I was a virgin until the age of 24. A product of a religious upbringing and my own prudish zeal, I didn’t even learn (allow myself to learn) how to masturbate until age 23. Yep. My parents weren’t that strict, but the private faith-based schools we went to steeped all girls in “purity culture”, where our virginity was highly valued. I once attended a school assembly where a teacher compared losing one’s virginity to licking an envelope and closing it…only to have to rip it open and do it again, over and over, the seal getting marred and messed up Read more…