How to Lose Your Virginity
How to Lose Your Virginity is an American documentary film directed by Therese Shechter and distributed by Women Make Movies. The film examines how the concept of virginity shapes the sexual lives of young women and men through the intersecting forces of history, politics, religion and popular culture. It premiered at DOC NYC, a New York City documentary festival, on November 17, 2013.[1]
How to Lose Your Virginity
Therese Shechter
Therese Shechter and Lisa Esselstein
Dina Guttman, Marin Sander-Holzman
Stephen Thomas Cavit
- November 17, 2013 (DOC NYC)
67 minutes
United States
English
Synopsis[edit]
How to Lose Your Virginity explores the concept of virginity from historical origins of the word, virgin, to the modern day definitions perpetuated in popular culture. The film takes a critical look at how virginity is ‘restored’ through hymenoplasty, fetishized by pornography, and celebrated at purity balls. Linking virginity culture to commerce, the film follows Natalie Dylan's virginity auction and the sales of artificial hymen on the internet. Shechter also visits the set of Barely Legal and discusses the success of the "virginity porn" genre. How to Lose Your Virginity questions the effectiveness of the abstinence-only sex education movement and observes how sexuality continues to define a young woman's morality and self-worth.[2][3] The meaning and necessity of virginity as a social construct is also examined through narration and interviews with notable sexuality experts, such as: former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, "Scarleteen"[4] creator and editor Heather Corinna, historian Hanne Blank, author Jessica Valenti, and comprehensive sex education advocate Shelby Knox.
Production[edit]
The film was directed by Therese Shechter, whose production company Trixie Films is based in Brooklyn. Working with Producer Lisa Esselstein, How to Lose Your Virginity was shot over several years in the U.S. and Canada. Other films produced by Trixie Films include the documentary feature I Was A Teenage Feminist and the documentary shorts "How I Learned to Speak Turkish" and "#slutwalknyc".[5][6][7][8]
Shechter was inspired to make the film because of the growing abstinence until marriage movement and her own experiences as an older virgin. While making the film, Shechter became engaged and incorporated trying on white wedding dresses into the film as a way of looking at how the wedding industry sells virginity.[9][10]
Over the course of the film's production, its transmedia companion, The V-Card Diaries has crowd-sourced over 200 stories about what the site calls "sexual debuts and deferrals." It was exhibited at The Kinsey Institute's 8th Annual Juried Art Show, the exhibit's first interactive piece.[11][12]