Swedish upper secondary student conversations on virginity

Swedish sexuality education

Swedish sexuality education, mandatory since 1955, has never been a subject with its own syllabus, and has mostly been taught by biology teachers. The knowledge area is, therefore, often secular and grounded in natural science (Bredström, Bolander, and Bengtsson Citation2018). However, nowadays it adopts a broader perspective and is engaged within subjects such as Civics, Religion, History, Physical Education and Art (Swedish National Agency for Education Citation2013b, Citation2013c, Citation2014). Benchmarks for sexuality education can also be found in Swedish schools’ core values of human rights and gender equality (Swedish Schools Inspectorate Citation2018). International research has repeatedly stressed the need for education to address gender inequities, but has at the same time demonstrated that doing so often reinforces difference (Albert Citation2019; Fields Citation2008; Fine Citation1988). To exemplify how gender differences are often actively constructed it may be helpful to refer to a study of Swedish biology education (Orlander Arvola, Todd, and Wickman Citation2015). In this study, notions of femininity and masculinity were explored through student role plays. The staging mostly promoted stereotypical gender images, but also showed how school can be an important settings for creating opportunities for reimaging and reconstructing gender.

In recent times, a norm-critical pedagogy has been included in regulatory guidelines for sexuality education¹ (Swedish National Agency for Education Citation2013b, Citation2013c, Citation2014). Norm-critical pedagogy adopts an intersectional approach and aims to challenge exclusions and inequality by identifying and questioning power structures and norms (Bengtsson and Bolander Citation2020; Bredström, Bolander, and Bengtsson Citation2018; Bromseth and Sörensdotter Citation2014). Education which aims to critique gender stereotypes and norms and include LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) perspectives, has also been promoted internationally (Fields Citation2008; Jones Citation2019; UNESCO Citation2016). Nevertheless, putting such pedagogy into practice is not an easy task (Fridolfsson et al. Citation2019; Lenz Taguchi Citation2011) and Swedish norm-critical sexuality education has been criticised for emphasising certain sexual values as more desirable than others, for example, sex-positive and pleasure-oriented values (Bengtsson and Bolander Citation2020; Bredström, Bolander, and Bengtsson Citation2018). An in-depth focus on norm-critical sexuality education is beyond the scope of this paper. Our focus rather is on new becomings in natural science sexuality education and in particular the way in which virginity is treated within the norm-critical agenda.

The current situation for sexuality education in Sweden is one in which many teachers consider themselves out of touch with recent social trends and feel uncomfortable teaching this field of knowledge (Swedish Schools Inspectorate Citation2018). Nevertheless, in a 2017 national survey on sexuality and health, fully half of Swedish 16–29 year-olds rated their sexuality education as sufficient, although they expressed the desire for more education about gender identities and norms, relationships and LGBT perspectives (Public Health Agency of Sweden Citation2017). The national review and survey indicate that research on how best to engage with recent social trends, gender equality and social norms should be a priority. Consequently, classroom studies of new becomings in sexuality education are needed (Fields Citation2008; Ketting and Ivanova Citation2018). This study thereby contributes to the existing body of sexuality education research via an in situ exploration of oskuld, a opic closely tied to traditional educational ideas about anatomy but also the policy focus on norms and gender.

