PRESS ABOUT THE FILM:
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE FILMMAKER
Ms. Magazine Blog
On virginity as a social construct: If you talk to people who think about this stuff a lot, they'll tell you virginity is this cultural construct, so let's dismiss it. The thing is, it may be a cultural construct but it's still very, very important to people. The idea of one's sexual initiation-however you want to describe it-is important, and we canşt just toss it out because there [are] some issues around it that are problematic. More.
The Sexist/Washington City Paper
On purity balls, virgin porn and white weddings: They're remarkably similar in that they all work within the fantasy of female sexual purity as something to be fetishized. They have different props-the Big White Wedding Dress, porn's white panties, and the purity ring-but all use a sort of ritualized process whereby a symbolically virginal female is offered up to a male for deflowering. I say symbolic because the porn actress is definitely not a virgin, we're pretty certain that most modern brides arenşt either, and given our shaky definition of the V-word, we might not even consider some purity pledgers to be totally chaste. But it's the fetishization of all three that really fascinates me. For whose benefit is it this being played out? More.
Geekweek
Is virginity being redefined?: Pre-marital sex is nothing new, I just think we're talking about it a lot more, and we're more open about sex in general which is a good thing. It's allowing people to see that their own feelings about sexuality are shared by many others, and that there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to our intimate lives. More.
Fourth Wave Feminism
On people talking about their sex lives: People are willing to talk about it, but Işm not sure if theyşre honestly talking about it. And I think when you say 'sex is everywhere,' I think that it is everywhere-in people fantasies. In their imaginations, everyone is having sex but them. Or everyone is having amazing sex but them. And I think that's a message over and over again. That's how we sell products. That's how we sell all kinds of media, and, I think that if people were generally more honest about their sex lives and what the world of sexuality really looked like, I think it would look very different than what we see all around. More.
Her Film
On differences between gender, sexual orientation and age re virginity: Virginity is basically a complex social construct that's always been more about female sexuality than male. There's actually no medical definition, and our conventional concept of 'losing your virginity' through penis-in-vagina sex is incredibly narrow. Is a penis really the only way to turn a woman into a sexual person? How then do lesbians lose their virginity? Do we suddenly become sexual beings or is it gradual? When we lose our virginity, what specifically are we losing, if anything at all? In queer communities, the concept of virginity loss is far more nuanced and individualistic because it doesnşt fit into established hetero understandings about sex. But although ideas about how a person loses his or her virginity might vary, there is still some point where most of us cross a threshold of sexual initiation. It may be a construct, but it's still an important defining moment - however we define it.More.
Abiola Abrams' Kiss and Tell/examiner.com
What makes your film an urgent part of the national dialogue on sexuality at this time? The US has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the developed world. One out of every four young women has an STD. The government has spent over a billion dollars teaching teens that condoms don't work and you'll go crazy if you have sex before you get married. So we're doing a spectacularly shitty job talking to kids about sex ed - there's a huge vacuum of good information. And what's flowing in to fill this void? The porn they downloaded last night, Gossip Girl episodes, the double standards and sexism all around us, and whatever bad info someone's older brother just told them. The conversation is broken, and I'd like to the film to be one of the things that helps fix it. More.
Musings of an Inappropriate Woman
On how Therese's views have changed making this film: I started this film in response to young women being shamed for being sexual, but then I started getting a lot of letters from older virgins who were really ashamed of their non-sexual status. Although some did have social issues, many just hadn't met the right person for whatever reason. I totally related to that. I didn't really become sexually active until I was 23, not because I couldn't find anyone to have sex with, but because I wanted it to be somehow special. By the time I did have sex, I just wanted to get rid of the big V on my chest, so it was with someone spectacularly non-special. I came out of it with the personal realization that having sex was really not such a big deal. The upshot of all this is that my own virginity loss story, as well as some of the stories from the blog, really have to be part of the film. More.
No Country for Young Women
What inspired you to make documentaries?: I was working for a large Hollywood-oriented film production company as an assistant, and not only did I hate the job, I was depressed I wasn't making my own films. After I left, with no ideas for what to do next, I got a spot volunteering at the Sundance Film Festival. I spent the next 10 days watching documentaries that changed my idea of what filmmaking could be. When I got back to New York I enrolled in my first-ever documentary workshop with filmmaker Macky Alston, who became a great mentor to me. He really helped me develop a first-person voice to tell my stories. I developed my film I Was A Teenage Feminist in that class as a purely theoretical project. He told me I had to make the film - for real not just on paper - and actually put his own video camera into my hands and told me to go forth and do some interviews. After that, I was hooked and haven't looked back. More.
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