“From a policy perspective, encouraging young people to interpret virginity as a gift- a stance consistent with many abstinence-only sex education programs- is a double-edged sword, protecting against one potential negative consequence of sexual activity (pregnancy and/or STD transmission) but increasing the likelihood of another deleterious consequence (emotional distress due to partner's nonreciprocation), In contrast, even adherents to the stigma frame whose partners ridiculed them experienced virginity loss as positive on balance, inasmuch as they lost their stigma. Participants who saw virginity loss as a process achieved the goal of gaining knowledge merely through losing their virginity, thus their partners could in practice wield little power over them.”
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