Virgin
The Untouched History
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- US$5.99
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"A well-researched history of virginity . . . In an era marked by a 'chaotic maelstrom of virginities,' Blank's book is a useful . . . antidote to our confusion." - The New York Times Book Review
VIRGIN: The Untouched History is a fascinating and wholly original look at the history of virginity throughout Western culture. From the famous to the infamous, Blank introduces us to the significant players throughout time: the young martyred nuns of Coldingham Abbey, Elizabeth "The Virgin Queen," and more contemporary figures like Donna Martin from Beverly Hills, 90210, with her prime-time virginity loss. VIRGIN provides an enlightening and entertaining look at one of our most unexamined taboos by delving into how and why we've become so obsessed with virginity. With keen insight, Blank attempts to answer some of the fundamental but complicated questions associated with the subject, including what exactly constitutes virginity's loss. She reveals the myriad ways virginity has been tested and contested, guarded and faked, and even restored. And in the process, she shows us just how humans have come to care so much about this fundamentally intangible state in the first place.
"Lively . . . Blank writes with forthright gusto . . . She has juicy time cataloging cultural associations, historical trends . . . and physiological factoids." - Entertainment Weekly
"Scholarly . . . Blank is scrupulous about trying to understand why and how ignorant theories have developed and established themselves." - The San Francisco Chronicle
"A passionate polemic, brimming with a genuine spirit of emancipatory activism." - The Washington Post
"Fascinating . . . her history of virginity's importance to Western culture goes a long way toward explaining why, in the wake of the women's movement, the sexual revolution and the wholesale modernization of American culture, we have abstinence-only sex education, virginity pledges and admiration for chaste pop princesses . . . A pleasure to read." - San Diego Union-Tribune
"Blank touches on virtually every aspect of the indefinable state and the result is something much more enticing than the actual experience of losing it." - Nylon
"A magisterial work of impeccable scholarship and an absolutely riveting read." - Dr. Lesley A. Hall, senior archivist, Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, London
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
By any material reckoning, virginity does not exist," writes Blank in this informative, funny and provocative analysis of one of the most elusive and prized qualities of human sexuality. Blank, an independent scholar, has pieced together a history of how humans have constructed the idea of virginity (almost always female and heterosexual) and engineered its uses to suit cultural and political forces. Blank has no shortage of fascinating facts: since Western virginity was symbolized by the color white, missionaries viewed nonwhite peoples as sexually immoral; late medieval and Renaissance moralists thought they could detect whether a woman was a virgin by examining her urine ("a virgin's was clear, sparkling, and thin"). Blank also has a pleasing, highly readable style that allows her to convey large amounts of information with wit and agility. But she becomes most animated, and political, when she probes contemporary ideas about virginity. Taking on a range of questions why is virginity considered sexy? how does the idea of virginity fuel violence against women? she makes the case that contemporary culture is as obsessed with, and benighted about, virginity, as those of the past. Thoroughly researched, carefully argued and written with a sly sense of humor, this is a bright addition to the popular literature of women's and cultural studies.
