What is the virility myth? Read an extract from Sophia Smith Galer's book 'Losing It'

Do you remember the sex education you received?

Maybe it was putting a condom on a banana. There are photos of genitalia that show symptoms of STDs. You probably did not know how consent works. You may have believed that consent is a one-off yes/no that takes place at the start of a sexual encounter. You probably did not hear about pain during sex. You probably didn't hear anything relevant to the LGBTQ community. The list goes on and on.

If you've been searching for reliable, accurate information about sex on the internet, then this new book might be right for you.

Sophia Smith Galer investigated the harmful myths and misinformation caused by poor sex education, and unpicks and debunks some of the most damaging untruths we have absorbed about sex. Each chapter explores a different sex myth, including virginity, the hymen, vaginal tightness, penetration, male virility, and consent.

Smith Galer, a senior news reporter at VICE World News with a 388K-strong following on TikTok, allows readers to reflect on the real-life impact these myths have on us as individuals.

Journalist and author Sophia Smith Galer. Credit: Luke Jones

You might have been able to grow up with a solid foundation of knowledge about sex if this book had been published decades ago. Smith Galer states that future generations will know they have no virginity to lose, because virginity is a social construct.

Here is an extract from Smith Galer's Losing It chapter five.

The shag list was supposed to be ironic. Ben, Hildon and their housemates had written their conquests on a whiteboard in their fridge. They would see where they ranked when they needed milk, butter, or a beer. The shag list was never intended to pit the men against each other because they were in longterm relationships. It was supposed to be harmless fun, a way to remember the hedonism of student life.

Those who visited their house saw it differently. When mates came over, they focused on the names of Ben and Hildon, the two single men of the house. This was where the real competition was going to be. Every time friends came, the whiteboard was checked. Ben wiped the list off. It would be there again whenever they came around.

I would come back the next morning from dates and ask her if she was nice or not.

Ben was uncomfortable with the idea of dates being scrutinized and reduced to names on a whiteboard. Hildon, who was mocked by his blank list every time he needed to eat something, called a girl from home and invited her to stay for the weekend so he could say that he had slept with someone. Ben said that he acted like he was ashamed of her.

Ben says that he didn't mind being the butt of jokes, and that he was confident that his were funnier than anyone else. When they left the house, the whiteboard was wiped clean, and the shag list was never updated. It didn't make me feel better about myself. Hildon, who is also in a relationship with another person, admitted to being embarrassed about it. I guess, that's growth?

Come on, be a man. Don't be a pussy, grow a pair, and get laid. Either go hard or go home. I was thrust from the cattiness of an all-girls school into the far more frenzied environment of my student halls when I heard all of these masculinising refrains.

I met a lot of intelligent men at Durham, but I also met a lot of dumb men there. We both celebrate and criticize our lad culture in the UK. It didn't feel like a community at university. It felt like the culture. My friends and I would have to operate in it's shadow, sometimes mimicking it and sometimes hiding from it.

Young men participate in the same social structure wherever they live. The British boy is a frat boy. If you grew up in an environment where you were exposed to healthy ideas about masculinity, you will feel this doesn't apply to you. You may have had additional life experiences such as being part of a queer community, which have allowed you to escape this view.

Many men feel like they are divided into two groups: men who can and men who can't. Just like Ben's student house, if you want to be a part of it or not, it makes little difference. Visions of assertiveness are considered to be the ideal for the male. One young man tells me that they are taught to fuck without feeling.

The virginity myth has harmed women for a long time, and the opposite idea of sexual experience, prowess and success improving their status has hurt men. Sexual activity is a positive and you need to do more to be a man. Sexual success is very literally written into our definition of male identity, as the Latin word for'man' means 'viper'.

Mass media makes men feel like they have to perform certain behaviors in order to achieve sexual success, because we are conditioned to think of a strong jaw and a well-paid job as masculine. Downing the most pints was included at Durham. Dating reveals uncomfortable truths that reinforce the gender script, as most heterosexual women would say that many things other than looks and power can make a man attractive. American women wanted their husbands to be more experienced than them. Women go for dominance with pro-social behaviours, such as being agreeable or helping others, rather than alone, according to three studies. A survey of 7,000 Australian online dating users found that women aged eighteen to twenty-five placed a significant weight on age, education, intelligence, income, trust and emotional connection, in contrast to men of the same age group, who assigned higher priority to attractiveness and physical build in female partners. Older people care less about looks than younger people, and there are other factors that influence a power dynamic. Straight men are more likely to be open to date unemployed partners than the other way around, according to a number of small surveys by dating sites.

A world where social dynamics are in dramatic change is colliding with the myth of virility, and the fact that men and women continue to buy into it. The number of men who hadn't had sex in the past year had increased threefold, and it is likely that spending longer periods of time in education and living with your parents is having an impact on that. Women entering the workplace means that the stakes are often higher, and that women no longer rely on marriage to be economically stable. Being pickier is something that dating apps encourage, which is something that we need to take seriously given that online dating has seen a rise in the number of relationships started. The internet figure who calls himself the "Worst Online Dater" has conducted social experiments to try to demystify dating, and his conclusion is that it is the most popular dating app with 55 billion matches to date. The bottom 80 per cent of men in terms of attractiveness were competing for the bottom 22 per cent of women, and the top 78 per cent of women were competing for the top 20 per cent of men. A man with an average attractiveness can only expect to be liked by a small percentage of women.

There is a reason to worry about this. The study found that men who perceived themselves to be less masculine were more likely to engage in violent behavior. It's not that all men who feel that way become violent, it's just that for those who get stressed out about it. It is tempting to use the word "incel" freely here, especially when the security threat that is posed by celibate ideology seems to be increasing, and when governments aren't taking it seriously enough. Before we use the word incel, we need to know what it means, who it is, and who needs help.

Losing It will be published on April 14, 2022, byHarperCollins Publishers.

The blurb for Losing It was provided by Rachel Thompson.