Medical question, can it be bad for females to remain virgin?
Ok, i have always considered my self to be quite wise when it comes to information on sex. how reproduction works, how diseases spread. and all that stuff.
however, i have recently been given a very curious piece of information i did not know. and am trying to see how much truth there is in it.
i have been told by a girl, that if she does not lose her virginity before she is 30 that she runs the risk of getting some kind of disease or medical condition of some kind. does anyone out there know anything about this?
fluther was not my first thought, but a google search has turned up nothing. maybe due to my search having too many words in it. all i found was, top 10 reasons it sucks to be a woman and other things of that kind. but no information on this particular thing.
i would really appreciate any information on this as i currently find me self in quite a odd situation. at least odd for the likes of me.
please provide a source if you have a means of doing so. thanks.
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@Samurai
well, i was told that it could potentially cause phyical harm, mentally i know, hell at 14yo it was already driving me crazy :P
but yes, this is actually a physical condition that could be caused by prolonged virginity in females.
Well there are a lot of nuns out there, over 30, who appear to be healthy and still going strong. (and I am assuming that most of them are virgins)
@rooeytoo
yes, good point indeed. it does sound hard to believe to me. but i guess it could be possible in certain circumstances or rare cases.
Virgin Mary seemed to be fairly healthy.
What @rooeytoo said.
I find it hard to believe. Women would slowly build up a disease just by living, and sex would be the only cure? How would it work?
@Fyrius yes, it is quite hard to believe. but i cant really see any motivation for deception. its not like i need that much motivation if you get me. if anything i suspected something like what @simone54 said. or that it could possibly becomre harder to brake and thus cause more pain or something. but i cant seem to find any info anywhere. probably time to ask the Dr.
Think someone trying to get in her pants told her this?
Its absolute crap.
@avvooooooo – heheheh great minds, that is exactly what I was thinking!
@avvooooooo
well, she actually said this to me. im the guy btw. but it could be a previous BF maybe that said it.
There is nothing whatsoever true about this. I got an “A” in college level Human Sexuality, if you want to consider that a source of information.
@poisonedantidote I think you need to ask this girl where she heard this mess. And then come back and share.
@poisonedantidote
Hanlon’s Razor says: Never assume malice where stupidity would suffice.
I wouldn’t say she deliberately tried to deceive you. I’d say she’s just wrong. There are so many urban legends and myths going around. Many people are bad at telling facts and fantasies apart.
@Fyrius indeed, btw. did you “know” that if the girl is on top she cant get pregonant.
looking at what @avvooooooo said in his first post, im quite sure some guy must have said this to her.
its not like i need any encouragement, so she would have no motivation to tell me this. but she could very well be working with bad info.
lets se what @simone54 has to say, so far the only person giving any kind of confirmation.
Apparently there some horrible disease that MALES get by remaining a virgin. I guess it can only be cured my watching Star Wars and playing a lot of World of War Craft.
@simone54 cured or caused? :P
us trekkies are hardly known for out macho man image.
Oh, peeing after sex prevents pregnancy too.
SO many urban legends out there.
@avvooooooo yea, some of them are just laughably pathetic. but this one got me thinking i must say.
Well, this just is one case, but take a look at Britain’s oldest virgin.
She claims that her long life is due to her celibacy.
@poisonedantidote Oh, FYI, the hymen does not get harder to break. As it is, its only a thin piece of skin. It can’t grow and even virgins have possibly broken it doing sports or using tampons.
@Haleth 100% sure. all she needs to do is click her fingers. i look some what like a munster or something. and she is way out of my league for sure.
@avvooooooo good to know. thanks.
@ekans thats quite a curious article. thanks.
This sounds like the equivalent of masturbation will cause you to go blind or grow hairy palms…
It’s not in her best interests from the standpoint of contributing to the gene pool, but that is only harmful in a metaphysical sort of way.
It sounds like something a horny guy would say to a virgin girlfriend, for sure.
