‘Losing It’ will help you gain a new perspective

They always say a lady should never kiss and tell. Well, Kate Munro didn’t get the memo. Her new book, Losing it: How We’ve Popped Our Cherry in the Last 80 Years, shares the stories of real people’s most intimate moment: virginity loss.

A book about sex fits neatly into our increasingly sexualized society filled with TVs shows, movies and song lyrics, all about doing the dirty deed. On the surface, sex seems to have morphed from a sacred thing into a meaningless physical act. However, Monro proves otherwise in her book. She does an excellent job of weaving in the stories of her interviewees and their “first times” to show that losing one’s virginity is so much more than one single moment; it often affects how each storyteller lived his or her life and viewed romance. Ultimately, this book is about the first time, but also what came before and after.

From the experiences of Edna, who lost her virginity in 1940 at 25, to Charlie, a young, disabled punk rocker whose first-time experience many people would envy, Monro reveals the poignant, funny and often surprising truth about other people’s most intimate sexual stories (as well as her own). One of my favorite stories (and the one that stuck with me long after I finished the book) was from Ash, a man with a muscular disorder that rendered him severely disabled who lost his virginity to a prostitute at 36. His first time wasn’t about the sex but about experiencing the touch of another human, an element long missing from his life.

Monro also shares the stories of a 40-year-old virgin and several others who are guarding their carnal treasure until marriage or for when someone very special comes along (and these virgins want you to know there’s nothing wrong with that ~ or them). Monro even found a woman who plans never to lose her virginity.

And if you were wondering how our society went from waiting for marriage to waiting for last call at a bar before bedding a mate, Monro explains that, too. It didn’t just happen overnight, and she dissects the evolution of sex and how it has changed through the years. For example, thanks to two world wars, women and men got a little more promiscuous, knowing that life might be cut short by wartime violence. In addition, women experienced a newfound independence from entering the workforce during World War II and refused to rescind it once the war ended. Then came the invention of the birth control pill, and it all snowballed from there.

In short, what looks like a sex book (thanks to some provocative cover art) isn’t always a sex book. Losing It is a classic case of the cliché about never judging a book by its cover.

For more information, visit virginityproject.typepad.com.

By Kimberly Dunbar