The Virgin Experiment: Complete unto Oneself

a Virgo season study of eroticism, tantra, and love

Virgin means what?

Christine R. Page, M.D., writes that Virgin means, “to be complete unto oneself without the need for another to make one whole.”

In other words, all of the Hollywood romance tropes, in reverse. Ariel starts married to Eric, but ends up in the perfect grotto of her longing, staring at objects and images that ignite her imagination. Her desires are crystal clear, she knows who she is, shew is complete unto herself.

For the past few months I have been midwifing my sister’s second book. She is a meditation teacher and the book’s topic is desire. There is one Jewish story that has been a part of her teaching for years, in which a fool hits on a princess. I am paraphrasing but it goes something like - He sees her, lusts after her, and says, “I want you where can I have you?” She scoffs, “Ha! I’ll meet you in the graveyard, loser.”

Misunderstanding her dis, the fool rushes to the graveyard. He eats in the graveyard. He sleeps in the graveyard. He think of his burning desire, day in and day out, saying each day, “Surely she will come tomorrow.” And the Sages say that over time he becomes a wise man, united with God.

The story reframes desire itself, as not an itch to be scratched, but as the very fire of being alive, being holy, of being. Dwelling there, studying and inhabiting, and staying with the ache, the fool becomes perfect unto himself.

Here the “Virgin” is not devoid of, but completely consumed by, Lust.

I always thought of (some) sex as a portal to the cosmos (or “uniting with God”) but today I wonder if the sex isn’t just the “princess” in the graveyard story. The false goal, hinting at what can happen all by itself, if you let it, in the crucible of longing.

Take for example the love letters of long distance affairs. Not being able to touch or consummate, long distance love is a form of chastity play. It makes an object out of the absence, and that object can then be pleasurable and fetishized itself. A hall of mirrors, amplifying and reflecting the desire felt.

Over four months and across continents, I experienced such an affair. On the eve of turning 30 in Paris, I met a tall gorgeous Swede, Josefin, and fell instantly in love. 

The first poem I wrote about her, perhaps with too much Gertrude Stein on the brain, boiled down the nature of this instant love that, while maybe one-sided, was self aware enough to be enjoyed as “perfect” while it was happening.

I would never be satisfied, I could never hold you enough, if this is not enough

So this is enough then

I would never be satisfied, always wanting to hold you more, it’s the wanting I should be holding

If I could hold my feeling of wanting of holding, I am already having the feeling, and so it wouldn’t be wanting

Desire is always at least partially not having, and loving is usually at least partially having

but there is really no such thing as having, so I can say fuck it I know what I’m feeling

Desire and loving,

my own, which I can hold and hope is enough

Josefin turned out to be a comet with the longest tail. The infatuation period was short but the art we made of our longing filled chapbooks of poetry, drawers of letters, photos, trinkets, and fueled the co-creation of The Ladies Almanack, my first feature film in which Josefin played a significant part in making the film happen, and starred in it as Djuna Barnes. I don’t want to be capitalist about love, but damn did we produce under its spell.

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Backwards Virgin

The thing is, I never felt like a virgin, in the colloquial use of the term. There was absolutely no difference between the things I did with the boyfriend I hated in high school and the one I loved in college. But people will call one of them sex. That definitive moment when you are now in-the-know never happened. There is nothing more to know once you had already had a dick in your mouth or hand, or your own hand in your cunt. There is no more knowing that goes along with the slight variation, a dick in your cunt, known as intercourse, just more caution.

I don’t remember the first time I had sex with a boy.

I make an attempt the summer before senior year, when my camp friend Lyle is coming to visit from across the country, but once he arrives I realize he is too sensitive to fuck just for the hell of it, so it doesn’t feel important enough to make a fuss. Senior year I date a soccer player with nice calves who I kind of hate and something in me knows not to sleep with him.

In college I meet a kid who reminds me of Ethan Embry’s character in Empire Records. We smoke pot and freestyle together. I have sex with him sometime that fall, but I don’t recall any “first time.” Is it under one of the already set tables in a banquet hall in an administration building on campus, or in the laundry room, or the library elevator? Cause that’s our thing: breaking into buildings and getting it on where we aren’t supposed to be.

But the first time I have sex with a woman is crystalline in my memory.

Lillian Eggers. She is two years older, an incredible writer with a hot mean girlfriend and a “bad” reputation. She is the best soccer player (do I have a type?) at our college and is friends with all my friends. I concoct a flirtation that occurs over email. Probably my first of this too, considering how new email is at the time. I don’t have a crush on Lillian per se, but flirting with a writer is pure heaven and besides, she is hot. Plus, I need her reputation to catapult my name into the ranks of Oberlin Eligible Dykes, an announcement akin to a debutante ball, but for my culture.

Lillian has a kind of limpy smile. Her hair pulls out of her ponytail in wispy strands when she’s serious on the soccer field or being shy in her hoodie. Pretending to be shy? Its hard to tell with Lillian how much is for real, but this doesn’t make her unsafe, just mysterious. When she dresses up she wears her hair down and looks as uncomfortable as a thirteen year old at a dance. Clean khakis and a loose polo with two horizontal stripes equals fancy. Her whole thing is that you can’t tell if she’s controlling the awkwardness or a victim of it, either way its cute and she knows it. 

And she is a known player. The best dancer in that boy-band style that is so popular at the time. She has a shrine to Justin Timberlake in her home and remnants of deep anger in her face before it breaks into that teenage smile. She oozes sexuality, but in a fresh way like a young boy putting his smooth little arm around his best friend. She is brilliant, but has a hard time being serious except of course during sports. Everything about her is off-limits except her body and that is all I ask for. 

After weeks of emailing, I stumble upon a tiny window of opportunity: she is temporarily broken up with her gorgeous and intimidating girlfriend.  At Lillian and Mary’s place on North Main Street where we all pitch in to buy Showtime on cable so that we can watch the brand new t.v. show called the L word, I linger last after the crowd disperses. 

I am alone with her in her room. How incredibly soft she kisses. then laughs. then kisses. I put my hand under her sweatshirt, over her sports bra. Despite what I think is our obvious ongoing email flirtation, she seems surprised. She says she thought I was a girl-kisser. That’s the evil title reserved for most of our college population, meaning one who will kiss a girl, especially Lillian or the other well-known sought after dykes, but do no more. Her skin is so soft. I unbuckle the black belt on her khakis, a lesbian uniform I have adopted to no avail.  No one has noticed my clear signs. Not yet. “Woah,” she says, as she lets me navigate up over the top of her boxer briefs and down under her pelvic bone with my novice fingers.

After this, I am more whole.

Not because I “unite” with Lillian, who gets back with her mean girlfriend within days, but because I establish residence in graveyard of queer longing. The place where Ariel is better off with her fish tail, alone with her wanting, perfect unto herself.