize that everyone around me, everyone I meet and associate with has succeeded, where I have failed.

All those idiots from high school, the smart ones, the dumb ones, the ugly ones, the fat ones. All the kids that I helped in math. I have helped hundreds  of people pass math classes, all of which succeeded, and I failed. Essentially every girl I knew in high school or college or anywhere.

I stayed up late, I woke up early. I worked hard. I worked out, I did good in school, I am in good shape. Most of them did not. Lots of them are overweight. And I am the failure.

My virginity is my failure, and it reminds me of it every time I meet someone I know has had sex.

yours in virginity,
MV 

Barriers to Entry Volume 4: Love

Yes love. That magical word that makes us giddy when young and robs our bank account when we are not much older.

Love, despite its wonders, can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It can send you on the highest of highs; can make you float above rational reality and even bring you to a beautiful union of sexual intercourse.

However it can also blind you, leading you n an exciting trail of discovery only to find out too late that you were actually going down a dark alley where you are left alone with your genitals locked inside a steel box called emotional trauma. Furthermore, the person who led you there also took the key.

This is the double-edged sword of Love.

To be fair, neither of these is my story, though I do know a good number of people who one of the above scenarios could describe.

My story with love is much more beautiful, but at the same time, much more tragic.

The most dangerous combination in this world is not cola and Mentos nor is it drinking beer and rum, no, those only give you some temporary discomfort, heck they may even kill you, but there are worse things; things that make people long for death.

The worst combination is a heart that falls deeply and fully in love and a brain to rational or stubborn to take action. This is a wretched mixing which will ruin your heart and leave you cold and alone. It will cripple your will and empty your hope. It will suck out your soul, your life, and your purpose and leave you alone at the end of a dark alley, your genitals in a locked box whose key is lost forever.

And this is the ultimate, “barrier to entry.”

Note: future entries will turn to lighter subjects, namely The Awkward Adventures of The Mormon Virgin

Barriers to Entry volume 1: Duel Maturity

In economics the term “barriers to entry” is often used to describe the difficulty of entering a particular industry.  The term could easily be extrapolated to my situation.

For the next few blog posts I am going to explore a few of my own “barriers to entry.” Today’s topic: mixed maturity.

The sign of maturity is knowing how to act in a given situation. Little children will start laughing and joking and can’t stop, while mature adults are able to laugh at a joke and then get back to work. They can be serious and silly in the same ten-minutes, changing on cue. They have control of their emotions.

And as far as that goes, I’m good. I can laugh hard and then put the game face on and get to work. In most every way, I am quite mature

I can have a half-way decent conversation about: politics, religion, history, literature, science, music, movies, and most other topics of general interest. Generally I am pretty mature, except…sexually.

Sexually I am as immature as a sixteen year old. Why? Because I am a fucking virgin (excuse the ironic pun).

I can’t control those emotions because you can’t control anything you haven’t used. You learn to control a horse by riding it. No amount of book training can make up for getting out in the saddle and riding. You will get bucked a bit and maybe get some bruises, but you will learn.

I haven’t learned. I am sexually ready to explore and live the “teenage dream” but I am not at the maturity of a teenager. I am an adult.

This might not seem like a problem, but it is. Adults expect other adults to behave like adults, in all things. It is a problem of duel maturity. It is like I am looking for a job with a masters in mathematics, but not knowing how to use a basic calculator. It is an awkward mismatch of skills.

The solution, you may be screaming at me, is obvious. “Start using that calculator!” Theoretically simple but in practice is a bit difficult.

Or at least it is until I can overcome my other “barriers to entry” (stay tuned!).

Sex isn't everything...or is it?

At 35, Nicole Hardy, author of Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin, felt her virginity was holding her back. Many, including her mom, told her the common phrase, “sex isn’t everything.” And that is a pretty easy thing to say when you are married, or when you have had sex, and lots of it, in your life. But not for us. Just maybe, for us, sex is everything.

If you are reading this, you probably don’t worry too much about where your next meal is going to come from, or spend the whole day thinking about food. But try not eating for three weeks and then going a day, a single day, without thinking about food.

Try to walk down the street where you know every person you see has eaten recently, or will soon eat. Walk by restaurants where people are enjoying meals. Walk by homes and apartments where you will see silhouettes of people at tables with forks and knifes. Homes and apartments that are filled with people who you know eat multiple times per week. Walk by cars where people sit enjoying some chips or other small appetizers. Go to a movie where people laugh and talk about eating, and eat before you on screen. Walk into a room where someone has fully set out thanksgiving dinner on the table, where the turkey is under a metallic cover, where you know it will remain until after you leave, because you aren’t having any, because you are not eating.

Do that and then come tell me “sex isn’t everything,” and it is only small part of the whole relationship, that you can enjoy the more important and deep parts of a romantic relationship now with other relationships in your life, bla, bla, bla.

Do that first and then, with your mouth watering for the spaghetti sauce I am cleaning from my lips,  I will tell “food isn’t everything” and you will understand to some extent how we feel when you tell us “sex isn’t everything” after having kissed your wife 10 minutes earlier.

I know that sex isn’t everything. I know that a relationship is more than sex. But because of my involvement with the Mormon Church, I have gone 26 years without ever doing it. Though maybe not quite as life-threatening as not eating for that long, it is still a biological need that has been ignored, and so has become, unfortunately, everything. Everything I don’t have.

I was amazed when I was on my mission at age 20 to hear a lady talk about her dating life as an older female in the United States. She said how she actually preferred talking to non-Members in her online dating, because she said how Mormon guys always went straight to talking about sex or marriage very quickly. I didn’t understand that then, but I do now.

Frankly, most Mormon men are messed up. There is a reason Utah has the highest rate of porn subscriptions in the United Sates. Most Mormon single-adult men and women are, like me, adolescents in adult bodies. They have never plunged through that early voyeurism and been able to put it behind and focus on the deeper and more important that matter in relationships and life. They are left with a longing, a painfully sad regret and longing.

And such is the life of many of us 20 or 30 something Mormon virgins.