Identity Immasculated

The Word: Virginity. Dictionary.com's (what better dictionary is there? Probably the OED, which I would've used if the college I attended for four years didn't throw me out to the wayside and divest me of using any of its electronic resources) definition: 2. the state or condition of being pure, unsullied, untouched.


Today I lost my virginity. I held out for as long as I could - definitely not something I was ashamed of or eager to loose. I felt like one of the few and the proud. But maybe there's a point at which we hold onto something not from a moral platform but to raise ourselves amongst others through a vague and vacant sense of moral superiority: a separation of ourselves from those more depraved. And the desire becomes one not of experience but of avoidance - a way to maintain an identity.


Its funny that we use the word lost, because it seems like something we gain - a valuable experience. But I feel as though I did lose something - a part of me, a childlike innocence - a quixotic tendency to resist the mindless current of the mainstream. I wish I could've held out longer but I was forced; well, not forced, but pushed against my will. Today is the 9th of Sept. 2009. A date I will always remember. It is the day I disrobed my familiar habiliments and donned a new identity. Today is the day I joined face book.


My excuse (everyone's has one): its for a job application to travel around the world. Fully funded; 365 days; 192 countries; the job: documenting the "simple moments of happiness" Have I sold out? Maybe.


Five friends and counting,


Jamis


p.s. If I friend you please don't reject me: a face book friend is worth a tenth of a real one but being rejected is ten times as hard.