Contacted in June to talk about her virginity, remember Zoe in September: I am interested in his testimony he always if it is not a virgin? “It happened by itself. Probably because I’m in therapy and I learned to release my word. I met this man while we were both consultants for the same mission in London. We dined together. Complicity was forged, especially as, married, he did not represent a danger to me. For the first time I spoke to a man of my virginity. And, without any question of love but with great tenderness, we slept together. It was very natural, very easy, very sweet. And very pleasant. I know that my experience has a value of testimony: I have said before, it would go as smoothly, I would not have believed it. However, this first time I was released. I feel more normal, more beautiful too. When a man smiles at me, I do not have a flash that lights up in my head saying “you are a virgin, you’re a virgin!” ”

Avoidance or sublimation?

The reasons to remain a virgin are multiple and complex. Michele Saal, sexologist, distinguishes five main.

Some were molested or witnessed sexual violence that led to a phobia of sex. Traumatized, they are in avoidance for failing to confront their fear.

Others are in sublimation. Romantic, they expect the man or woman in their lives. Here we find those who cannot mourn a lost first love and remain faithful to a fantasy image. They are survived by an incomplete ideal.

Religious practitioners, they were imposed by their culture and religion, to remain virgins until marriage. When they do not marry, they retain the parental injunction they made theirs.

For reasons related to their history of childhood, they are in limbo over their sexual identity. Often, they say they have no desire. This ambivalence of identity can sometimes translate latent homosexuality, without acting out.

They feel ugly, badly made, stupid and constantly doubt their seduction. Bad about themselves, their bodies badly, wrong in their lives, they are often the victims of heavy maternal bond: castrating mother or, conversely, intrusive or absent.

Religion

There are virgins assumed or claimed, often for religious reasons. “More and more young Muslims want to remain virgins until marriage, ensures Edith, a teacher in a city of Seine-Saint-Denis. They take a coherent and live according to principles that they often share with their boyfriends. But they are very young. After 30 years, they pass into the clan of “aunts”, those who are unmarried and have no children. There, they feel a certain stigma. And suffer even more when their convictions were imposed upon them by their families. ”

At 43, Solange, practicing Catholic, took her virginity: “There are moments in life where you have to make choices consistent with its principles. I had decided to keep me for a husband I have never met … Now I regret not having this meeting – although I still believe! – But I do not regret not having a sex life. I have sometimes experienced this as a test, but I managed to sublimate it in my faith. “

“It would be wrong to see any late virginity index of psychological trauma, grade the gynecologist Sylvain Mimoun and psychosomatic medicine. Moreover, it poses few problems, in general, up to 25 years . Considered moving, it is sometimes claimed as an expectation of good relationship . Then anxiety comes and with it the beginning of a phobia “Would I do? How to tell? “And above all:” Am I normal? “And here is the cycle that leads to the rejection of his body and fear of one another. ”

And for women, quarantine sign the approach of menopause. At that time, swelling and pain takes over your life. “The virgins of a certain age do not come to me with a claim sexual confirms Michele Saal. They do not tell me: “I want to make love with a man”, since on the contrary, the idea of ​​penetration is a concern, they are afraid of pain. Rather they tell me: “I want children, a house a home.” It’s almost as if they had been mourning their sexuality in advance to avoid having to make more painful bereavement, those of parental injunctions, for example, like, “So much better when you love. ‘”

“My mother did not have a negative discourse regarding sexuality, says Anne-Sophie. Simply, indirectly, she advised me to wait, “You have plenty of time”, “Beware the good”, “The important thing is your education, the rest will come after.” So, my problem is not sexual but emotional: I’ve never been in love. “For most sexologists, dissociating sexuality from the rest of the relationship to another is a mistake. “Men or women, people fleeing sexual relationship, whatever the reasons they are neither in freedom nor in desire, Michele ensures Saal. To avoid being faced with the problem, they choose not to unwittingly fall in love, they live in a paralysis of the relationship to another whose sex is only one aspect. ”

Fill his life otherwise

“I suffer terribly with my virginity, says Patrick, 32, because sexuality is a means of communication that I miss, like I was some kind of private speech. I sleep with a pillow in her arms to give me the illusion of presence. Of course, I masturbate, but the frustration is even greater because after I made up for the lack of sex but I cannot do anything against the lack of tenderness. “For girls, there is less talk easily of solitary pleasure:” Of course it happens, Patricia admits. But less and less. As if losing the hope of meeting someone, I detach myself from my body, it interested me less because nobody cares. ”

Remember the risk of losing sight of his body, say the psychologists. For the psychiatrist J.-D. Nasio, “no sex life tends to silence the body. Now the body is an important part of our self. Nothing is lost as we continue to live in harmony with her body through sport, dance, massage … This is a form of compensation much healthier than that which is to take refuge in the workplace or in addictions such as bulimia. ”

This is because the body does not be dissolved in abstinence as the day comes, it will be easier to do, finally, love. Jacques was 40 years ago when he met his partner: “Before meeting her, I had never had sex. Today, I feel liberated, it’s like to recover after years of darkness. Previously, whenever things became clearer, I did everything, unconsciously, for the relationship to a halt. Work on myself a few years helped me to clarify my reasons for inhibition. ”

Consider the therapeutic work as the gateway to a fulfilling sex life is magical thinking, however. It allows primarily to discuss their fears, to tame them, and find a world view where physical love is a natural place, or fantasy, or fear, or sublimated. “Often, Michele shows Saal, therapy allows my patients to open up to others. Even if they do not lose their virginity, the pain of it fades, if only because they find other ways to fill their lives. “

They never made love. Their virginity lock them in the silence and shame. Secrets about one of the last sexual taboos.

nne Sophia, 34: “I go out into the street and my eye catches a pub: a naked couple who hugged. I go to the movies or I open a novel impossible not to fall on sex scenes. I decipher the covers of magazines and I read: “Is it a good lover?” I live in a world where everyone makes love. Except me. “Patricia, age 36:” At 18, it’s touching to be a virgin. At 35, this is ridiculous. “Sebastian, 33:” Sometimes I say I will die without ever having had sex and, for once, there, I seriously want to die. ”

A situation unspeakable, unspoken reasons

How many are there? No one knows: there are no numbers, no polls, and there would it be that the respondents probably would lie to pollsters. Yet they are all those who, far from overexposure sexual in our society live without ever having had sex. And suffering as an abnormality they entrust to anyone. Zoe, 31, says she blushed when asked: “Are not you a blank tape to lend me? “And Patricia has invented an unbridled sex life:” Nobody knows, except my two childhood friends. For others, I play the saucy. It’s easy to deceive. ”

Deceive for failing to respond to a possible “why? “.

“Because there are no” because “, is annoyed Patricia. At 20, I wanted to wait to meet the right person. I was rather shy, reserved, discreet. I was not going to others and do not let others come to me. Maybe, just, I do not feel ready. I was enamored of purity, I was idealistic, romantic, naive. I was waiting for Prince Charming falls from the sky. At 30, I dedicated myself to my work, telling me that’s what mattered first. At 36, by dint of being so demanding, I have the feeling of being missed out on something. But do not ask me why … ”

For Michele Saal, gynecologist and sexologist, “In most cases, virgins do not develop an argument for or against virginity. They have all or very good explaining to do: too much work, no desire, no time, no meeting … In fact, these reasons are true to the screen, or they hear they do not know because it belongs to a painful history: blurring of sexual identity, unhealthy relationship with a mother … to each his touching story. “