Extreme Virginity: From No Touching to No Sucking, and Everything In Between - Part 1

For many co-eds, when college isn't about trying to catch your professor saying something offensive on your phone's camera, posting Facebook statuses complaining about how busy you are, and sledding down hills on a tray you stole from the dining hall, it's about sex.  Lots of sex.  In bars and frats and dorms and cars and quads and empty classrooms and library cubicles and almost anywhere that provides some semblance of privacy for 3 to 9 minutes.

Yet an admittedly smaller population of collegiettes™ attends parties, suffers through long lectures, leads clubs, and, yes, sleds down hills on trays they stole from the dining hall, without the sex.  In fact, some vow to get married without ever touching a man.

They're "extreme" virgins—women whose celibacy extends beyond baby-making and permeates every aspect of their interpersonal lives.  

Some draw the line at a handshake or a hug, others are comfortable with anything above the belt.  Most cite religious faith as a motivation for their virginity, many note secular advantages to their abstinent lifestyle, and they all live their college lives without walks of shame and birth control alarms.

Hannah* is a junior at Columbia University.  She's studying to be a doctor, involved on campus, friendly, beautiful, and—as an observant Jew—completely, totally, and happily abstinent.  Hannah observes a Jewish law known as "shomer negieh"—a practice that completely forbids any affectionate touching between a man and a woman.  (Even handshakes and high-fives are off-limits.)  She hopes that the first contact she'll ever have with her husband—the first handhold and snuggle session, much less blowjob or sleepover—will be on her wedding day.

"I chose to be 'shomer' because I honestly believe it's the proper thing to do under the Jewish law I follow," Hannah explains. "I also believe that it fosters very stable relationships with members of the opposite sex and leads to an appreciation of who they are, not just based on physical closeness."

While it might be "the proper thing to do," it is certainly not the easiest.  Between natural impulses, college parties, campus culture, and an over-sexed society, choosing to practice extreme forms of abstinence is hard.

Really hard.

"Anyone who tells you it's easy is probably lying," Hannah confesses, "In fact, at times it feels completely unnatural. Many friends and people I know don't hold by [their "extreme" virginity] once they are in a serious, committed relationship.  It simply becomes too difficult."

Forget the restraint it takes to remain inches away from your fiancé until you've said "I do," for extreme virgins, daily interactions—from shaking hands with a client to pushing up against strangers on a crowded subway car—are potential violations of their sexual code of ethics.