how to
lose your
virginity
press kit
Written and Directed by Therese Shechter
Produced by Therese Shechter & Lisa Esselstein
Click to watch the trailer
Click to Go to virginitymovie.com
US/Canada Distribution: Women Make Movies
International Sales: Cat & Docs
Color, 67 minutes, HD, English
* Pro Tip:
There are
lots of
live links
in this
press kit!
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Contents
* Click on page title
to go directly to page
Log Line & Synopses............................................................3
Images & Video to Download........................................... 5
Director’s Statement............................................................ 6
Virginity Culture: The Facts............................................7
Interactive: The V-Card Project....................................8
Press Quotes...............................................................................9
Audience Feedback............................................................. 10
The Filmmakers........................................................................ 11
The Participants................................................................... 13
Featured Experts...................................................................15
A Q&A with Therese Shechter...................................16
Recent and Upcoming Screenings............................ 18
2
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Log Line & Synopses
Log Line
This eye-opening and irreverent documentary explores why female virginity is still so valued in our hypersexualized society. Traveling through the worlds of religion, history, pop culture and $30 internet hymens, the film
reveals the myths and dogma behind a rite of passage that everyone thinks about but few truly understand.
Short Synopsis
It is a cornerstone of Christian mythology, has launched both purity balls and porn franchises, defines a young
woman’s morality–but has no medical definition. Enter the magical world of virginity, where a white wedding
dress can restore a woman’s innocence and replacement hymens can be purchased online.
Filmmaker Therese Shechter uses her own path out of virginity to explore why our sex-crazed society cherishes
this so-called precious gift. Along the way, we meet sex educators, virginity auctioneers, abstinence advocates, and
young men and women who bare their tales of doing it—or not doing it. How to Lose Your Virginity uncovers the
myths and misogyny surrounding a rite of passage that many obsesses about but few truly understand.
Medium Synopsis
Female virginity has been ‘restored’ through surgery, fetishized by porn and glorified by popular culture. A
woman’s ‘virginity’ recently fetched $780,000 at auction, and an ‘artificial hymen’ sells online for $30. Fifty years
after the sexual revolution, this outmoded construct continues to define a young woman’s morality and self-worth.
Why does virginity hold such importance in our sex-crazed society? Unleashing her trademark inquisitive, irreverent voice, filmmaker Therese Shechter sets her sights on this rite of passage that almost everyone experiences,
but few fully understand. Layering verite, interviews and vintage sex-ed films with candid reflection and wry narration, HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY is a personal journey and an eye-opening study of modern sexuality.
Using her own path out of ‘virginity’ to frame the narrative, Shechter creates a far-reaching dialogue with
women across the sexuality spectrum: Lena, once shamed for writing about her sex life, is now organizing around
it; Judy, a Julliard-trained violinist prays to keep mind and body pure while touring with provocateur Lady Gaga;
Meghan, a transgender woman re-evaluates what sex and virginity mean to her changing body.
When Shechter gets engaged, she too gets caught up in the virgin industrial complex of the bridal salon as she
tries on The Big White Dress and wonders if it makes her look virginal; and on the set of porn franchise “Barely
Legal,” she find the ultimate contradiction in a pair of white cotton panties.
Using irreverent humor and candid revelations, the documentary showcases a daring commitment to deeply personal storytelling.The film and interactive spin-offs take the narrative back from the distorted messages of media,
religion and porn, to empower us to chart our own sexual paths.
3
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Long Synopsis:
Female virginity has been ‘restored’ through surgery, fetishized by porn and glorified by popular culture. A
woman’s ‘virginity’ recently fetched $780,000 at auction, and an ‘artificial hymen’ sells online for $30. Fifty years
after the sexual revolution, this outmoded construct continues to define a young woman’s morality and self-worth.
As Conservative politicians make clear every day, we are in the midst of a ‘war on women.’ More than an attack
on women’s reproductive rights, the current climate silences and shames women over their own sexual lives. Ironically, in this culture, sex is “everywhere” and yet, barely any space exists for open, non-judgmental dialogue and
exploration of sexualities.Why does virginity still hold importance in our sex-crazed society? It’s into this world,
camera in tow, that filmmaker Therese Shechter ventures.
Unleashing the same inquisitive and irreverent voice that drove her first documentary, I WAS A TEENAGE
FEMINIST, she sets her sights on this milestone that almost everyone experiences, but few fully understand. Layering verite, interviews and vintage sex-ed films with candid reflection and wry narration, HOW TO LOSE YOUR
VIRGINITY is a personal journey and an eye-opening study of modern sexuality.
Everyone has a virginity story to tell, and Shechter uses her own path out of ‘virginity’ to frame the narrative. In
this way, she creates a far-reaching, personal dialogue with women across the sexuality spectrum, bearing witness
to candid and moving stories about the decision to have—or not have—sex.
