Many women aren’t aware that just as there are emotional stages of acceptance of death, there are emotional stages of acceptance of sex. When men lose their virginity, they experience a remarkably similar set of emotions.

Here’s a look at the various stages that men go through when losing their virginity, drawing on my own terribly awkward experience.

Jessica Valenti posed an interesting question over at Feministing this week—should we be encouraging women (and men) to have pre-marital sex? She argues that yes, we should, writing:

“Because, let’s face it—if you’re going to commit yourself to someone for (presumably) the rest of your life, it’s probably best if you know that you’re sexually compatible ... Do I think that people can have perfectly wonderful satisfying relationships without having had sex before making a commitment? Sure, I’m positive that happens often. But considering what a huge role sexuality plays in our lives and relationships ... well, I’d rather be super duper positive.”

Tina Fey, poster child for the abstinence movement? Naaaah. She was just homely, the 30 Rock star told David Letterman last night. (Sorry, Sarah Palin.)

Even though Tina held onto her V-card until the ripe old age of 24, this story’s got a sweet ending! The fabulous Ms. Fey ended up having her daughter with the guy who took her virginity: her husband. How old-fashioned!

• Egyptian lawmakers have called for a ban on importing the Artificial Virginity Hymen kit from China, a $30 kit that leaks a blood-like substance when inserted and broken, allowing women to fool men into thinking that they’re virgins. [Fox News]—Hmm, how about a ban on the degrading notion that a woman is only valuable if she hasn’t had sex before? Just a thought!
• President Obama included “same sex couples” in a speech last week when he declared Sept. 28 “Family Day,” but some gay activists say they’re not impressed and want him to be a stronger advocate for LGBT families. [L.A. Times]

This week, I got a letter from a lady who has an itch she’s been meaning to get scratched. She just can’t quite seem to reach it.

I have a dilemma and am looking for some advice.  I’m 28 years old and still a virgin.  It isn’t something that I planned, and I find it a bit embarrassing.  I dated the same guy all through college, but at first I just wasn’t ready yet.  Even once I personally was ready, I knew that having my first time be with him wasn’t probably the best idea. (We were complicated, angsty, and breaking up/getting back together all the time, and I felt like having sex with him would just complicate things further.)  I dated a guy for quite a while after college whom I wanted to sleep with.  We had great chemistry, and plus I was really ready by then.  He told me he didn’t want to because he “didn’t want to be the jerk who took it from me,” and eventually he cheated on me.  It took a little while to recover from that, and I didn’t even date for a while.

Girls who grew up without fathers at home tend to be early bloomers in the sex department compared with those whose fathers lived with them. Researchers have been trying to figure out the reason for this for years. Is it because there’s no watchful eye looking over them and keeping them in line? Is it a natural response that happens even in the animal world (that when a strange male, i.e., a stepfather or stepbrother, is around, girls grow up more quickly)?

Now, new analysis of data from the American National Longitudinal Survey of Youth offers another suggestion. Jane Mendle of the University of Oregon looked at NLSY surveys, which asked mothers a variety of questions, including whether the father of their children lived with them. The children of these women were asked questions starting at age 14, and, among other things, they were asked whether they’d engaged in sexual intercourse yet. Mendle and her colleagues compared cousins’ ages of first sexual intercourse—some of whom had their father living in their home and others who did not—to see whether early sexual activity could be genetic.

Despite the fact that Stephenie Meyer‘s books are public service announcements for saving yourself ‘til marriage, some elementary and middle schools in Australia are banning the Twilight series books for being too racy. Man, I don’t know what Twilight books these peeps were reading, but the one I read was 544 pages of agonizing blue balls. Though, in a roundabout way, fretful grownups could be doing these kids a favor, as one school librarian told Australia’s Daily Telegraph about the censorship, “We wanted to make sure [the students] realize it’s fictitious and ensure they don’t have a wrong grasp on reality.” Good point. In reality, Bella would’ve ripped the clothes off a hottie like Edward and boned that vampire ass, stat.

Most lucky boys get a few hundred bucks and a nice wristwatch for their bar mitzvah presents. But if a Jewish magazine article out of Brandeis University is to be believed, 13-year-old girls are gifting their male Hebrew school classmates with a bar mitzvah blowjob.

In the July 2009 issue of 614 magazine from the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Shulamit Reinharz writes:

“...a woman in her seventies began sharing her concern with me about the custom in her granddaughter’s prep school; Jewish girls were giving Jewish boys blowjobs as bar mitzvah presents! Presumably because they’ve already got everything else.”

We have only one thing to say about this: oy gevalt.

An article on Times Online introduces us to the term “Love Shyness,” a rare psychological “condition” (it’s not included in the American DSM-1V — “the clinicians’ bible for psychiatric diagnoses”) that affects only men. Love-shyness is a kind of chronic shyness that makes it nearly impossible for a man “to initiate or to engage in romantic interplay.” That’s not only foreplay we’re talking about — love-shy men have trouble even making eye contact with someone of the opposite sex. They have a hard time carrying on a conversation with women, shake uncontrollably in their presence, and sometimes even sob. Not unsurprisingly, these men are “terminally, heartbrokenly, virginally lonely,” and if their message board on Love-Shy.com is any indicator, they blame women for their sorry state.

If you’re wondering who thought it was a good idea for Bristol Palin, pregnant at 17, to warn America’s teens not to have sex until they’re married, you’re not alone.

But it’s hard to figure out what, exactly, the well-meaning adults who preach “no sex until marriage” to teenagers are thinking, considering a 2007 study confirmed abstinence-only education does not work.

Jessica Valenti, editor of Feminsting.com and author of The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women, has written a piece for The Nation about how the groups that comprise what Valenti calls “the virginity movement” have finally realized they need new PR.

