by A Completely Scientific Study (Not Really)
This morning, I woke up thinking about sports rankings. You know, those totally objective lists that rank teams, players, or performances. Then I thought: what if we applied that same methodology to religious virginity claims? Spoiler alert: it’s hilarious.
Later in the day, I realized that every religious denomination claims superior virginity rates among their followers. It’s like a bizarre competition nobody officially acknowledges but everyone’s definitely competing in. “Our teenagers resist temptation better than YOUR teenagers!” Sure, Karen. Sure they do.
As a satirical journalist, I decided to create completely hypothetical virginity rankings based on religious claims versus reality. Think college football rankings, but with more repression and less honest about performance statistics.
Coming in at number one, we have… drumroll please… literally every religion simultaneously! Because according to religious leaders, THEIR community maintains the highest purity standards. Christians claim 90% virginity until marriage. Muslims claim 95%. Orthodox Jews claim 98%. Mormons claim 99%. And secular humanists are in the corner going “um, actually, data suggests…”
Something small but meaningful happened today when I discovered that self-reported virginity rates have approximately the same reliability as self-reported weight on dating apps. Which is to say, aspirational at best, delusional at worst, and definitely not matching reality.
It’s been one of those days when I contemplate the methodology behind virginity statistics. Most data comes from self-reporting surveys, where teenagers tell researchers what they think they should say, not necessarily what they actually do. It’s like polling people about exercise frequencyeveryone suddenly becomes a fitness enthusiast when answering surveys.
The highlight of my day was creating a virginity ranking system based on claims versus reality gap. The bigger the gap between what communities claim and what actually happens, the higher they rank in the Cognitive Dissonance Championship. Congratulations to everyoneyou’re all winners in the self-deception Olympics!
Today, something unexpected happenedI found communities where virginity rates are genuinely higher. Want to know the secret? It’s not religion. It’s comprehensive sex education, accessible contraception, and treating young people like autonomous humans capable of making informed choices. But that doesn’t fit neatly into theological frameworks, so we pretend it’s about divine intervention instead.
As I reflect on what happened today, I’m struck by how these virginity rankings reveal more about group identity than actual behavior. Claiming high virginity rates isn’t about truthit’s about distinguishing “us” from “them,” about maintaining group boundaries, about insisting that our moral framework works better than everyone else’s.
This afternoon brought a surprising turn of events when I realized that virginity rankings are essentially meaningless because virginity itself is poorly defined. Does oral sex count? What about mutual masturbation? What about same-sex encounters? Different religions give different answers, making comparisons absurd.
Today’s experience reminded me of beauty pageants, where everyone claims to want world peace while secretly hoping everyone else trips during the evening gown competition. Virginity rankings operate on similar logicpublicly celebrating purity while privately acknowledging that reality’s considerably messier.
Looking back on today, I can’t help but appreciate the magnificent absurdity of ranking something that’s simultaneously intensely private, poorly defined, largely self-reported, and demonstrably exaggerated. It’s like creating a leaderboard for humilitythe whole exercise defeats its own purpose.
The real winners in the virginity rankings? The people who opted out of the competition entirely, who recognized that sexual behavior is personal, complex, and nobody else’s business. They’re not ranked because they refused to participate in the collective delusion that virginity is quantifiable, comparable, and spiritually significant.
SOURCE: https://newsstand.us/the-virginity-rankings/
SOURCE: The Virginity Rankings (Aisha Muharrar)