With equal parts humor and empathy, the film introduces us to real women talking candidly about the complexities of their sexual lives: Lena, once shamed for writing about her sex life, now organizing around it; Judy, a
Julliard-trained violinist praying to keep mind and body pure while touring with provocateur Lady gaga; Meghan,
a transgender woman re-evaluating what sex and virginity mean to her in a changing body; and Abiola, sex educator and multi-media curator who has chosen to be celibate herself. And in a crowded fluorescent-bulbed school
hallway, a ‘Greek Chorus’ of teenagers who can’t agree on one definition for virginity.
Traveling through the revelatory terrain of US pop culture, religion and history, the film exposes a landscape of
contradictions for young women. We meet sex educators, porn producers and abstinence ideologues, revealing
how ‘hookup culture’ and ‘abstinence-until-marriage’ both exploit the age-old virgin/whore dichotomy.
When Shechter gets engaged mid-film, she finds herself caught up in the same dichotomy. Standing in a plush
bridal salon, a 40-something sex-savvy feminist trying on The Big White Dress, she’s drawn to its pouffy allure,
yet furious at its chaste implications. And when she spends the day on the set with “Barely Legal” porn producer
Erica McLean, we see the ultimate contradiction in a pair of white cotton panties worn by an adult video actress.
We meet experts caught up in fraught conversations about female sexuality: Former US Surgeon General Dr.
Joycelyn Elders, fired for her outspoken views on sex education; COSMOGIRL! Editor Susan Schulz, deluged
with complaints when an issue included a diagram of a vulva; and United Nations’ Dr. Henia Dakkak, who
denounces virginity testing and its devastating consequences.
HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY is the first documentary to fully examine how the concept of virginity
shapes the sexual lives of young women and men by journeying beyond the Abstinence movement to examine the
intersecting forces of history, politics, religion and popular culture. It is also the first to do so by employing humor,
a first-person style and personal revelation to encourage a direct dialogue on sexuality between the filmmakers and
our young adult audience.
The project showcases Shechter’s distinctive and irreverent humor, and her commitment to personal revelation
to disarm and engage her audience. The larger project includes an interactive online crowd-sourced storytelling
project about ‘sexual debuts and deferrals,’ with a prototype mobile app in development; an ongoing giveaway
of V-Cards, a subversive twist on coffee-shop punch cards; and the Blog, founded in 2008 to address global and
domestic issues around male and female virginity and sexuality in real time.
HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY, along with its social media spin-offs, reveals how arbitrary and absurd our
obsession with virginity is. Whether young women choose to have sex or not, this film strips away the power of
the V-Word to create a community for building healthy, authentic sexual lives.
4
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Images & Video
*Click on image to
watch the trailer.
For more embedable
clips, click here.
How To Lose Your Virginity Trailer [4:18]
* Click on the image below to get hi res! jpgs
Abiola Abrams, author and sex educator.
Photo: Therese Shechter
Brita Long and Daniel Fleck at Little
Purity Diner. Photo: Therese Shechter
Billboard in New York City subway
station. Photo: Therese Shechter
On the set of Barely Legal trying on
white panties. Photo: Jenna Rosher
Therese Shechter,
director/producer
Diagram of the hymen from a 1940s
sex ed film. Photo: courtesy of Trixie Films
Film Logo with cherries.
Lisa Esselstein,
producer
Image courtesy of Trixie Films
Therese Shechter tries on “The Big
White Dress” Photo: Anneliese Paull
5
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Director’s Statement:
Therese Shechter
HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY begins in the city where I grew up. On a street I walked countless times.
Across from a flower shop which was once the basement apartment. Next to a salon called Shagg, where I had sex
for the first time.
When I finally lost my virginity at age 23, it wasn’t because I finally found Mr. Right. I had simply grown tired
of waiting for him. So, I had sex with the next guy who asked. Looking back on my haze of fear, shame and confusion, I wondered if others felt the same way I had, and why it’s still so excruciating to talk honestly about sex. I
also wondered what exactly I had lost.
My early myth-shattering sexual experience as a jumping off point for a quest to understand the impact of idealized virginity on young women; virginity’s historical role in U.S. culture; its power to mold a girl’s self-image; its
commodification-something manufactured, sold, given away, taken.
Using the grammar of popular culture to deconstruct its message of “be sexy but don’t have sex,” I address
young women in subversive, disarming and entertaining ways to broach sometimes uncomfortable topics. The
style of HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY is open-minded, accepting, and positively reinforcing. While some
stories may be explicit, they are not intended to titillate, but to present an honest telling of sexual experiences. The
interviews are shot without extensive set- ups in an atmosphere of trust and openness with subjects. The goal is
to open doors to private spaces and show images of real women that are rarely seen on a screen. Everyone has a
virginity story to tell, but this project isn’t just about virginity, it’s about the larger power of connection and community through storytelling.
For nearly a decade, my work has looked at the world through a feminist lens. I WAS A TEENAGE FEMINIST
(modern feminism), HOW I LEARNED TO SPEAK TURKISH (sexuality), #SLUTWALKNYC (rape culture)
and WOMANLY PERFECTION (body image) all share my personal style and tone, the way I use humor, my intimacy with subjects, and how I leverage my personal experience to make universal points. They exist on a thematic
continuum that runs through all of my work: The ability of each of us to define who we are and what we need,
without judgment or shame.
