One lesson that I remember from my high school health class is that “virginity” is subject to one’s own definition of sex.

In my sophomore year of high school, I dated S**a– a junior. I was never crazy about him, but he adored me and the flattery was enough to keep me with him. We had been dating for about three months when his parents left town for the weekend and he invited me over.

I brought us a bottle of SoCo to get myself through what I guessed was coming. We sipped my favorite cocktail: the Mamie Taylor. We talked and laughed and I felt like such a grownup. Finally, he paused the movie and gave me that longing, tender, kiss me look. I convinced myself I had fallen into an inebriation-induced infatuation with him, but I think my feelings were more about the romanticism of the evening, the power of that look, and the kiss that followed. It was just like the movies!

He led me upstairs where I drunkenly complied with the messy, naked, nervous flailing of appendages. I loved the whole idea, but I was not feeling it. He never entered me, so to speak, but everything else that we could have done, we did. That was when I started to think to myself: Look at us. These two dirty, drunken teenagers saving themselves from the unforgivable act of real penetration. So what–we’re still pure this way?

It just didn’t make sense to me. I decided that while that was my furthest sexual endeavor, experiencing full-on penetration would not be that different from what we had done. And I hadn’t lost anything. I was no less pure, and if anything, I had grown as a person and learned a great deal about myself and society, and all of the falsities built up around this dazzling event.

I soon broke up with S**a, realizing that I was a lesbian (surprise!) and that the idea of men was far less appealing than I had convinced myself. I then realized that as for penile penetration, that was the furthest I would ever go, and that if I never had a penis in me, I would always be a virgin by most of society’s standard.

So what is virginity? Is it merely the introduction of a foreign body into my vagina? Must it be a penis? Does digital penetration count? What about oral sex? As a lesbian, will I ever lose my virginity? These questions have plagued me through my sexual exploration, and I still don’t know if I’m a virgin or not.

Oh, the other lesson I learned in that high school health class? It doesn’t really matter.