History of Feminism

What if we used the word ‘virgin’ in accordance with its original meaning?

In her text Willful Virgin, Marilyn Frye offers a sketch of what she calls “wild women,” or “willful virgins,” suggesting that a reclamation of the term virgin is a necessary feminist move. According to Frye’s redefinition, a virgin is an independent feminist who refuses to kowtow to patriarchal norms of femininity, attractiveness, or sexuality. Virgins, she argues, know that “Their sexual interactions are not sites where people with penises make themselves men and people with vaginas are made women.” Rather, virgins are wild and willful humans, not subjugated property. This revamping of the word takes it back to its original meaning, according to Frye:

“The word ‘virgin’ did not originally mean a woman whose vagina was untouched by any penis, but a free woman, one not betrothed, not bound to, not possessed by any man. It meant a female who is sexually and hence socially her own person. In any version of patriarchy, there are no Virgins in this sense.”

https://professorwhatif.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/what-if-we-used-the-word-%E2%80%98virgin-in-accordance-with-its-original-meaning/