Sexuality education in plural societies

Engaging students in discussion about sex and relationships is demanding (Senior and Chenhall Citation2017), with the task further complicated by the intersection between sexuality education with religiosity and secularism (Albert Citation2019; Rasmussen Citation2017; Rasmussen, Burke, and Greteman Citation2022). All the major religions of the world have engaged with the topic of sexuality, thereby influencing contemporary norms of sexuality through expectations of abstinence and male and female sexuality. Discussion of human sexuality has, in many contexts, also served as a tool to aggravate relations beyond the in-group, by picturing ‘the other’ as sexually deviant (Geels and Roos Citation2010). The same views can be found in sexuality education where particular beliefs and positions are overgeneralised as constituting ‘the religious’ view (Shipley Citation2017), when in reality religious views differ. These views are also reflected in history where notions of a superior European sexual culture, despite major social change, have been sustained (Svendsen Citation2017). Returning to the topic of our study, oskuld, Sweden has, since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, adopted a relatively open approach to young people’s sexuality. Abstinence-only-until-marriage is mostly characteristic of Swedish adolescents with an immigrant background and young persons belonging to Free Church communities (Ghadimi Citation2007). In a US context, however, virginity is instead a white middle-class phenomena reinforced, for example, by so-called chastity pledges (Fields Citation2008). This study, however, aims to complicate these views by showing how the becomings of oskuld – as linked to purity and the virginal vagina – are deeply rooted in Swedish society and thereby necessitate a focus on how sexuality education is enacted.

Nordic sexuality education often reinforces a distinction between disciplinary knowledges. Biology education is often seen as scientific and dealing with objective ‘facts’, while social sciences and ethics education tend to be viewed as more subjective and open-ended (Svendsen Citation2017). This study raises questions about this distinction by enacting their mutual entanglement in the becomings of oskuld. Hence, it is important for students to have the opportunity to reflect on social norms, cultural values and traditional beliefs within science education, because both secular and religious perspectives figure centrally in the production of sexuality education (Rasmussen Citation2017; Rasmussen, Burke, and Greteman Citation2022; Shipley Citation2017; Svendsen Citation2017; UNESCO Citation2018).

Virginity – a cultural and historical product

Virginity is a cultural product personified by Indo-European goddesses and heroines throughout history (Irwin Citation2007; MacLachlan Citation2007). Virgins are often considered magical beings, capable of battling demons and curing sexually transmitted infections (Blank Citation2007). For example, Mary the mother of Christ was assigned the power of virginity and the female leaders Elizabeth I of England and Joan of Arc in France both retained their ‘virginity’ in order to gain personal independence. Accordingly, across varying cultural contexts, virginity is closely tied to power (MacLachlan Citation2007). The Swedish concept oskuld, in this paper translated as ‘virginity’, offers further an example of power in action. The word carries a double connotation and means sexual innocence, but also to be without guilt. The concept originated towards the end of the 18^th century, as the linkage between innocence and being bodily untouched was not axiomatic in earlier Swedish history. One could have had sexual intercourse but still be considered ‘innocent’ in relation to the sexual act, by for example, expecting marriage (Lennartsson Citation2009). Such distinctions between physical and spiritual virginity have also been made elsewhere in history (Blank Citation2007).

Nevertheless, across history and cultures, the loss of virginity is most often linked to a penis-in-vagina sexual act, and the notion of a bleeding virginal vagina (Blank Citation2007). Young people often consider their first penetrative sexual encounter a critical moment (Holland et al. Citation2010), and in almost every society it marks the transition from childhood to adulthood (Carpenter Citation2002; MacLachlan Citation2007). The loss of virginity also signals the transformation from sexual innocent to experienced. Experience and reputation, such as being considered promiscuous, are also closely related to gender (Blank Citation2007; Carpenter Citation2001, Citation2002, Citation2011).

Different views on virginity can be illustrated by contrasting the tradition of abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) education in the USA (Lashof-Sullivan Citation2015) with Swedish sex-positive and norm-critical ideals (Bengtsson and Bolander Citation2020; Bredström, Bolander, and Bengtsson Citation2018). Although there is considerable support for a progressive and comprehensive approach to sexuality education in the USA, the federal government has, since the early 1980s, disbursed funding for AOUM programmes in schools (Fields Citation2008; Lashof-Sullivan Citation2015). The former Obama administration and the US Congress replaced many of these programmes with funding for evidence-based sex education (Lashof-Sullivan Citation2015). However, the reality may not be as dichotomous as the policies suggest. US based teachers, administrators and students have always have the possibility to read policies according to their own interests (Fields Citation2008; Fine Citation1988). Importantly, the AOUM ideal was abandoned from Swedish educational policy in the 1970s and replaced by a focus on sexual responsibility (Bolander Citation2015; Sandström Citation2001). Sexual responsibility, acquired mainly through education about contraceptive methods, was later supplemented with more pleasure-oriented perspectives (Bäckman Citation2003), which have also been debated in the USA.

