Discussion: Sexual Violence and Virginity

Sexual Violence
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Sexual Violence
Sexuality is an intricate and elusive topic of concern since ancient times. It continues to be an issue that drives misogyny and patriarchal tendencies in our societies. In many instances, sexuality has been used to drive inequality and is used as a tool to constrict the liberties of others. Sexual violence is a broad terminology encompassing a wide range of oppression along gender lines. The phenomenon of sexual violence is perpetrated continuously in society in various ways; some are even subtler than imagined. Much of this gender-related violence has been explicitly and implicitly presented through media, politics, literature, and activism.
The cult of virginity is a concept that limited the liberties and freedoms of girls in society to explore sexuality. The community appears to set moral standards of girls, and one parameter that has been used to gauge such moral standard is through the use of virginity. But why would virginity, which can sublime in less than five minutes, be used to measure the ethical or moral dimension of women (Valenti, 2013)? Again, it has been challenging to define what constitutes virginity: virginity is arguable a mystery and not even medical as a discipline has not offered any successful definition of what embodies virginity. It beats logic to see many people believing that virginity is lost when heterosexual intercourse occurs, what about other forms of sex, including oral sex, gays, and lesbianism sexual practices (Valenti, 2013)? Media, religion, and pop culture have continued to propagate the issue of abstinence as gauged by virginity, in which virginity is idolized, but it ideally means nothing (Valenti, 2013).
It is quite paradoxical that our society expresses condemn for sexual violence because the rate of conviction of sex offenders is shockingly low (Harding, 2015). In reality, serious sexual crimes like rape are treated with kids&rsq...