At the party I went to this weekend, I had a guy challenge me to a drinking contest, and I beat him. Jokes aside, I can get things down the hatch fast. Later, a friend of his was telling me about how he has no shortage of woman who want to get with him, but he never closes the deal. His friend said his standards are unreasonable. “He wants a virgin,” he said. “And you’re not gonna find very many of them out there who aren’t way too young or just not worth it.” Another friend piped up. “He doesn’t want a literal virgin, he just wants someone who’s virginal.” I laughed. This guy would love that part of me if I’d had any interest in him.
I have Mars in Virgo, which basically symbolically translates to the sex planet ruled by the Virgin. I also have it suppressed by Saturn, the stern father who keeps a very close eye. The Princess in her Ivory Tower? Yep. Deal with it.
No surprise why I take sex so seriously. My sex drive is beastly. It takes conscious effort to contain, through strenuous exercise and staying occupied and just a general feeling of responsibility and accountability. Yet, while I’m not a virgin, I could have very well waited a very long time , was actually determined to wait, but then I realized in my 20’s that perhaps my eventual partner would prefer that I know what I’m doing (thus my first relationships kind of having a tone of “I don’t really enjoy what’s happening, but I need to know how it’s done.”) Virgos are no angels, though. I’ve known many a promiscuous one, both male and female, in my day. But the difference is approach. There tend to be higher ideals, higher values. A notion of purity, and wanting to find a worthy cause to serve. Sometimes, the promiscuity is the training to prepare them for the one. They do like being prepared. To each his own.
Mars in Virgo is the ultimate virgin/whore placement. Sexual energy filtered through the ideal of the virgin means that you either have sex for a higher purpose, romantic ideal or ultimate partnership, or you aren’t and you know you aren’t. Thus, the whore feeling. This is one of the reasons I’m so slow to enter relationships and dread break-ups, even if I go through years of celibacy and not dating (though making lots of platonic friends). There has to be something strong there, a chance, even though I don’t expect. Each relationship that doesn’t work out makes me feel like I didn’t wait for the one I’ve been looking for, and it does make me feel bad about myself, even though I know each relationship brings me closer to him by learning about myself and learning about what I want. It still feels a little like cheating, like “Crap, another indiscretion.” I know future husband probably isn’t expecting me to be a virgin, but I hate having been with people who aren’t him, even though I know that’s just the way life works. But I would rather be with him, give all this to him if I could find him. If my energy matches his, then I don’t need anything else.
Energy is energy and you often have to find a way to work with it, like a river flowing. It flows the way it flows and how it wants to flow, but you can make advantageous adjustments within its core nature to make it work for you. I can’t shake that what I care most for is purity and innocence in a world where these notions are sometimes mocked and deemed unrealistic. I know I can’t own my partner’s past and it’s about the now and the future, but there are certain things I can’t deal with, like I can’t deal with men who pay or have paid for sex, make a dominance or conquest game out of sex, or in any way have disrespectful or immature ideas or feelings about sexual union or women. The reason? I will never trust them. I need to trust that the one I’m with is the one who all this is for.
But someone who has also valued himself and what he has to give, who also believed there was someone they wanted to save the best parts of themselves for, was always my match. The Virgin and Whore are two sides of the same coin. The idea of Whore has been stigmatized. When you talk to the prostitutes in Amsterdam, while some of them work in that line because they have drug problems, psychological/self-esteem issues or see sex as a bargaining chip, others will say they love sex, the control, that men want them so badly they’re willing to pay. All that aside, the social stigma is that a woman who loves sex is a whore or a slut, when really, a woman who can embrace her sexuality in a healthy and encompassing manner along with her other facets is probably the most complete and powerful woman of all. Virgo has the power to be both. Virgo has the ideals of romantic love which belong only to those worthy and honorable, as well as an acceptance and embracing of their raw, unbridled sexuality. Mars filtered through Virgo for me has meant, if I can be disciplined enough to save myself and energy for someone worthy whom I really have chemistry with and really love, all that energy and desire that I’ve been saving will be directed in the most powerful way towards a union that will be ultimately fulfilling. Can I have sex without love? Definitely. Love and sexual attraction are sometimes mutually exclusive. But I know I want, need and could get so much more out of the experience by not flitting away what I have. And so I prefer to wait, not go for bait, until I find someone I want to unleash my oceans for.
I’ve always said that there’s something I’m saving for someone, that no man has touched. This is true. I’ve been holding it since I was a kid, ever since I was dreaming about my Other. It’s something deep inside that I haven’t seen either, but I know it’s still there, can feel it, and I know I haven’t given it away. Anyone who has felt love from me can feel the purity, a love that is for love’s sake that makes them feel safe and alive. When I am devoted, it comes out of me like a natural spring. I have a feeling when I commit, we will discover an extra gear. An extra source. But it’s always been important to me not to give it away, to value myself enough not to give it away, to value the one I love by not giving it away.