My first-person female voice is grounded in the tradition of feminist filmmaking that treats the personal as
political, that our personal issues are a reflection of a systemic problem, and that we are not crazy nor alone in
experiencing them. My personal arc guides the larger narrative; I explore public issues by thinking through my
own intimate experiences. I am pushing back on the conventional wisdom that men’s personal stories are universal
while women’s are only specific. I consider the work a radical conduit to dismantle deeply held beliefs on female
sexuality, and my outspoken voice recently led a conservative blogger to label me a ‘Brazen Advocate of Slut
Culture,’ (a distinction I am proud of).
I’ve always been a DIY filmmaker, working on shoestring resources, depending on in-kind contributions and
community fundraising one $25 donation at a time. I find it is worth the effort when I received comments like this
one from a rough-cut viewer:
“Thank you for helping me put my confusing, frustrated thoughts on sex and relationships into perspective. It
makes me feel less like an outcast and more able to take ownership of how I feel and not to listen to what others
tell me.”
6
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Virginity Culture: The Facts
HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY is the first documentary to fully examine how the concept of virginity shapes
the sexual lives of young women and men by journeying beyond the Abstinence movement to examine the intersecting forces of history, politics, religion and popular culture. Arbitrary and absurd, our obsession with this outmoded
construct continues to define a young woman’s morality and self-worth.
Virginity and Sexual Assault: Women’s bodies and sexuality are controlled through intimidation, shame and misinformation. Conservative and religious mores valuing women solely by the status of their virginity dismiss rape as
something sexually active women are ‘asking for.’
•
1 in 10 women aged 18-24, who had sex before age 20, report first experiences of sex as non-consensual.1
Virginity and Youth Sexuality: Most high school and college students have never received any comprehensive sex
education, and one third of entering freshman self-identify as virgins. Messaging around sex comes from two totally
divergent sources: abstinence, which promote chastity until marriage, and so-called ‘hookup culture’ which reinforce
an ‘everybody is doing it’ atmosphere
•
By their 19th birthday, seven in ten teens of both sexes have had intercourse.2
•
Many sexually experienced teens (46% of males and 33% of females) do not receive formal instruction about
contraception before they first have sex.2
•
Although 15–24-year-olds represent only one-quarter of the sexually active population, they account for nearly
half (9.1 million) of the 18.9 million new cases of STIs each year.2
•
On average, young people have sex for the first time at about age 17, but don’t marry until their mid-20s. Young
adults are at increased risk of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections for nearly a decade.2
Virginity and Queer Youth: Queer youth are totally left out of conversations on becoming sexually active
•
Queer youth are five times more likely to attempt suicide as their straight peers.3
Virginity and Abstinence:
•
Between 1996 and federal Fiscal Year 2010, Congress funneled a total of over one-and-a-half billion tax-payer
dollars into abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.4
•
The 2010 health care reform package made available $50 million annually for five years (2010–2014; a total of
$250 million) for grants to the states to promote sexual abstinence outside of marriage.4
•
Among youth participating in “virginity pledge” programs, 88% broke the pledge and had sex before marriage.5
•
Once pledgers began to have sex, they had more partners in a shorter period of time and were less likely to use
contraception or condoms than were their non-pledging peers.5
•
No abstinence-only program has been proven through rigorous evaluation to help youth delay sex for a significant period of time, help youth decrease their number of sex partners, or reduce STI or pregnancy rates.5
In the midst of silence, misinformation, sexism, and society’s corrosive messages, HOW TO LOSE YOUR
VIRGINITY and its online spin-offs will:
•
Push-back against a culture that is shaming about sex, especially for women who are judged no matter what
sexual choices they make
•
Create new language around virginity ‘loss’ to reframe it as an ongoing process of becoming sexual
•
Create safe space communities where users can anonymously share stories
•
Challenge sex ed curricula to include different timelines and sexualities, as well as consent and pleasure
1. Centers for Disease Control 2. Guttmacher Institute 3. Pediatrics, 2011 4. SIECUS 5. Advocates for Youth
7
8
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Interactive Multimedia:
The V-Card Project
Our audience engages in a broad spectrum of sexual activity, and many with little to no experience report they
feel ignored by most other online discussions about sex. In addition, a significant number of contributors are
survivors of rape and tell their stories in this forum. By seeing how others tell their own stories, and sharing their
own, our audience can see there’s no ‘right way’ to do sex.
The V-Card Project gives our audience several ways of interacting:
* We are
currently
seeing funding
to finish this
project!
The V-Card Diaries: Over 200 crowd-sourced long-form essays about ‘sexual
debuts and deferrals’ in a unique interactive interface. This project was recently
on exhibit at The Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show. Click here to use it online.
The ‘how to lose your virginity’ unlimited
V-Card
Each new experience is a virginity to lose.