I’m not aware of any condition or disease specifically caused or exacerbated by prolonged virginity, however, there have been studies done into the relationship between pregnancy and female health. @rooeytoo might like to note that it was found that nuns have higher rates of breast cancer than women that have been mothers.
The theory is when the female body only produces the hormones of a non-pregnant, non-breast feeding woman it puts a greater strain on her body than when the cycle of those hormones are broken up by the hormones associated with pregnancy. Or something like that.
So I guess tangentially chronic virginity could tip the scale against you a bit. So there you go, women get cancer if they don’t get themselves knocked up and men get cancer if they get too much action.
Damned if you do, damned if I don’t.
One of my school friends is still a virgin. She announced when we were still at school (15) that she was never going to do “it” and never has yet. Won’t have anything to do with men (not even as friends actually). We’re both 45 now so it clearly wasn’t just a phase she was going through. She had terriblly low self esteem though, no matter how often I told her how pretty she was, clever, bar none the better of the two of us at just about anything, including making friends, socialising etc (I was always hopelessly shy). She was always big though till about 5 years ago when she started exercising/dieting and lost the weight. I mean she lost a shedload of weight and looks amazing now. Oddly enough, she changed in other ways too. Her personality changed too. She got very mean, even spiteful towards other people who were even a little bit heavier than she is. She also turned into what another friend called a “food nazi” in that she told everyone off if they were to have a biscuit with a cup of tea, went on endlessly about how many calories there are in just about everything. Still doesn’t trust guys though, even though she looks amazing. She used to be my very best pal, but she changed terribly. I’d still do anything for her even after what she did to me, which was really mean, after I had my breakdown. There are no words for how much she hurt me, but i still love her, even though she laughs about me with other people for being “mental”.
Eventually there’s a downside for older females who don’t have a partner playing with their boobs. Some have the ability to detect a lump that feels different from the rest of the breast tissue.
I don’t think it is a health problem to be a virgin your whole life. I would not want to have my hymen intact my whole life which is a separate issue altogether.
I’ve heard it can hair over and heal shut, but I think that was just some horny guy’s snarky comment about the women he dated that wouldn’t put out.
@mattbrowne A woman can play with her own boobs. Just saying.
@poisonedantidote There have been studies of elderly nuns that show them to be healthier and happier than the population in general. Now we can’t assume they were all virgins but it’s a pretty good bet that sex was a much smaller part of their lives. BTW you are not well versed in those topics because you seem to lack the essntial skills of logical and critical thinking. One gets a disease through interaction not lack of interaction or maybe you think virgins get a condition like “use it or lose it” lol.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir
interesting, thanks.
what concerns me the most at the moment, is that the person in question actually worked in the medicine world. admitedly, not high up. but still.
@poisonedantidote believe you me, there are MANY people who are health professionals that are not that bright.
@ekans
But then again, who would want to live for a hundred years with no sex?
I loved some of these answers, lol. Hot topic, but seriously, no there are no “diseases” you would be prone to if you remained a virgin
@mattbrowne there’s a study that shows higher breast cancer risk in lesbian women, so it seems to have a lot more to do with pregnancies than with having a sexual partner.
Ovarian cancer is also somewhat more frequently seen in women who have never been pregnant or given birth although if the woman has taken birth control pills for a total of about 3 years, her lieftime risk is cut in half. Pills and pregnancy both cause the ovaries to become dormant for awhile which seems to help.
I did find this It’s a summary of an public health research article from January 2008 saying that “late starters” are at higher risk for sexual dysfunction. _ This was true primarily of men, whose problems included difficulty maintaining an erection and reaching orgasm._
Seems like it would be hard to separate out cause and effect. But regardless, not a serious physical health issue as you were led to believe.
It sounds as if she was mixing up her info from the animal world with the human one.
If female cats are not allowed to mate and are not spayed they can definitely develop a life threatening condition called Pyometra.
This does not apply to humans, however.
@Buttonstc
good stuff, thanks. and thanks to everyone else too. been a big help.
@Buttonstc
Don’t you mean she’s mixing the cat world with the human one?
