Some people claim that when a woman loses her virginity, there is a change that makes her somehow different, less innocent. But is there really? Of course not. It is nothing more than a double bind, a lose-lose situation, that has been used against women for centuries to subjugate them under a male-dominated society. Women who remain virgins are labelled as “prudes” while sexually active women are labelled as “sluts.” However, don’t be fooled. It is not just men throwing these words around: it is women too, maybe even more harshly than men. The stigma behind the word “virginity” needs to change. Virginity is nothing but an outdated concept that should not be used as a description of a person for one simple reason: society’s sex-life has changed. Virginity used to be more than just whether or not a woman had sex. It correlated directly with how “innocent” and “pure” she was. Back when women could not marry out of their own free will, men paid a dowry to the father of the girl they intended to marry, signifying a transfer of property. Many factors went into the amount of the dowry such as social class, attractiveness, and potential gains, but one of the most important factors was whether or not the girl has had sex before. If a woman did not engage in pre-marital sex, she was pure, innocent, and worth a lot. If a woman was not a virgin, she was labelled as “damaged goods” and the dowry her father received for her hand in marriage was significantly less. This is not the case anymore. Society has evolved and women have evolved with it. For the most part, women in America are independent. They get to decide what they do with their bodies and who they do it with. But, with this power over one’s own body came something: the double bind. Women can no longer pronounce their sex life without some form of judgment. Whether it comes from men, women, or anything in between, women are judged on their sex life. Desp