This is a really great discussion!
Do you think the very binary way people think about the concept of "virginity" still makes sense today? (Penis in vagina sex means not a virgin anymore)
Given the prevalence of birth control options to prevent unplanned pregnancy and disease transmission, and lack of marrying purely to produce heirs in the world today, I am frequently unsure the concept of virginity is still relevant. That said, I'm still a fan of waiting to become sexually active until you're really, truly feeling ready, because there's a lot of social and emotional weight around it.
To you, do these count as losing your virginity? Explanation encouraged
Anal? Yes, due to the penetration involved
Oral? (Blowjobs/Cunillingus) No... which I guess means I think about virginity as involving pelvis-to-pelvis pentration!
Masturbation, using just your hands? No, a loss of virginity requires a second person
Masturbation, aided by toys? No
Anal/vaginal penetration with toys? No, because there still is only one person and a hand involved
Masturbation/Toy Penetration (administered by someone else)? If the dildo is worn, it qualifies. If it's hand-held, in my mind, it's not necessarily different from other forms of mutual masturbation, which I don't think qualify.
As a side note, I'm not sure where I'd set this line for women who prefer not to be penetrated by their female partner; I wouldn't normally consider oral to be taking someone's Virginity with a capital V, but it is a form of sex, and if the people involved want to say they are sexually active non-virgins, I am not going to argue with them, either. Having your first intimate contact with a partner of any kind is generally an intense experience no matter how you label it, and where labeling can be ambiguous, you have some right to define the terms you use.
How connected is virginity to innocence?
I think of innocence as an absence of guilt or self-consciousness. In that sense, if you feel guilty about what you do with a partner (or yourself), there is a certain loss of innocence at any level of contact. However, if you are with someone you love, and all you want to do is make them happy and be happy with them, I think you could have an awful lot of very kinky sex together and still be pretty innocent.
What is your perception of virginity?
I tend to think of virginity as a state of never having been sexually/intimately penetrated by another person. It is very sweet to reserve that level of connection for someone you have a long-term connection to, but while the choices you make about who you consensually engage with may say something about your approach to life, I don't actually think that having sex changes you as a person all that much.
Do you consider yourself to be a virgin, based on your idea of virginity?
Oh, honey... goodness, not anymore. No.
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