There is no biological reason to consider humans outside the animal world…
@Simone_De_Beauvoir I question those studies. I would want to know if women who never had children, or children late in life, also had more sex partners, drink more alcohol, live in different areas of the country etc. I really believe those stats are correlative and not causative. I actually believe more in environmental and infectious causes. Long Island, NY is famous for having lots of female cancers, I think that kind of clustering is more important to study. Personal Opinion.
@MagsRags the stats you mentioned about lesbians and breast cancer is interesting. I would wonder if they tend to live in the same cities? If female partners get it more often, meaning if they see it in both women in a couple more often then just one of the women in a couple. I don’t think nuns get more breast cancer, do they?
Nuns do get more breast cancer, but much less cervical cancer.
@MagsRags & @galileogirl that nuns get less cervical cancer is being disputed.
In the long run I’m with @Simone_De_Beauvoir. There are so many cancers out there that behaviors that limit one can be associated with another. I think the only indisputable assumption about the health benefits of virginity is it’s a lot harder to get STDs and STI’s when you’re not having sex.
Which is good, it’d be so much worse if you got the STD without at least having fun getting it. It’d be like the womanizing guy in Catch-22 that gets Malaria, while the man that just managed to lay one girl got the clap. It just doesn’t seem fair.
@fundevogel that article on nuns and cervical implies nuns were not being screened for HPV and cancer routinely.
@MagsRags Interesting. I wonder if it is hormone related. Women being around women. Women do start cycling together maybe their hormones overall are slightly different? Do lesbians and nuns have higher estrogen or lower something else that might affect cancer growth? There are really so many possibilites.
Lesbians cohabitating do not cycle together. One (unproven) theory is that it is because they are not exposed to semen.
Men always want it to be about them!
I didn’t either, until recently, when I happened to be studying pheromones. The semen idea seems wack to me, but, then, what else might explain it?
@fundevogel I should have stipulated “virginal nuns” for lower cervical cancer risk. We know know that the majority of cervical cancer starts with a cervical infection with high risk strains of HPV human papilloma virus there are two different types of cells at the cervical opening that are constantly replacing each other and that creates potential for cell mutation from the viral infection. The article you cite is from 1991 so predates what we’ve learned about HPV since then.
Just to pick up on what @MagsRags just said, these nuns seem to not have been being screened, so if they had been exposed to HPV, it was not being caught so they might have been more likely to get cervical cancer in the end.
@JLeslie oh absolutely
question away
I do as well
Cancer is caused by a multitude of reasons
teasing out specifics can be tough
but all the studies are saying is that there is a link found
pregnancy can be a protective factor to some
but it won’t be for others
I have a pt, she’s 30, three kids, breastfed all of them, no family history of breast cancer, and she has it in both breasts.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir How awful. Did you find it early? Will she be ok? Good she has her children already. Do you work in cancer? Or, are you a GYN? Or, something else?
@JLeslie She is receiving chemo tx…her oldest , 12 yrs old, daughter comes with her sometimes…The doctors are eventually planning to operate, it’ll probably be a radical double mastectomy…yes I ‘work in cancer’ smack in the middle of it, you might say…I represent the American Cancer Society in 2 Brooklyn Hospitals as a Patient Navigator…I work in chemotherapy and radiation units with oncologists and surgeons and nurses…I meet newly diagnosed patients via their referrals or just by going out there myself…I spend a lot of time talking to each patient, assessing their emotional, financial, programmatic needs…I offer them assistance, talk about the many many free services ACS can provide for them…anything from Look Good Feel Better programs to support groups to filling out CancerCare applications…no patient is the same…I’ve been working 20 hours with this one homeless pt with lymphoma…he has birds…he has bipolar (I am guessing)...he calls me 7 x a day just to yell at me…but I help him…that’s how he wants to vent…I’m going to see him again Friday night in a deli…I’ll bring him some of my dad’s old clothes…I figure it’s fitting…my dad dies of cancer and his clothes go to a pt of mine…
@Simone_De_Beauvoir I See. Your pt’s must so appreciate your help. I just think there is something we are really missing with this whole cancer thing. For the numbers to be increasing so. That is why I am so suspicous of an infectious cause. Infection plus a persons immune system and other genetic predispositions. But still, the infectious idea nags at me.
