How to Lose Your Virginity

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How to Lose Your Virginity
How to Lose Your Virginity, Official DOC NYC Poster, Nov 2013.jpg
Directed by Therese Shechter
Written byTherese Shechter
Produced byTherese Shechter and Lisa Esselstein
Edited byDina Guttman, Marin Sander-Holzman
Music byStephen Thomas Cavit
Distributed by Women Make Movies
Release date
  • November 17, 2013 (2013-11-17)(DOC NYC)
Running time
67 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

How to Lose Your Virginity is an American documentary film directed by Therese Shechter and distributed by Women Make Movies. The film examines how the concept of virginity shapes the sexual lives of young women and men through the intersecting forces of history, politics, religion and popular culture. It premiered at DOC NYC, a New York City documentary festival, on November 17, 2013. [1]

Contents

Synopsis

How to Lose Your Virginity explores the concept of virginity from historical origins of the word, virgin, to the modern day definitions perpetuated in popular culture. The film takes a critical look at how virginity is ‘restored’ through hymenoplasty, fetishized by pornography, and celebrated at purity balls. Linking virginity culture to commerce, the film follows Natalie Dylan's virginity auction and the sales of artificial hymen on the internet. Shechter also visits the set of Barely Legal and discusses the success of the "virginity porn" genre. How to Lose Your Virginity questions the effectiveness of the abstinence-only sex education movement and observes how sexuality continues to define a young woman's morality and self-worth. [2] [3] The meaning and necessity of virginity as a social construct is also examined through narration and interviews with notable sexuality experts, such as: former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, "Scarleteen" [4] creator and editor Heather Corinna, historian Hanne Blank, author Jessica Valenti, and comprehensive sex education advocate Shelby Knox.

Production

The film was directed by Therese Shechter, whose production company Trixie Films is based in Brooklyn. Working with Producer Lisa Esselstein, How to Lose Your Virginity was shot over several years in the U.S. and Canada. Other films produced by Trixie Films include the documentary feature I Was A Teenage Feminist and the documentary shorts "How I Learned to Speak Turkish" and "#slutwalknyc". [5] [6] [7] [8]

Shechter was inspired to make the film because of the growing abstinence until marriage movement and her own experiences as an older virgin. While making the film, Shechter became engaged and incorporated trying on white wedding dresses into the film as a way of looking at how the wedding industry sells virginity. [9] [10]

Over the course of the film's production, its transmedia companion, The V-Card Diaries has crowd-sourced over 200 stories about what the site calls "sexual debuts and deferrals." It was exhibited at The Kinsey Institute's 8th Annual Juried Art Show, the exhibit's first interactive piece. [11] [12]

Critical reception

Soraya Chemaly wrote in the Huffington Post , "Virginity is a powerful and malleable concept, as evidenced by the teenagers in Therese Shechter's smart, funny and provoking documentary." [13] Leigh Kolb of Bitch Flicks said that "There's no anger, there's no judgment…Shechter’s ability to teach, dismantle, expose and explore is remarkable. The audience is left with newfound knowledge with which they can criticize myths of virginity in our culture. However, the audience is also left with respect for everyone’s stories. When a documentary can do that, it succeeds in a big way." [14]

In the Jakarta Globe , Paul Freelend wrote that "her work to highlight what she calls the 'virginity culture' and the misconceptions surrounding it may resonate as loudly in Indonesia and other developing countries as in the United States." [15] Basil Tsoikos, programmer for the Sundance Film Festival and DOC NYC, in What (not) to doc remarked that "Shechter seems like the perfect filmmaker to tackle the complexities around virginity. It’s a topic that far too many people are obsessed about – probably for all the wrong reasons – so the film is sure to stimulate interest and provoke heated debate." [16]

J. Maureen Henderson of Forbes.com said that Shechter's work "tackles one of the last taboos in our culture’s discussion of sex – the deliberate decision not to participate in it.” [17] Lena Corner of The Guardian wrote that "It’s refreshing to hear such forthright voices in a world where any debate about virginity is often so conflicting or one-sided." [18] Jennifer Wadsworth of SFGate.com remarked that the project is "More than just a narrative about virginity. It’s about the connection of storytelling and how hearing about other people’s experience can make anyone else feel less alone in theirs." [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginity</span> State of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse

Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term virgin originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern and ethical concepts. Heterosexual individuals may or may not consider loss of virginity to occur only through penile-vaginal penetration, while people of other sexual orientations often include oral sex, anal sex, or manual sex in their definitions of losing one's virginity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abstinence pledge</span> Conmitment to refrain from drug usage or sexual intercourse