A
V-cardt
ge
You p!
to Kee
TURN OVER FOR MORE INFO
The Experience Engine (Demo
only) A simple mad-libs quiz-like
app that crowd-sources live data
and allows users to track their
sexual histories. Demo site link.
☛
Reusable ‘V-Cards’. Inspired by coffee
punch cards, users can track and punch
multiple virginity losses to challenge and
subverts the idea that virginity loss is a
one-time before/after thing. Soon to be
mobile app! Click here to get your own.
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Press Quotes
“Virginity is a powerful
and malleable concept,
as evidenced by the
teenagers in Therese
Shechter’s smart,
funny and provoking
documentary.”
Soraya Chemaly,
Huffington Post
“[The film] actually
tackles one of the last
taboos in our culture’s
discussion of sex: the
deliberate decision not
to participate in it.”
J. Maureen Henderson,
Forbes.com
It’s refreshing to hear
such forthright voices
in a world where any
debate about virginity is
often so conflicting or
one-sided.”
The Guardian (UK)
“
“Shechter’s ability
to teach, dismantle,
expose and explore
is remarkable. The
audience is also left
with respect for
everyone’s stories. When
a documentary can do
that, it succeeds in a
big way.”
Leigh Kolb,
Bitch Flicks
“Shechter seems like
the perfect filmmaker to
tackle the complexities
around virginity. It’s a
topic that far too many
people are obsessed
about, probably for all
the wrong reasons.”
Basil Tsoikos,
What (not) To Doc
“Her work to highlight
what she calls the
‘virginity culture’ may
resonate as loudly in
Indonesia and other
developing countries as
in the United States.”
The Jakarta Globe
“The world needs
virginity taken off its
pedestal, and this could
be just the film to do it.”
Em & Lo
“Shechter and her film
‘How To Lose Your
Virginity’ are part of
a new vanguard of
feminist thinkers and
media makers seeking to
redefine how we think
about virginity. Or better
yet, to do away with the
concept altogether.”
Rachel Hills,
Daily Life (Australia)
* Click here for more press quotes and stories.
9
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
10
Audience Feedback
"I loved that the film didn’t take a specific viewpoint and
exploit the other like so many documentaries usually do,
and I loved that she interviewed so many different types
of women with such different personalities and views on
sex” Student, Eastern Washington University
* Click here for
more quotes.
“Thank you. I don't know what it's going to take for me to
achieve a normal sex drive or a normal sex life, but I feel
more comforted that maybe one day it'll happen.” Nicole S.
"As someone who has dealt first-hand with the virginity
movement and its damaging effects, I was so thankful that
there are people fighting against this awfulness." Anna, 18
In an environment where someone’s value is often based
on subjective ideals like purity and virginity, [the film]
helped us all dispel these notions and challenged us to
think about our own beliefs in an inclusive way.”
Brian, Harvard University student
“After I lost my virginity, I thought of three people to tell:
My best friend, my college roomie and you for the blog.”
Ferrette, 27
"Thank you so much for helping me put my
confusing, frustrated thoughts on sex and
relationships into perspective. It really makes me feel
so much less like an outcast.” High School student
"I’m so glad these
conversations on virginity
preceded my first
experience with hetero
sex." Sassafras, 25
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
The Filmmakers
Therese Shechter (Director/Producer/Writer)
deftly fuses humor-spiked, personal narrative
with grass roots activism to chronicle 21st Century feminism, most recently as the writer and director of the new
documentary HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY. She curates its online interactive offshoot, THE V-CARD
DIARIES, a crowed-sourced story collection about ‘sexual debuts and deferrals’ recently on exhibit at The Kinsey
Institute. Shechter was a panelist at Harvard University’s RETHINKING VIRGINITY conference as well as at
New York University, and has spoken about virginity, feminism and sexuality in universities, museums and even
cabarets. Her work has been covered by The Huffington Post, Forbes, The Guardian, Bitch Magazine and The
Jakarta Globe, among others, and she herself has written for the Chicago Tribune, Women & Hollywood and Adios
Barbie. Shechter’s first feature documentary, the award-winning I WAS A TEENAGE FEMINIST (2005), has
screened from Stockholm to Delhi to Rio and at Serbia’s first-ever Women’s Film Festival. Her short documentary HOW I LEARNED TO SPEAK TURKISH (2006) has also screened internationally and won a Documentary
Jury Prize at the Atlanta Film Festival. Prior to becoming a filmmaker, Therese was a visual editor at the Chicago
Tribune, where she provided visual direction for two Pulitzer-Prize-winning projects.
Lisa Esselstein (Producer, Addt’l Writing) is an award-winning producer with more than ten years
experience creating content for film and television. When not being Therese’s sounding board, she is a writer/
producer at Sundance Channel. There, she oversees national promotional campaigns for the network’s unscripted
original programming, including PUSH GIRLS, ICONOCLASTS, and the Peabody Award-winning BRICK CITY.
