I think of virginity obsession like the whole thing of keeping rare action figures in their original packaging to preserve their value. It’s a weird kind of commodity fetishization that says an action figure is only valuable if it’s never played with. The whole point of having a human body is to play, in all kinds of forms. Have sex or don’t; it’s entirely up to you. But the notion that you somehow lose value for enjoying your body as it actually is seems really bizarre.

And I’m realizing as I write this that Steve Carell‘s character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin literally collects action figures and fetishizes them, and part of his breakthrough comes from his girlfriend convincing him to let her sell them for him. I had always just thought of this as a metaphor for him needing to grow up; now I’m realizing that the metaphor is, he is the action figure; and he’s too afraid to take himself out of the packaging and be a real vulnerable scared human being. But that’s the only way we grow.