Looking forward to Real Time tonight and you representing like you do with your goddamn gorgeous, middle-aged self. Break a leg, hero!

A suggestion for hard-core dating: find some friends who are interested in hearing about your adventures. Then you'll actually enjoy the Dates From Hell, as you'll be thinking of the glorious story you'll be telling those friends about just how fucked up the date was. (Date safely, obviously.)

Give her a regular column!

@2 YES. Dan Savage has said before that Bad Date Stories are great because you'll have something funny to share with new friends for the rest of your life.

Yep, she knows what she is talking about - even though she is a late starter. If I can offer some similar dating advice, here goes. Nobody is going to date you if you sit at home watching chick-flicks. Also, throw away that list of "deal-breakers" - obviously you can keep some like criminal, drunk, drug-addict etc, but the other shit, welcome to lonely old age while still searching for the perfect "ONE". As Dan says, round up.

Hey now ... juijitsu is **important**!!

Bravo, Recovering Virgin!

Reading this letter put a smile on my face. Bravo, and my compliments!

Amen! Finding someone worth rounding up is totally a numbers game, you've got to get out there and meet a bunch of people.

Jiu jitsu? Excuse me. I need to notify my next of kin so I can die laughing. You're awesome, LW. :D

It's not you...it's the Jiu Jitsu.

#3 @TwitterEgg -- I was thinking the same thing! This woman is good at no-nonsense advice; maybe she can write a column.

To LW: don't forget to keep a "what-was I-thinking-box" in the "attic of your dating life"! Save all the crazy and fucked-up dating and bad boyfriend stories as keepsakes in that box. When you find your life partner and inevitably hit a bumpy time in the relationship, open up that box and reflect on all the asshats with whom you could have wound-up. It will make you really appreciate the one you decided was for you!

I have found, when sitting around after a few bottles of wine and the "losing your virginity" stories come out - it doesn't happen often, but it does happen - that "lost it to my true love" is very low down in the count. There seems to be a roughly even split between "lost it to someone I thought was true love, turned out to be asshole" and "decided to get it over with so found someone willing".

Further, there does not appear to be any correlation between how a person lost virginity, and how well that person's later romantic life worked out.

For the sake of argument, if we go along with the notion that virginity in the PIV-sense is a thing, when does a man lose his virginity, exactly? The moment his penis enters a vagina? Or is his virginity only lost when he comes inside a vagina?

Speaking of semantics, does virginity is really “lost?” It seems like it is mostly “ridding of.” Or maybe we can instead claim something like, “full blown sexual activity has been achieved.”

Some of the advice to the original LW in the main thread went something like, "Save all the crazy and fucked-up dating and bad boyfriend stories," as SNJ-RN did @ 14.
Original LW- Be sure to also document the check list/s you might have currently, as well as other expectations/perceptions you realized over time ridiculous and misplaced they may have been.
And then, in the spirit of humanity, spread the message to other suffering souls.

does, is, etc.

@16: A friend of mine never came inside a vagina until he was married in his late 20s. He had plenty of girlfriends and (I'm assuming) plenty of sex, but always pulled out and finished on her tits, stomach, back, mouth, etc. Dude was terrified of knocking someone up.

Anyway, it's weird to think of my friend as any kind of virgin, let alone one who "saved himself" for marriage. So I don't think coming in a vagina can be the measure of losing your virginity.

@16 there's a silly gay spoof of American Pie where a guy is trying unsuccessfully to lose his ass (receptive) virginity. in the 80s I had some friends who said you have 2 virginities - first w other sex first w same sex -- not just PiV but also Pi[your]Ass :)

RE @16: Because a woman doesn't need to have an orgasm in order for sex to "count," I vote a man doesn't either.

CMD @17: Good point, when I was younger it seemed very much a case of wanting to rid oneself of virginity.

I think it has been ruled more than once that we have multiple virginities. The one that ancient sky-gods were obsessed with was spunk-in-vagina because that was the one that determined paternity and inheritance and had nothing to do with a good sex life. Now, we all have a deck of v-cards (first kiss, first finger up someone's butt, first sounding etc. etc.) that we go through. I'm sure I will die with some of mine, but hopefully not most of them.

@Registered European #16: Your question highlights one of the many, many reasons that the concept of "virginity" is useful for little other than oppressing women. There isn't even widespread, let alone universal, agreement about the meanings of any of the relevant concepts.

Virginity as the ideal concept to impose the opression of women well said. I like the comment that said we have 3 virginity one with the same sex another with the other sex and one more with our ass. Hahahahahaha none of which will have anything to do with the eventual love of our lives or our passionionate lover.