She also produces short-form documentary programming for scripted originals such as the Emmy-nominated TOP
OF THE LAKE, RECTIFY, and THE RED ROAD.Prior to Sundance Channel, Lisa produced and edited trailers
and behind-the-scenes documentaries for IFC Films. She was involved in marketing and release of more than 55
titles during her tenure, including Miranda July’s ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, James Franco’s
GOOD TIME MAX, Gus Van Sant’s PARANOID PARK, JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN,
and the Oscar-nominated TRANSAMERICA. Lisa and Therese met when both were volunteers at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and have been collaborators and partners-in-crime ever since. Her work is at builtbylisa.tv.
Marin Sander-Holzman (Editor, Addt’l Writing) is an editor and video artist living in Brook-
lyn NY. His editorial department feature film credits include The Laramie Project The Woodsman,
Lackawanna Blues, Shortbus, as well as the The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The Line, Dateline, The
Today Show, and Frontline: The Jesus Factor. He was the editor and contributing writer for the eight episode television series ARTSTAR, a collaboration with Deitch Projects. In 2012 Marin created Marin Media Lab, a place for
experiments in new media, contemporary performance and film. The lab was embedded at the American Realness
festival in NYC .You can learn more at www.marinmedialab.com.
Dina Guttmann (Editor)
has been a part of the documentary world since 1996, editing films shot all over
the world. She edited several PBS films including INDEPENDENT SPIRITS (2001), National Geographic’s THE
LAST ROYALS (2005), and A HEALING ART (2010); and many film festival successes such as COWGIRLS
(2002 USA Film Festival finalist), ILONA, UPSTAIRS (HBO Audience Award, 2005 Provincetown Film Festival), and MEZZANOTTE OBSCURA (Best Short Documentary, 2010 Kent Film Festival). Dina received a Bachelors of Arts in architecture with a specialization in film from Columbia University. She and her producing partner,
veteran editor Toby Shimin, run the production company Dovetail Films.
Jude Ray (Consulting Producer) is a award-winning documentary filmmaker, whose producing, associ-
ate producing and writing credits include prime-time specials and series for major national and international broadcasters, including PBS, HBO, NHK, A&E and Turner Broadcasting, Swedish, Australian, Irish, Danish, Dutch TV.
Her films have premiered at Sundance, the Human Rights Watch Film Festivals and on PBS’s documentary series,
POV. As story and media strategist, Ray works with documentary and fiction filmmakers to strengthen narrative, mes-
11
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
saging and distribution strategies, and designs and implements campaigns for high-profile social issue media clients.
She’s a founding Board Member and Co- President of the Philadelphia Women in Film and Television (PWIFT).
Stephen Thomas Cavit (Composer) recently completed the score for the documentary THE
GREATER GOOD. His score for EVERYTHING’S COOL premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and he
has contributed music to the films CHUCK & BUCK and THE GOOD GIRL for director Miguel Arteta (Sundance
2000 and 2002) and the documentary BLUE VINYL (Sundance 2002). In 2008, Stephen was awarded a regional
Emmy Award for his work on the PBS series COMMUNITY STORIES as well as a residency with the prestigious
St. James Cathedral Choir in Seattle, the first in it’s 100 year history.
Anneliese Paull (Cinematographer) is a cinematographer and producer/shooter who works exten-
sively in the documentary and reality television field. Her work has been featured on HBO: Documentary, A&E,
MTV, and truTV, in addition to ABC: News productions of Hopkins and NY Med. With a background in narrative
filmmaking at NYU’s film and television production program, Anneliese brings years of lighting and storytelling
experience to the often hectic world of documentary filmmaking. Most recently, she has collaborated with producer Lisa Esselstein on numerous commercials and branded content for the Sundance Channel. Her work can be
viewed at her website apaulldp.com.
Ruben O’Malley (Cinematographer)
shoots for film and television and was one of the DPs of I WAS A
TEENAGE FEMINIST. Most recently Ruben completed production on three feature films, ONCE MORE WITH
FEELING (dir. Jeff Lipsky), TWELVE THIRTY (dir. Jeff Lipsky, opening nationwide in August 2010) and HARVEST (dir. Marc Meyers). Building on a strong documentary shooting background and his own film GO ARMY,
he continues to work in TV, with FORGOTTEN ELLIS ISLAND (NEH, American Experience) and INDY SEX
(IFC) currently airing.
Jenna Rosher (Cinematographer)
has produced, directed and filmed a wide variety of social, political
and music documentaries for television and film. Her work has been featured on MTV, VH1, HBO, USA Network,
Nat Geo, TLC, Discovery Channel, BBC, Sundance Channel, A&E, ESPN, ABC and CBS. In 2004, she directed
the critically acclaimed documentary DAVE AND TREY GO TO AFRICA. In 2005, Jenna worked as a co-cinematographer on JESUS CAMP, a documentary about an evangelical summer camp for kids which earned a 2007
Academy Award Nomination. Her feature documentary JUNIOR won the Best Documentary prize at the 2009
Woodstock Film Festival and the 2009 Audience Award at Sheffield Docfest, UK.