Given this brief background on Swedish and US sexuality education, we turn now to the sexual habits and practices of Swedish teenagers. According to a survey conducted by the Public Health Agency of Sweden (Citation2017) the mean age for sexual debut is 16 years. This figure has remained stable around 16–17 for the last 50 years. Since the national survey also include information on sexual debut for non-binary gender persons, we assume that the sexual experiences of respondents include a variety of activities. In this study, however, the upper secondary students link virginity loss to heterosexual and vaginal intercourse. The becomings of the phenomenon of virginity are further explored with the theoretical tools provided by Barad (Citation2007).

Theoretical Framework: sexuality education as a material-discursive practice

Our analysis draws on agential realism, an ethico-onto-epistem-ology developed by the philosopher Karen Barad. Barad’s writing draws on the work of Michel Foucault and Niels Bohr to build a relationship ‘between discursive practices and the material world’ (Barad Citation2007, 24). This theoretical stance challenges the idea of representationalism, a world of independent objects with determinate boundaries and properties, making a shift from the metaphysics of things to the production of phenomena. Phenomena, enacted through material-discursive practices, can further be described as units of reality coming to matter through specific intra-actions (Barad Citation2007).

Intra-action, a neologism used in contrast to interaction, emphasises the relational constitution of agencies. Accordingly, social-scientific, human-nonhuman (matter) and natural-cultural factors are considered equally as they jointly and in intra-action produce the phenomenon of virginity. They thereby become agentic in their relations. Swedish natural science sexuality education may therefore be seen as a material-discursive practice producing the phenomenon of virginity through agentic intra-actions. Baradian (Citation2007) theory also proposes that phenomena come into being through material-discursive intra-actions extending across time and space – a notion we elaborate on in the next section.

Methodology: spacetimematter

Barad’s (Citation2007, 316) work seeks to question metaphysical and Western ideas of space, time and matter as pre-existing entities, and instead sees them as ‘an integral aspect of phenomena’. Accordingly, ‘phenomena are entanglements of spacetimematter’ (Barad Citation2011, 125).

Space is not considered here in terms of fixed geometry as on, for example, a map. Instead, intra-actions enact specific boundaries of space, marking what is included or excluded from mattering. The notion of time as linear is further called into question. Consequently, time and space do not exist outside phenomena (Barad Citation2007). Matter and bodies of humans and nonhumans are also seen as intra-actively produced. They are entanglements and products of the phenomena of which they are part. Bodily boundaries further come into being through ‘specific bodily performance’ repeated over time and in specific places (Barad Citation2007, 155) – as becomes evident in this study.

For further clarification of the concept of spacetimematter we have turned to the work of other feminist scholars. According to Dinshaw (Citation2012) different timeframes have the potential to co-exist. Contemporary notions of virginity can therefore be seen as ‘common meanings’ or norms held for many hundreds of years (MacLachlan Citation2007; Walkerdine Citation2016). As norms also often work as symbols to bind people together (Walkerdine Citation2016), the construction of a bodily virginity can be linked to views on sexuality and sexuality education that differ according to geographical space (Bredström, Bolander, and Bengtsson Citation2018; Fields Citation2008; Geels and Roos Citation2010; Lashof-Sullivan Citation2015). Cathrine Hasse (Citation2020) has, through the use of Barad’s theorising, further stressed the materiality of words. Accordingly, words and concepts, such as virginity, ‘are the time-binding glue’ that enable discourses and materiality to develop together (Hasse Citation2020, 136). This material-conceptual elaboration of Barad’s theoretical framework proved to be important for our study as we investigated student conversations concerning the abstract yet material concept of virginity.

