Diary and Memoirs of a Virgin

September 24th


Today I took in the film Julie and Julia. The film’s about two ladies with similar names. One modern lady – Julie. And one 1940s lady – Julia.
The film shows in flash back the life of 'Julia Child', who loved eating and cooking, having sex with her husband and who wanted to teach Americans how to cook like the French.
The film is based on the real life story of Julie, frustrated writer in modern day New York. New Yorker Julie has a hateful job, friends who belittle her and she lives over a pizzeria in Queens. She finds solace in cooking, and discovers that the cook Julia Child shared her passion for cooking. Julie starts a blog to chronicle this adventurous task; to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s cookbook ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ in the space of one year. Each day becomes a routine of cooking the intricate recipes and then writing a blog post about the cooking experience. Modern Julie starts using Julia Child as her cooking role model, but also as her role model for how-to-live-life. Modern Julie even wears peals like Julia Child, and even beats herself up because she doesn’t have as ideal a marriage as Julia had in the 1940s.
Now here’s the virginity angle. Julia Child remained a virgin until she married at the age of forty. This aspect of 1940’s Julia Child’s life holds a certain fascination for New Yorker Julie. In one part of the movie, the modern thirty year old New Yorker Julie (she's in the clip above) tells friends at her dinner party that the famous cook Julia Child had been a virgin when she married...at age forty. I think the line from the movie was ‘can you believe it? Forty and still a virgin until she married?’ Modern Julie's friends gasped and swapped quizzical glances, as if they were discussing a miracle.
I took careful note of the reaction of my fellow Londoners in the cinema during this scene. In the row in front of me, one lady snorted 'what rubbish. A virgin at forty? Puh!'
The London audience chuckled on hearing ‘forty...still...virgin’. I lingered in my seat, and wondered if there was any one else in the cinema who could possibly be (like me) over eighteen, and still a virgin... Maybe I'll be like Julia Child, (the chef extraordinaire) and remain a virgin until I find The One. Maybe I'll only meet him when I'm forty. But one thing that I would take from Julia Child's life story is that whilst she didn't have any fun between the sheets until she was forty, she did have a fulfilled marriage, and did have an exciting sex life with her husband. Does anyone out there know of a couple who stayed virgins till marriage and have a happy marriage in these times?

Right, but the experience of Julia Child, i.e. staying a virgin and having good marital-sexual relations DOES follow the research trends.

Here are two reports on good sex in marriage:
http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/sex/ads/bestad.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981624-2,00.html



September 25th

‘Golly, it’s amazing that you’re still a virgin...’ said my friend Anne today. She then shook her head and remarked with a sigh, ‘I wish that I were a virgin. How cool would it be to be a virgin again. But Phil, seriously, how have you kept it anyway?’ she looked at me with wide eyes. ‘I mean, you're very pretty, and I'd say no one would know you've never had sex.’

‘Well...’ I stuttered. My mind raced. I was eating fish for lunch with my friend Anne. Today, September 25th in central London. Metres away from us were fashion magazines, on the cover were women who look like they are always chasing men, pouting lips and the 'hunting' eye. Another magazine was even advised that when they meet a man first to act virginal, so that he thinks they’re inexperienced and will therefore fancy them all the more, but then when things get sexual that they should become insatiable. OK, but Anne was asking me an important question. Instead of spending the entire lunch time giving my life history, I was being invited by my friend Anne, to give a few brief lines on why I am still a virgin. It’s the words ‘virgin’ and ‘still’ that really grab everyone’s attention.
‘Well, I suppose, I’ve just made the decision to stay one...’ I again stuttered.
‘Hmmm.’ Said my friend,disappointed that my stock reaction was so boring...
‘Phil, I mean you’ve had your fair share of boyfriends. Dodgy boyfriends and not-so dodgy boyfriends.’ She mused, then shot her eyebrow into the air.
‘And some those dodgy bad boys didn't exactly wanna give me mah space girl-fre-en-end.’ I drawled in a bad American accent.
Anne laughed, and asked if I’d like to try her prawn sushi. We spent a few moments in quiet...before we exchanged a few hum-drum questions about our jobs, our hair conditioners, what we had eaten for breakfast... I intuited that Anne had dropped the ‘virginity’ question out of politeness, and also because she's a considerate who doesn’t like to pester a friend on her lunch break. But me, feeling the tension of the unresolved ‘why-am-I-still-a-virgin’ question, I blurted out,
‘Alright, so my being a virgin is a bit of a miracle. OK, it’s a complete miracle. And to explain why I’m still a virgin will take some explaining....’
‘Uh-huh’ she said quietly. 'Look Phil, sorry if I was being nosey.'
‘No, it's OK Anne, I’ve had some less-than-desirable boyfriends... I’ve thousands of opportunities for easy going sex... It’s just that I realised from a young age that keeping my virginity till marriage was the best way to go...’ A few minutes of silence passed.
‘Yeah, but Phil, I really wish that I'd kept my virginity. But I don’t know why... What’s so special about keeping it? I mean why over all these years have you wanted to stay a virgin? Hang on, am I getting to you? Tell me to shut up if I’m too much...’
I shrugged, not pleased that yet again, with another female friend the topic of my still-being-a-virgin was the most sought after topic of conversation, but glad in any case that I was the centre of attention. I never said that I wasn’t self obsessed.
’Look I made a decision when I was a teenager; I mean I was very young, and I decided there were better advantages to staying a virgin...’ I staggered. ‘Look Anne, sorry to disappoint you, and I know that I’ve started a blog on finding the virginal love of Romeo and Juliet, but I really can’t explain quickly how I’m still a virgin...’
‘Hmmm, you said you were a teenager when you decided to stay a virgin...like what came into your teenage brain, and said ‘go on babe, keep yo’ virginity!’ Anne said in a much better American accent than I could muster. She said the ‘virginity’ word too loud, and a pinstripe suit fellow in a nearby table cleared his throat and gave us a suspicious look. Anne and I looked in the opposite direction, and stifled our laughing.
‘Anne, will I ask the fellow in the pinstripe suit if he wants a date with you? You know Opera maybe, even a Shakepeare play... Now what would you say if he wanted to buy you flowers?’
‘I’d say no thanks. He don’t do it for me Phil. But you and he could get together. I'll not be jealous!’
‘You must be joking. His horrified look at both of us when you mentioned the v word a bit loudly... A real prude if ever there was one... How would I tell pinstripe fellow that I’m doing a blog that discusses virginity?’
‘Hmm that might be difficult. I can hardly imagine pinstripe fellow introducing you to his friends at the silver spoon dinner party and saying, ‘now, here’s my gel who writes about virginity on the internet.’
‘And I’m a gel who can’t adequately explain why I’m still a virgin... I’m mean I know my own reasons, but explaining them on the web is another issue...’
‘But, I think you’re very brave to be...well you know...writing about such a sensitive topic. Us girls who wish we were still virgins need to hear it from the survivors. We're not going t' find it in the glossy mags.’ Anne sighed in the direction of the stack of mags.
‘I suppose I could have a think about it, and write a post about why I decided to stay a virgin?’
‘Now that’s an idea’ said Anne.
‘Did I tell you that I’ve started a diary, it’s called ‘Diary of a Chaste Lady’, and I’m writing about all the things in my daily life that concern chastity...sex and...’
‘What! Phil! You mean this lunch time conversation will be on your blog?’ Anne exhaled.
‘Too late!’ Now it was my turn to chuckle.