Come on, you didn't really think I was going to answer that question, did you? Seriously?

Something that amazes me to this day is the prevalence of “She's a virgin if _____” myths, and I do mean myths. My favorite to date is one I heard in high school and, I'm ashamed to say, briefly believed. Let me tell you the story.

The town I spent my teenage years in was not exactly a center of enlightenment. The school system had some serious issues. It was common for the town's political and civic leaders to get arrested. Drugs and alcoholism were rampant. All that added together should have been a tip off that anything I heard, especially from a peer, was not necessarily going to be true, but what can I say? I was young and stupid and my peers clearly had all the answers.

As I walked through the hall to class one day there were a few teenage boys behind me talking loud enough for me to hear their conversation, which went a little something like this:

“Did you know that you can tell if a girl is a virgin by whether or not she walks with her legs apart?”

“Shut up. Really?”

“Yeah, man. If she walks with her legs close together, she's a virgin. If she walks with her legs apart, she's not a virgin.”

I am completely embarrassed to say it, but as I walked along in front of these young men, I made the conscious choice to walk with my legs closer together so that they wouldn't think anything of me. At this point in my life, I didn't want anyone to have even the slightest inkling that I may not have been a virgin. I must have looked silly trying to walk that way since the tops of my legs brush against each other when I'm just walking naturally.

Why did I believe it? My adult self knows it was just too ridiculous and I shouldn't have given it any credence whatsoever. So why did I? Well, the only good answer I can come up with is that I never heard anything to the contrary. The Sex Ed teacher never stood up between lectures on diseases and how to put condoms on bananas to say, “You cannot tell if a girl is a virgin by the way she walks. You can't tell just by looking at her.” But you know what? I think it would have been a good idea for the teacher to have done so. It's my firm belief that to combat these utterly ridiculous myths and rumors, educators and parents must come at them head on.

Even though this was the only virgin myth I ever believed, it was unfortunately not the only one I ever heard. Other really fantastically false winners include:

-A woman is a virgin when you had her if she bleeds your first time together.
-She was not a virgin when you had her if she got pregnant from your first time together.
-The first time a woman has sex, her rump will become flatter.
-The first time a woman has sex, her rump will become rounder.
-When a woman loses her virginity, her hips will become wider.
-A virgin has perky breasts.
-A woman that talks about sex all the time is probably a virgin.
-A woman that never talks about sex is probably a virgin.
-A virgin just has an innocent look to her.

How about you? Have you ever heard some really crazy virgin myths? I'd love to hear about them.