Unfortunately, the abstinence preachers’ ideas for discouraging teens from having sex still don’t make any sense.

Once would have been more than enough.

A Russian woman, known only as “Natalia K,” allegedly underwent six hymenoplasties to “restore her virginity” for her husband.

In an attempt to combat teen pregnancy in a country with one of the highest rates, Sierra Leone is offering scholarships to girls who remain virgins. In the West African country, 40 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 29 have children by the time they were 18-years-old. To be eligible for the university scholarship, girls 12-16 must be able to prove their virginity through an exam with a nurse. An interesting way to encourage education, but something about “proving” one’s virginity seems off to us. While there’s an element of female empowerment to the new program, it certainly doesn’t take too kindly to men—boys responsible for getting a girl pregnant will be banned from all schools. A local elder, Julius Koroma explains the punishment further, “For those bike riders who impregnates a girl student, their bikes will be confiscated, sold and the expenses go towards the upkeep of the baby.” Bikes for babies? That’s certainly a new social currency. [Yahoo News]

Apparently, Brooke Shields lost her virginity at the positively spinsterly age of 22, and regrets not having gotten it over with earlier. When it comes to celebrity gossip, I’m on a blessed time delay. Normally, I’m too busy doing manly things like chopping down trees with my face, flamethrower-roasting suckling pigs, or seducing entire female soccer teams. But truly, this is momentous news, sorry I’m just getting around to it.

It should be of some solace to Brooke that there is no ideal way to lose one’s virginity. It is supposed to be awkward, because sex is awkward. Objectively speaking, it’s kind of funny. Clearly sex was invented by Morgan Freeman as a way to entertain bored angels. Think about it: sex is a lot of butt meat jiggling, legs in the air swaying back and forth like metronomes, and blush-worthy squishy noises. Shakespeare called sex “making the beast with two backs,” but it’s more like “making the squirming eight-limbed octopus that grunts.” The “O” in “O” face stands for “Oooh my gawd, is my grill turning itself inside out?”

“I think I would have had sex a lot earlier! I think I would have lost my virginity earlier than I did at 22. I had the public and all this pressure, and I wish I had just gotten it over with in the beginning when it was sort of OK. I think I would have been much more in touch with myself. I think I wouldn’t have had issues with weight—I carried this protective 20 pounds [in college]. It was all connected. And to me, that’s a health regret.”

As someone who waited until I was nearly 21 to lose my virginity, this revelation from Brooke Shields in Health magazine is fascinating to me. I’ve often thought the same thing, that if I could go back in time and do something differently, I would lose my virginity earlier. My reasons don’t have to do with body image—waiting just ended up being a huge letdown! Looking back, would you change when you lost your v-card?

There’s a follow-up to a story we told you about the other day. Alina Percea, the 18-year-old who auctioned her virginity to a wealthy Italian businessman for $13,600, may have to give 50% of her earnings to the government who say her act was “tantamount to prostitution.” The Romanian-born teenager lives in Germany where prostitution is legal, but heavily taxed. “It is not a moral standpoint but a fiscal one,” an official said. “Prostitution is not an illegal act in Germany, but not paying tax on earned money is. Consequently we are assessing her case and it looks likely she will have to pay around half of the sum she gained.”  Alina may also get stuck with a big VAT bill (value added tax), which would work out to another 19% tax, leaving her with only $4,700 for the sale of her virginity (she’d hoped to make at least $75,000 to help pay for school). So, let this be a lesson to you virgins out there: skip the auction block and just give it up the old-fashioned way — slightly drunk and to some guy you feel so-so about! [via DailyMail]

In case your first sexual experience wasn’t awkward enough, Alina Percea, the 18-year-old who auctioned her virginity on a German website to help pay for college, is dishing all the details of her experience. Proving he’s a real romantic, the 45-year-old Italian businessman whose $13,600 bid won the auction paid to fly Alina to Venice — after she underwent to medical exams to prove her virginity. In Venice, the two toured the city before retiring to a luxury hotel for the main event. “‘We kissed, then undressed each other,’ Alina says. ‘I’d never done that before, so I was nervous. He laid me on the bed and started kissing my body, then we had sex. I was attracted to him, so I enjoyed it, even though it was quite painful.’” The next morning Alina, who, as part of the auction, didn’t use protection, enjoyed breakfast with the winning bidder “like any other couple” and took a morning-after pill. The romance doesn’t stop there, guys! “He told me he’d like to see me again, and I agreed.” Although the money raised fell short of the $75,000 she hoped to earn, she says, “I hope to see the man again. And next time I won’t make him pay!” Awww. [via DailyMail]

Sometimes I think men get a raw deal. There are so many assumptions and rumors about what guys are attracted to and what they have sexual fantasies about—often perpetuated by magazines, websites, and books that speak to them (Men’s Health, I’m talking to you!). Ultimately, I think most of these are myths. For example, do men really have a virgin fantasy? Are they actually turned on by the idea of deflowering someone? I asked my guys on IM ...

“What He’s Thinking the First Time You Have Sex”? According to Jake at Glamour, guys are thinking about how you smell, flexing, and how to get you off the first time they’re doing you. But what are women thinking the first time they have sex? After the jump, the mind wanderings of women as they lost their virginity.

Jessica Valenti was on “The Today Show” this morning to promote her new book The Purity Myth. Instead of discussing her book in depth, the producers pitted her against abstinence education champion Lakita Garth in a debate moderated by Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, who always looks slightly perplexed. The result was that Garth got way more speaking time, although Valenti held her own as best she could, and Kathie Lee positioned herself on the issue of virginity loud and clear. “It’s much easier to give it away than keep it, right?!”