about the film / video clips / crew / cast / press
HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY is the new documentary-in-progress by Therese Shechter, director of the award-winning and provocative I WAS A TEENAGE FEMINIST.
The US government has spent 1.5 billion dollars promoting it. It has fetched tens of thousands of dollars at auction. And 50 years after the sexual revolution, it continues to define a young woman’s morality and self-worth.
Female virginity has been ‘restored’ through surgery, fetishized by porn and commoditized by popular culture. Despite all this, there is no one definition of how it’s lost (ask any lesbian), and honest conversation about real-life female sexuality is all too rare.
With great humor and empathy, filmmaker Therese Shechter uses her own path out of ‘virginity’ to guide the narrative, creating a far-reaching and very personal dialogue with women along the sexuality spectrum, and bearing witness to candid and moving stories about each character’s decision to have—or not have—sex.
Layering verite, interviews and vintage sex-ed films with candid self-reflection and wry narration, How to Lose Your Virginity reveals the myths, dogma and misconceptions behind this so-called precious gift to explore why female virginity is still so valued in our otherwise hyper-sexualized society.
In a culture where “Be sexy, but don’t have sex” is the overwhelming message to young women, the film asks: Does virginity exist, or is it a social construct created to keep girls in line?
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Go beyond the film to our First Person Project, a crowd-sourced collection of sexual debuts and deferrals.
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