Luke Murphy (Animator) is a freelance writer, animator, filmmaker and photographer based in Toronto. He
was born in West Berlin during the middle of the Cold War (He misses it) and brought up in the very lovely city
of Kilkenny in Ireland. At the National College of Art and Design in Dublin he studied graphic design, and later
earned a master’s in film from Dublin Institute of Technology. Luke contributed animation to Therese Shechter’s
previous film I WAS A TEENAGE FEMINIST. He can be reached at lukemurphy.net.
Ellice Litwak (Associate Producer) is interested in exploring the areas between autobiography and
fiction, and has contributed her writing, editing and research expertise to this documentary. She received a BA in
Sociology from SUNY New Paltz, where she also studied Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. While pursuing her undergraduate degree she researched queer performance activism, contentious movements in psychiatry,
and feminist theories on labor. In addition to this documentary project, Ellice works for a New York-based LGBTQ
Jewish organization.
Steven Melendez (Interactive Web Developer)
is a journalist, software developer and a member
of public radio station WNYC’s award-winning data news team, where he’s contributed to projects ranging from
county-by-county nationwide election coverage to analysis of the most common dog names and breeds in new York
City. He holds an MA in Journalism from Northwestern University, where he was awarded a full scholarship for
aspiring programmer journalists from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and a BA magna cum laude in
computer science from Harvard university.
12
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
The Participants
Therese Shechter (filmmaker/narrator): “I lost my virginity at 23 in this basement
apartment. It’s now a flower shop called Bloom next to a salon called Shagg. I
didn’t feel any different, and I can’t believe this was what all the fuss was about.
A guy put his penis into my vagina and poof...I was no longer a virgin.”
Lena Chen: ”I guess
there’s just a lot of
assumptions involved
when someone is writing
about sex openly
because, presumably,
the only people willing
to do that publicly are
sexual deviants.”
Sarah DiMuro: “People
are fascinated with
someone who decides
not to have sex, and
they look for that thing
that’s wrong with you.
She’s not fat, she’s
not Mormon....it’s never
religious, it’s Mormon.”
Abiola Abrams: ”Men
do expect that you’ve
had some sex, but they
don’t want to talk
about it. They still want
to have the illusion that
you had kind of a semichaste past.”
13
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Judy Kang (violinist on
tour with Lady Gaga):
”The way I live life is to
be pure, and not only
in a physical sense,
but you know, mentally,
emotionally, and
spiritually as well.”
Ellen Westberg (former
evangelical Christian)::
“I really believe the only
reason I got married so
young was for sex.”
Brita Long: ”I think of myself as a
technical virgin. Because I haven’t had
the penis-in-vagina sex but I’ve kind of
done everything else.”
Daniel Fleck, her boyfriend: “I describe
myself to my friends as a virgin, and
they understand because they’re virgins
as well.”
Erica McLean (Producer,
Barely Legal): ”I’ve used
girls that are like 23, 24,
that look young. If they
look young, then it’s ok,
because it represents
the first time as long as
we keep them, you know,
really clean looking.
Meghan Currie (recently
transitioned trans* woman):
“What will virginity look like
as a female for me? What
will my next experience look
like? How will it make me
feel, and how will it affect
the rest of my life?”
14
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Featured Experts
Hanne Blank is the author of the histories Virgin:
The Untouched History and Straight: The Surprisingly
Short History of Heterosexuality, as well as several
others books. A former Scholar of the Institute for
Teaching and Research on Women at Towson University, she has taught at Brandeis University and Tufts College and is a popular guest lecturer on topics from the
history of the hymen to sex tips for people of all sizes.
Heather Corinna is the executive director and
founder of Scarleteen, the largest independent online
resource for teen and young adult sexuality education.
She is the director of the CONNECT sexual health
outreach program which serves homeless and transient
youth, on the editorial board of the American Journal
of Sexuality Education; a contributing editor for Our
Bodies, Ourselves; and a board member of NARAL
Pro-Choice Washington.
Dr. Henia Dakkak
works with United Nations
Population Fund country offices dealing with emergency reproductive health issues during and post-crisis.
Before joining the UN in 2004, Dr. Dakkak was the
Director of Relief and Development programs with
International Medical Corps (IMC) where she developed programming to improve quality of HIV/AIDS
care throughout Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East
and South East Asia.
Sady Doyle is a writer and award-winning social
media activist and the founder of the anti-sexist blog
Tiger Beatdown. She writes about feminism, culture
and media at Tiger Beatdown and for Salon, In These
Times, Bitch, Rookie, The Atlantic, The Guardian‘s
Comment Is Free and The American Prospect. She has
spoken at Harvard University’s “Rethinking Virginity”
Conference, SXSW, and Netroots Nation.
Dr. Joycelyn Elders was the sixteenth Surgeon
General of the United States, the first African American
and only the second woman to head the U.S. Public
Health Service. Long an outspoken advocate of public
health, Elders was appointed Surgeon General by
President Clinton in 1993. In 1994, Dr. Elders left
office over her views on sex education, and in 1995
she returned to the University of Arkansas as a faculty
researcher and professor at the Arkansas Children’s
Hospital. Now retired, she remains very active–and
outspoken–in public health education.
