My main question: am I too rigid in my views on sexuality, where I would only marry a virgin committed to purity and as faithful as myself?
Short answer: yes, but not because you want to marry a virgin.
Long answer (and yes, it is long so buckle up):
Chastity and virginity are both great, they’re both things which you should strive to be yourself and to be treasured in other people. Wanting to marry a virgin is not a bad thing. The way you’re talking about the girls in your school and your church though? That is bad. Y’ain’t calling attention to uncomfortable truths by highlighting their alleged sexual histories, you’re trying to make yourself seem better, more holy, more pure, for not having that history. You were not present when they were doing whatever they’ve done, so you don’t know the context. Also, when you call anyone a retired slut, whore, or any other slur which means the same thing, you’re being an asshole. I strongly recommend removing such language from your vocabulary as being a good step towards being the man your future wife deserves.
Sex is a complicated thing. It’s beautiful and wonderful, and absolutely worth waiting until marriage for. But when you get in to the strict “no hymen, no diamond” policy for your future wife you’re distorting the goal of virginity, the virtue which you want both of you to have, which is chastity. As others have pointed out, there’s people who have stayed virgins but done everything under the sun except intercourse. Others (like me) who have done all those things and made a conscious decision to stop and wait until they got married.
I think your friend is wrong to say it’s too much to wait until marriage because it is an achievable goal, but I think he’s absolutely spot on when he says a girl’s past shouldn’t matter. Not everyone starts out with the goal of waiting until marriage, not everyone who goes to church as an adult is raised in a practicing Catholic home growing up. Everyone has a history full of good things and bad things and in between things, yourself included. Love means learning those things about a partner and loving them anyways. Being able to see how those experiences have shaped them in to the person they are today and knowing that person to be more than the sum of their past.
On a side note, I think the whole concept of "born again virgins" is bullshit. God will forgive anybody of any sin if they repent, but that doesn't mean the sinful past never happened.
No, it doesn’t mean it never happened. But here’s my two cents, based on extensive conversations about sex, chastity, virginity and purity with a few different priests and having gotten variations of the same themes from all of them over the last 8 years and as of this moment being married for slightly less than 11 days.
I used to totally agree with the idea that born again virgins are bullshit. Then I got married, and I started to understand what all those priests were talking about when they said there was a difference between physically being a virgin and spiritually being a virgin.
Choosing not have sex anymore and be chaste, breaking the habits that pull you in to that lifestyle, changing your routines and ways of interacting with people as part of that whole … transformation is the word I guess, from an unchaste person to a chaste one … it really does change not just your life but your whole understanding of sexuality, and I think that process is something which builds a great deal of purity and self-respect in a person.
Married sex is not the same as not-married sex, and I’m not talking about how it feels physically. On an emotional level … it’s just completely different. As I said I’ve only been married for 11 days so I’m still processing and figuring out what I even mean about that. The clearest I can say it is that I didn’t expect to feel like a virgin on my wedding night but I did.
I hope you’re able to develop a more charitable attitude towards people, and encourage you to think about the kind of man your future wife deserves and work to be that person. I know when I was praying for my husband before I met him, I wanted one like 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. God has been very good to me, and I am sure he will be good to you too.