Editor’s note: This is Part 7 in a weekly series called “The Talk.” This series goes into topic areas relating to sex and culture that some may find sensitive in nature.

Virginity occupies a large space in the American media and cultural landscape; in fact, many people often get their ideas about virginity and the loss of it from the values of the media and culture.

Movies especially play an enormous part in the perception of virginity, specifically teen comedies.

The most notable 21st century example of this is the 1999 film, “American Pie,” which revolves around a group of high school seniors who made a pact to lose their virginities before graduation.

Other notable teen films, such as “The Breakfast Club,” “Sixteen Candles” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” depict virginity and the loss of it in a variety of ways.

As outlined in a study for the Sociological Review in 2009, Laura Carpenter interviewed a variety of people from diverse backgrounds about their experiences with virginity. It also connected their experiences to popular teen movies with themes surrounding virginity and attempted to attach different views of virginity to those films.

The study organized virginity into categories defining it as one of the following: a gift, a stigma, a process, irrelevant or as an act of worship.

The “giving” of one’s virginity to someone they love is a common cultural behavior and media trope.

However, men often see virginity as a burden that has to be dealt with, as is the case in films such as “American Pie” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”

Virginity for women can also be burdensome. However, in a way that is different from men and has historically had a large bearing on their social standing.

“Virginity is constructed as synonymous with purity for women,” said Alexia Angton, a doctoral student in the sociology department, in an email. “The virginal ideal is constructed as a woman who is white, innocent and pure.

“There is a double standard where women’s sexuality is expected to be suppressed or only accessible for the pleasure of men, but men are allowed and expected to be sexual.”

Men are also mocked for not living up to society’s standards of sexuality, albeit for the lack of sexual activity rather than the excess of it.

“When men are discussed in conversations of virginity, they are often mocked for not living up to gendered expectations of sexuality,” Angton said.

This attitude toward virginity was evident with the newest season of “The Bachelor,” where Colton Underwood, the “Bachelor” for the most recent season, was openly a virgin.

His virginity was a hot topic on the show this season, so much so that, according to Glamour, the words ‘virgin’ and ‘virginity’ were mentioned 70 times throughout the season. The words were mentioned 18 times in the season premiere alone.

In her opening introduction, one of the contestants even remarked she could not believe Underwood was a virgin, perhaps referring to his looks and status as a former contestant on “The Bachelorette” and as a former NFL football tight end.

While men are mocked for their sexual inactivity, women are mocked for their sexual activity.

“When expectations of women’s sexuality are challenged or resisted, narratives of women being impure and promiscuous are shown throughout the news, social media, and tv/film,” Angton said.

Virginity is largely a social construct and has very little medical backing. It was once thought that the breaking of the hymen was a signal that a woman was no longer a virgin.

This is not the case. The World Health Organization reported that the United Nations’ agencies were calling for a ban on virginity testing in October 2018.

Angton said the use of the hymen to signal virginity is “misleading because some women do not have hymens and/or the hymen can be broken doing other activities besides sex, such as riding a bike, horseback riding, etc.”

The traditional definition of virginity is heteronormative and often ignores LGBTQIA+ people and people of color, Angton said.

It is heteronormative in the sense that traditional definitions of virginity loss often center around penis to vagina penetration, leaving some people in the LGBTQIA+ community out in the dark as to what constitutes virginity, often leaving many people to define virginity for themselves.

Angton also blames these perceptions of virginity on the lack of “comprehensive sex education.”

“[It] influences these perceptions and causes men (and women, LGBTQIA+) to rely on the internet/social media for information on gendered and sexual expectations,” Angton said.

All of these factors combined can aid in extremely gendered perceptions of sex and relationships.

One internet-based group thrives on this misinformation and its celibacy, which they often see as being out of their own control.

Involuntary celibates, or incels, are a group of men who believe that society and specifically women are systematically denying them sex and relationships due to their looks and “third-wave feminism.”

This world view was first introduced to the public when Elliot Rodger, a 22 year-old man, went on a murderous rampage in Isla Vista, California in 2014, killing six people and injuring 14, as well as killing himself.

Rodger had distributed a manifesto to people he knew and posted several videos prior to the massacre in an attempt to explain and justify his actions.

Rodger claimed he was denied sex by women and called for “revenge” against women who “refused” to sleep with him. He referred to the day of his “revenge” as the “Day of Retribution.”

Incels idolized Rodger and called him “The Supreme Gentleman.” Some incels have disavowed Rodger and his actions, however. His acts even inspired a copycat attack in Toronto in April 2018.

The Toronto killer ran over 10 people with a van and praised Rodger in a video posted to Facebook prior to the killings.

These incels believe that women owe them sex, largely due to the societal expectation that a man’s masculinity comes from his access to sex.

“Often, an expectation of masculinity is to be very sexually active,” Angton said. “However, with incels they assume that having sex with women is something that they are entitled to due to media and societal social constructions of sexuality as well as religious doctrine. Thus, there is a sense of expectation and a viewing women as sexual objects.”