Shelby Knox
is nationally known as the subject of
the Sundance award-winning film The Education of
Shelby Knox, a 2005 documentary chronicling her teenage activism for comprehensive sex ed in her Southern Baptist community. She has appeared on Today,
The Daily Show and Hardball. Shelby travels across
the country as an itinerant feminist organizer, doing
workshops and civil disobedience in the name of reproductive justice and sexual health. She is currently the
Director of Women’s Rights Organizing at change.org.
Bronwen Pardes , is a graduate of Vassar College
and New York University. She is the author of Doing It
Right: Making Smart, Safe, and Satisfying Choices About
Sex, which offers down-to-earth, tell-it-like-it-is answer
to teens’ questions about sex. She has served as an
expert for the websites TeenHealthFX.com and sexetc.
com, which answer teens’ questions about sex, and she
currently teaches human sexuality courses at several colleges in New York City.
Susan Schulz has been at Hearst Magazines
since 2000, currently serving as Editorial Brand Director of Cosmopolitan, where she oversees the website,
CosmoBooks and a variety of other brand extensions.
Prior to this she served as Editor-in-Chief of CosmoGirl! Magazine. Susan is active in community service
with a 2005 “Do Something” Award from the National
Alliance for Eating Disorder Awareness and a 2011
Galaxy Award from the New York Women’s Agenda.
Jessica Valenti
, the founder of Feministing.com,
is a writer, speaker, activist and the author of The Purity
Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women. Her most recent book is Why Have
Kids: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting
and Happiness. She is also the author of Full Frontal
Feminism, and co-editor of the anthology Yes Means
Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, and she was the recipient of the 2011 Hillman
Journalism Prize.
15
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Q&A with Therese Shechter
Excerpts from two interviews originally published on the Her Film Project blog. Reprinted with permission.
Click here for the 2010 interview and here for the 2012 interview as they originally ran.
HF: With the feature documentary film I Was a Teenage Feminist under your belt, you are now focusing on
a new project, How to Lose Your Virginity, which is another feature doc. Can you discuss how you came to
concentrate your efforts on this topic and how your two films might relate?
TS: I think all my films look at the world through a feminist lens. Of the two shorts I’ve done, How I Learned to
Speak Turkish is about sexuality and power and Womanly Perfection is about body image. Taken along with I Was
A Teenage Feminist, which I think is about finding a political and personal identity, they all feed into to the ideas
I’m playing with in How to Lose your Virginity. I also would say that the virginity project is similar stylistically to
I Was a Teenage Feminist—it’s funny, there’s a lot of intimacy with subjects, and I use my personal experience to
make universal points.
When my editor and I were cutting I Was A Teenage Feminist, we watched a lot of those old ‘Now You Are A
Woman’ films from the 1950s. I was struck not only by how useless the information was, but also how they kept
telling girls that the only way to avoid social and physical ruin was to be a ‘good’ girl (read: a girl who doesn’t
have sex). The abstinence-until-marriage programs (which the government still funds, by the way) are really just a
present-day extension of those ideas. I started to wonder what we were telling young women about their sexuality,
especially given that pop culture is full of highly sexualized girls that seem to be the polar opposite of this ‘good
girl’ expectation.
I realized that it all comes down to the same message: that women should model themselves on images of male
desire. In trying to mold themselves into either virgin or whore (or an impossible combination of both), women are
constantly working to fit someone else’s needs instead of pursuing their own sexual identities.
On a personal note, I was planning my own wedding at the time of the shooting, and was getting a little freaked out
by all the chastity-based wedding rituals and coded wedding accessories. What would it mean for me to embrace
the white dress, don a veil, and be ‘given away’? What would that say about my own sexual autonomy and identity? It echoes the narration of I Was a Teenage Feminist where I refer to myself as “a woman who feels incredible
pressure to conform to an ideal that I don’t even buy into. Is it possible to be who I want to be without judgment,
or apology or compromise?”
HF: In American culture, virginity experiences a dichotomous treatment. The social state of virginity is also
binary in nature — you either are or you aren’t, at least socially. What differences do you see between gender,
age and sexual orientation when the topic of virginity is discussed?
TS: Virginity is basically a complex social construct that’s always been more about female sexuality than male.
There’s actually no medical definition, and our conventional concept of ‘losing your virginity’ through penis-invagina sex is incredibly narrow. Is a penis really the only way to turn a woman into a sexual person? How then do
lesbians lose their virginity? Do we suddenly become sexual beings or is it gradual? When we lose our virginity,
what specifically are we losing, if anything at all?
In queer communities, the concept of virginity loss is far more nuanced and individualistic because it doesn’t fit
into established hetero understandings about sex. But although ideas about how a person loses his or her virginity
might vary, there is still some point where most of us cross a threshold of sexual initiation. It may be a construct,
but it’s still an important defining moment – however we define it.