@JLeslie we’re missing the point that it’s ALL cumulative…that means our DNA is under constant attack by millions of mutagens from our foods, from the air, from drugs, from smoking, from chemicals, from make up, from plastic, etc + hereditary issues+longer age of living (technically speaking we’re all supposed to die after we reproduce anyway so the body doesn’t really care to keep itself up)...also if we don’t have good nutrition (and let’s face it lots of people don’t) it’s a lot easier for our immune systems to screw up and not fight cancer properly…
@Simone_De_Beauvoir I agree, everything counts. I would be interested to know if they took people over the age of 70 out of the stats, how different the numbers are from 100 years ago, since we live longer now, and cancer in general is an older persons disease. Take my family. Almost everyone drops dead early from heart disease, no time for cancer. There is only one incidence of cancer in my family.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir patient navigators do good work! We finally got one for our imaging center about a year ago and I feel much better about how the process goes now for my patients who need diagnostic mammograms and/or biopsies as well as for those who are diagnosed with cancer. It provides a bigger net of information and caring which is always a good thing.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir – I never heard of a patient navigator, but it sounds like a wonderful thing. I think the average person who has been healthy most of their life and then you suddenly get hit with that word, it really knocks you for a loop. And you really need someone to help you find your way through the treatment options and all of that.
Does it wear you down, I should think it could be very emotionally draining but uplifting as well.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir not all angels have wings, <hugs> I’ll bet your patients think so too, bless you for doing what must be at times an impossible job. We lost my Grandmother to lung cancer and my Father-in-law to bowel cancer <hugs> xx
@janbb – Yes, a woman can play with her own boobs. And sometimes she detects a lump. All I’m saying is that the likelihood of detection increases when two people play with the same boobs.
@bunnygrl I am sorry it has affected your family so much.
@mattbrowne not for nothing but I’ve had my breasts examined for lumps by physicians and have been taught proper self examination techniques…and the way people play with my breasts sexually are nothing like those experiences
@rooeytoo believe it or not, my patients and their pain and stories are the best part of my job – it is the healthcare professionals that really get to me, sometimes
@Simone_De_Beauvoir – I was thinking the same thing about breast exams, not exactly like “playing.” (Is it only me or does the word boobs make you cringe a little).
It is good you can cope well with your patients, I know it is good for them to have you. I have a young friend, 28 years, a runner, healthy, eats well, was diagnosed with bowel cancer. She has had chemo and surgery and going well. I try to be just open and honest with her, but for me it is so hard not to turn into a whimpering mass because I am so scared for her.
@rooeytoo Never been a big fan of the word boobs either.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir – Sure. But not all women will meet your level of sophistication. There are cases of sexual intimacy when men (or other women) noticed that something about the boobs was different. Do you find this problematic? A doctor can verify this professionally. I never said that having a partner is the only way for women to protect themselves from breast cancer. I just pointed out that if they have a playful partner, it might be beneficial regarding this aspect.
@mattbrowne no I do not find it problematic
I find it problematic if that kind of thing replaces having to go for constant breast check ups
Boobs change for a lot of reasons and as far as I know none for lack of use. I don’t know if @poisonedantidote gets that sex isn’t like getting your ears pierced, it doesn’t just close up from lack of use.
@galileogirl after menopause, it actually can. There’s a little bit of use it or lose it for a women who isn’t sexually active and is not using estrogen. I’ve seen it happen to some of my patients to the point where I can only use a virginal sized speculum and have to do the digital exam with one finger instead of two because the vaginal opening has narrowed so much
Not that that has anything to do with the discussion about the nonexistent health risks of choosing virginity.
eww, you put your fingers in there and you don’t even know them?
I knew that. I’m not Dumb. I’m smart.
Psychology isn’t any more hygenic than Gynecology when you get right down to it. Maybe less…
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