The purpose of this study therefore was to explore Swedish natural science sexuality education as a material-discursive practice with a focus on the various notions of oskuld as spacetimematter relations in two upper secondary classrooms. Accordingly, the key question guiding the exploration was: ‘how is the phenomenon of virginity enacted in student conversations and how might this affect the teaching of sexuality education?’

Field study and data construction

The field study comprised two Science Studies classrooms. Science Studies is a general science subject delivered to Swedish upper secondary students not specialising in science. This interdisciplinary subject, taught by natural science teachers, has the following core content with regard to sexuality education: ‘scientific aspects, reflection on and discussion of norms concerning human sexuality, sexual desire, relationships and sexual health’ (Swedish National Agency for Education Citation2012, 9). However, teachers may interpret the syllabus according to the needs and interests of students – which both of the participating teachers in our study did. The two teachers concerned were experienced in teaching and used the aforementioned norm-critical approach. The research project we describe here began as a broader examination of sexuality education in two public upper secondary school classrooms, and only after completion of the study did oskuld became the topic of investigation.

Discussion

Teachers’ ability to adjust their teaching to the interests of their students facilitated the rich discussions which provided the data for this study. Unfolding in several directions, the conversations at first seemed too expansive to draw conclusions from. Yet, five enactments of oskuld came into being, indicating the need to address this phenomenon from a broad range of teaching perspectives.

According to scholars, notions of masculinity and femininity are actively constructed in education (Fields Citation2008; Fine Citation1988; Orlander Arvola, Todd, and Wickman Citation2015). Our study is no exception in this respect. Even though gender equality, sexual responsibility, sex-positivism and pleasure have been present in Sweden’s educational policies for a long time (Bengtsson and Bolander Citation2020; Bolander Citation2015; Bäckman Citation2003; Sandström Citation2001) gendered notions of virginity still seem deeply rooted in Swedish society and therefore need to be explicitly addressed as part of sexuality education. Gendered assumptions may, for example, be challenged by a comparison between male and female virginity, likely triggered in this study by the influence of the teachers’ norm-critical approach to teaching and/or Swedish schools’ long-standing work on gender equality (Swedish National Agency for Education Citation2013a).

This study further showed that space, time and matter together intra-actively produce the phenomenon of oskuld. Accordingly, cultural notions of the virginal vagina can be challenged by anatomical explanations, and vice versa. In this study, anatomical explanations offered students’ the opportunity to push back against cultural-religious-historical notions of virginity that restrict female sexuality. Cultural-religious-historical notions, in turn, made students to reflect on their anatomical knowledge of the vagina. While natural science sexuality education ought quite rightly to cover the physiological and physical aspects of sexuality, there is a need to include far more than purely biological perspectives (Rasmussen Citation2017; Svendsen Citation2017; UNESCO Citation2018). Findings from this study show how secular-cultural-historical-religious explanations intra-act in the production of phenomena, such as oskuld. Accordingly, this matter needs to be considered in the becomings of (natural science) sexuality education. Participating teachers’ commitment to blurring the boundaries of social-scientific and natural-cultural factors can further be an inspiration for how natural science sexuality education can facilitate conversations and knowledge production on norms, values and traditions. A consideration of how virginity came into being in this study – when, where and why does virginity become important, whose virginity becomes important, and can virginity be experienced bodily? – can further serve as a help in the construction of education on the topic.

In conclusion, the teaching activities described provided students with the opportunity to encounter, and sometimes overcome, pre-conceived notions about virginity. The activities undertaken were result of teachers’ ability to adapt their teaching to the students’ own questions and requests. Our analysis demonstrates the need for natural science education to be taught in relation to society (Barad Citation2000) as students experience it. Moreover, the theoretical framework provided by agential realism turned out to be particularly useful in showing sexuality education to be a material-discursive practice, a finding which can be more widely used by other scholars within the field (Allen Citation2018). This study also meets the need for more empirically based classroom studies (Ketting and Ivanova Citation2018) of the educational possibilities for facilitating and challenging re-productions of a broad range of sexuality norms, not only those related to virginity (Orlander Arvola, Todd, and Wickman Citation2015).