In its broadest sense, virginity is characterized by a state of unimpacted purity, usually stemming from a lack of experience (for example, newcomers to the game Bingo could be referred to as virgins). Traditionally, virgin is used to describe a person who has not engaged in (penetrative) sexual intercourse. This use is traditionally restricted to a person who has not yet engaged in vaginal intercourse, especially a woman, but it is sometimes used to describe someone who has not engaged in sexual activities in general. Also, someone can be referred to as an "anal virgin," being a virgin to anal sex (specifically receiving anal sex). The status of "virginity" is sometimes respected and valued in certain societies, especially in relation to views of many religions on sexual conduct before marriage. The term maiden is also sometimes used to mean a virgin, although that can also refer to an unmarried woman, generally supposed to be young (though there are contrary usages such as "maiden aunt").

Physiology

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Among human females, the hymen is a membrane, part of the vulva, which partially occludes the entrance to the vagina and which is often physically torn when the woman first engages in sexual intercourse. Hymens vary in thickness, shape, and flexibilty. The presence of an intact membrane is often seen as physical evidence of virginity in the broader technical sense. The absence of one, however, is not necessarily an indication of participation in sexual intercourse, since in some women the hymen is either absent from birth, or sufficiently vestigial not to be affected by sexual penetration. Also, the hymen can be broken before a woman engages in sexual intercourse, for example during strenuous exercise or during the insertion of a tampon. Conversely, in rare cases a woman's hymen is imperforate, and as menstrual discharge cannot then escape, surgical intervention to break it is necessary to protect her health.

In most cultures, women are not regarded as virgins after a sexual assault, but some people disavow this notion. There are also those who take this "spiritual" concept of virginity to its maximum, considering "born again virgins" to be virgins, regardless of their past sexual conduct.

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