User:Student5643

Annotated Bibliography

In this article, Averett, Moore, and Price use a small, anecdotal study to evaluate the impact of virginity on LGBT communities. Their findings support the claim that virginity lacks a standard definition. In the Results subsection, multiple quotes give various definitions of virginity. Furthermore, the participants agree that the concept of virginity is less pertinent to gay and lesbian people than the process of coming out. This source is relevant to a discussion of virginity because the LGBTQ perspective is often over looked.

In this paper, Courtney explains the purpose and practices of female genital mutilation. It relates to Proof of virginity (a subsection of the Wikipedia page Virginity) and elaborates on non-western practices of ensuring virginity. It is academic and useful in describing the procedure; however, it is only relevant to a small portion of my Wikipedia edit.

This source has details about the widely publicized sale of a woman’s virginity in a legal brothel in Nevada. It examines virginity and the transaction as a process that could empower women because the person in question took control of her sexuality. This is a beneficial perspective because it flips virginity from being something that limits a woman to something that women can commodify and control.

This book is a medical journal and therefore is unbiased and scholarly. As a handbook in adolescent gynecology, it is relevant to the topic of virginity. In this journal, doctors stress that the hymen is not an irrefutable means of proving or disproving virginity because it can be damaged or broken by a number of things.

This source is the backbone of the argument that virginity is a myth. In this book Valenti argues that virginity is damaging to women. Though her tone and style are unacademic and colloquial, her claims are well researched and rooted in a solid foundation. Her work is relevant as a feminist critique of the concept of virginity. Additionally, she has a large collection of academic sources and her index could be used as a springboard for looking into other feminist writings on the topic.

In this article, Amy Schalet explains the impact that the conservative Christian right has had on influencing sexuality of adolescent girls. She writes specifically on how sexual education plays a role in the formation of sexual identity.

This article is another study that uses anecdotal studies to investigate what virginity means to individuals. Participants included 61 men and women of various sexual orientations. They answered questions such as whether rape resulted in virginity loss and if non-penetrative genital sex cauased virginity loss.

This source looks at virginity as a tool of oppression used against women. It discusses how virginity is valued in young women and how it is controlled by her parents or husband. This article is more focused on marriage as an economic transaction, but still considers the effect virginity has.