There were many fashion-no-nos I made in middle school. Thankfully, this wasn’t one of them.

Delias, with its ever-kitchy *, has once again reassured my faith in the masses. The t-shirt pictured above features the lovable Woodstock to put trash in “it’s” (sic) place. This egregious grammatical whoop-si-daisy is not getting as much press as it should. The designers should be embarrassed! And yet I hardly hear about it.

At least it puts my issues into some sort of perspective. Sure, I have a million finals coming up, and essays galore, but at least I did not publicly announce that I am completely and utterly incapable of using the apostrophe. (You know, that little thing by the return key?)

I am sorry that public schools have failed Woodstock so badly.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the concept of “virginity” lately, since the publication of the now-infamous article about a chastity club at Harvard. A good discussion of the issues the article brings up ensued in The Fray. On top of that, last night I dreamed that I met Dan Savage (he worked at Columbia?) and promised him I would write about this topic.

So…virginity. What is it? Janie Fredell, the co-head of True Love Revolution at Harvard, doesn’t think that oral sex “counts” as sex and calls it “disgusting and degrading.” Then again, she’s incredibly naive about a lot of other things, too. Must one have had heterosexual, vaginal intercourse to be considered no longer a “virgin?” By whose definition is The L Word’s Shane a virgin? Surprisingly, a large chunk of society.

I suggest we retire the concept of virginity or find a better word to describe the state. Considering the multitudinous forms that sexual contact can take and the risks we must all consider, the idea that someone who has performed one kind of sex act is less of a virgin than someone who has performed another is obsolete. Is there a point, in American culture, in putting a name on it? It’s essentially a semantic issue, but its repercussions are far more widespread. I’d like to hear readers’ perspectives on this matter.