You can see how important it is when you speak to older virgins who for whatever reason haven’t yet had sex.
I hear from a lot of them through my blog, and there’s a lot of shame and secrecy around being an older virgin
(which I think can begin as young as your early 20s). Everyone thinks everyone else is having sex but them, but
it’s just not true.
cont’d next page...
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How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Q&A with Therese Shechter,
continued
HF: Please talk a bit about your experiences with interviewees… [and] tell us a bit about your production
team and how you work with a crew when dealing with people’s (interviewees’) deeply personal experiences?
TS: When I interview someone, I want it to be as casual and as intimate as possible. I want them to talk right to the
audience, so they look directly at the camera, not off to the side. And I like to shoot them in their natural environments as much as possible. We have a tiny crew. Sometimes it’s just me, and at most it’s my DP and one PA and
minimal if any lights. We give up on some of the beauty, but like I said, I want it to be intimate so subjects can talk
about really personal things and feel safe doing it. I’m always humbled by the things they’re willing to share. I’m
also very open with them about my own experiences during the interview. I figure I should be just as willing to talk
about whatever I’m asking of them.
HF: I’ve taken a few looks at the blog you have to support the storytelling and sharing around the topic of
virginity, and you include many first-person pieces. It’s amazing and inspiring to see how many people are
willing to share information about something so personal as their virginity and sexuality. What inspired
you to introduce this type of “confessional-style” blog post?
TS: I love The V-Card Diaries, and since we launched it in 2009, it’s become the most popular thing on the blog. I
was inspired by fellow virginity geek Kate Monro who writes a blog called The Virginity Project in the UK. Aside
from her work, most everything else I found was very mainstream and almost nothing outside of religious sites
addressed people who weren’t sexually active. I could tell from our blog comments I had a lot of folks out there
whose experiences–and even definitions of virginity–didn’t conform to the black-and-white stereotypes of pop
culture. So I started building this collection of what I like to call “sexual debuts and deferrals.”
We’ve run stories from a woman who lost her straight, gay and three-way virginity in one night (hey, it worked for
her); a Mormon college student who wrote about being a virgin and then did an update after she had forbidden premarital sex (verdict: meh); and we get quite a few submissions from guys in their 30s and 40s who talk about what
it’s like to be an older male virgin (not good). We’ve also run several First Persons by women who had intercourse
for the first time because of sexual assault, and they want to share their experiences and recovery with others.
My favorites are the “update” submissions that I get when a previous poster starts having sex. One woman said the
first three people she told were her roommate, her best friend and me for the blog. I kind of love that There’s a lot
of silence around how and why and if we become sexual and I think these stories really help us all feel less weird
and alone. I really could have used this when I felt like the very last virgin in art school.
HF: Are there differences in what you’ve learned through the actual filming of the documentary and the
interactions you have with people online through your blog or twitter, for example?
TS: When I started working on the film, I was really focusing on young women being shamed for being sexual
and the value that’s place on virginity. It was in the zeitgeist and was getting all the attention. But when I started
getting the V-Card Diaries, I was surprised at how many were coming from people in their 20’s who were ashamed
of not being sexually active and that became a much bigger part of my film and the blog.
I think it goes without saying that it’s far, far easier to get candid stories from anonymous writers than getting
people to talk about the same things on camera. I’m really grateful to the people agreed to be filmed. They’re very
smart and thoughtful about their intimate lives, and they provide an antidote to the way we usually hear stories
about sex that are more fabrication or fantasy, like Reality TV and porn.
In the same way that we give people the space to be sexual beings on their own terms, we also tell people who
don’t feel ready for sex (or aren’t into it at all) that they’re not freaks. I get a lot of letters along the lines of: “I
generally feel like I’m harboring a shameful secret, and before I found your blog was pretty convinced that I was
the only woman in her mid-twenties who had never had sex.” Speaking as someone who became sexually active
only after college, I can really relate.
17
How To Lose Your Virginity
Contact Therese Shechter • Trixie Films • [email protected] • virginitymovie.com
Recent & Upcoming Screenings
Screenings
Israel: Haifa Cinematheque October 13th, 2013
Ppart of the 30th anniversary celebrations for Isha L’Isha, Israel’s oldest grassroots feminist organization.
Israel: Tel Aviv Screening and Symposium September 30th, 2013
Screening followed by group discussions led by feminism and sexuality professionals.
The Kinsey Institute, Bloomington IN May 17, 2013
The interactive storytelling project The V-Card Diaries at the 8th Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show.
Catalyst Sexuality Conference, Long Beach CA Sept 15, 2012
A sneak preview of the documentary.
Festivals
US Festival Premiere, 2013, TBA
Cucalorus Film Festival, Wilmington, SC, November 11-17, 2013
Television
US Broadcast Premiere, 2013, TBA
Australian Broadcast Premiere, September 6th, 2013, SBS2
Israel Broadcast Premiere, August 29, YES Docu
Swedish Broadcast Premiere, 2013, TBA
18