Abstinence pledges are commitments made by people, often though not always teenagers and young adults, to practice abstinence, usually in the case of practicing teetotalism with respect to abstaining from alcohol and other drugs, or chastity, with respect to abstaining from sexual intercourse until marriage; in the case of sexual abstinence, they are sometimes also known as purity pledges or virginity pledges. They are most common in the United States among Catholic and Evangelical Christian denominations, while others are nonsectarian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joycelyn Elders</span> Former Surgeon General of the United States

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The Sessions is a 2012 American erotic comedy-drama film written and directed by Ben Lewin. It is based on the 1990 article "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate" by Mark O'Brien, a poet paralyzed from the neck down due to polio, who hired a sex surrogate to lose his virginity. John Hawkes and Helen Hunt star as O'Brien and sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene, respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Spellman</span> American film and television producer (born 1978)

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<i>The Purity Myth</i> 2009 book by Jessica Valenti

The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women (2009) is a book about virginity by feminist author Jessica Valenti. The book was first released onto hardback on March 24, 2009, through Seal Press. Valenti argues that there is a prevalent false notion promoted within the United States that a woman's worth is predicated upon whether or not she is sexually active, implying that the loss of virginity can negatively affect her. A DVD tie-in titled The Purity Myth: The Virginity Movement's War Against Women was released in 2011.

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Therese Shechter is a filmmaker, writer and artist best known for the documentary films My So-Called Selfish Life, (2022), How to Lose Your Virginity, I Was A Teenage Feminist, How I Learned to Speak Turkish (2006) and the short "#SlutWalkNYC" (2013). She is also the creator of "The V-Card Diaries," an online collection of over 300 stories of "sexual debuts and deferrals" submitted by readers. In 2013, the collection was featured in The Kinsey Institute's Juried Art Show.

I Was A Teenage Feminist is an documentary film directed by Therese Shechter, produced by UpFront Productions and distributed by Women Make Movies. The title is a play on that of the 1957 horror movie, I Was a Teenage Werewolf. The film explores the marked discomfort among many young, progressive women to identify themselves as feminists and how that discomfort came to be. Through personal narrative as well as interviews with feminist icons and everyday women and men, Shechter’s film documents a complex, multi-generational look at feminist identity in today’s world. The film had its television premiere on March 8, 2005 Canada's W Network, and it won Best Film at the National Council of Jewish Women Film Festival and Special Mention at the Karachi International Film Festival in 2006.

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Gay Meets Girl is a 2013 Dutch documentary film written, directed by and starring Tim den Besten and Nicolaas Veul. The documentary film explores the subjects of sexual fluidity and bisexuality through a gay man's quest to have sex with a woman. The original Dutch title translates to "A man doesn't know what he's missing" and references a gay man's not knowing what he is missing out on by not having sex with women. The documentary aired on Dutch public television.

References

  1. ↑ "DOC NYC: How to Lose Your Virginity" . Retrieved 24 October 2013.
  2. ↑ Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (24 June 2010). "How to Lose Your Virginity: An Interview with Therese Shechter". June 24, 2010. Ms. Magazine. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  3. ↑ Stein, Sadie (26 May 2010). "Losing Your Virginity Is Harder Than You Think". May 26, 2010. Jezebel. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  4. ↑ "Scarleteen". 11 May 2007. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  5. ↑ "How to Lose Your Virginity: the filmmakers". Archived from the original on 20 October 2013. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
  6. ↑ "Trixie Films Official Site" . Retrieved 27 September 2013.
  7. ↑ "Lisa Esselstein". IMDb . Retrieved 29 September 2013.
  8. ↑ "How to Lose Your Virginity: films & writing". Archived from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  9. ↑ Hills, Rachel (8 May 2012). "How to lose your virginity". Archived from the original on 26 July 2014. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  10. ↑ "Interview: Therese Shechter, filmmaker". 21 June 2010. Retrieved 15 September 2013./
  11. ↑ Crane, Hannah (19 May 2013). "Kinsey Art Show features thought-provoking art". Indiana Daily Student. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
  12. ↑ "Juried Art Show 2013". The Kinsey Institute. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
  13. ↑ Chemaly, Soraya (20 April 2012). "Virgins, Bondage, and a Shameful Media Fail". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  14. ↑ Kolb, Leigh (9 August 2013). "How to Lose Your Virginty or: How We Need to Rethink Sex". Bitch Flicks. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  15. ↑ Freeland, Paul (5 May 2012). "Wherever You're From, A Call to Talk About Sex". Jakarta Globe. Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  16. ↑ Tsoikos, Basil (20 April 2012). "In the Works: HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY". What (not) to doc. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  17. ↑ Henderson, J. Maureen (1 May 2012). "Let's (Not) Talk About Sex: Meet The Filmmaker Who's Exploring Modern Virginity". Forbes.com. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
  18. ↑ Corner, Lena (17 July 2010). "Virginity: how was it for you?". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
  19. ↑ Wadsworth, Jennifer (8 October 2013). "Virginity obsession is focus of new documentary". SFGate.com. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
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