Despite increasing sexual liberalization, virginity and its loss persist as contested and highly gendered concepts in many parts of Asia. According to theories in feminism and sexuality studies, virginity may be socially constructed as either a gift, a stigma, an act of worship, or a process. This paper examines the socially constructed values and meanings ascribed to women’s virginity in the context of the Philippines. We synthesize findings from quantitative sources and original qualitative data from focus groups and interviews with Filipino women and men. Subsequent analysis of these findings indicated that a strong, widespread importance is ascribed to women’s virginity. While men endorsed female virginity as important prior to marriage, women reported even more restrictive views—including legitimizing beliefs linking virginity to women’s worth and to the avoidance of marital conflict. Filipina women expressed disapproval of sex for unmarried women, but less for unmarried men, and placed less importance on male virginity. The evidence indicates the presence of a sexual double standard and supports the argument that women themselves may endorse cultural belief systems that restrict female sexuality. Female virginity was dominantly constructed either as a gift (an embodied resource given by women to men) or, more often, as a prize to be claimed by men from women within the context of heterosexual marriage. Male virginity, in contrast, was largely viewed as a stigma. Virginity loss was not construed as a normative developmental process, nor, despite the predominance of Roman Catholicism in Philippine culture, a sacred act with religious underpinnings.

中文翻译：

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菲律宾女性贞操的评估

尽管性自由化程度不断提高，但在亚洲许多地区，童贞及其丧失仍然是备受争议和高度性别化的观念。根据女权主义和性研究的理论，童贞可以在社会上被构造为礼物，污名，崇拜行为或过程。本文考察了菲律宾背景下赋予女性贞操的社会建构的价值观和意义。我们综合了来自定量来源的调查结果以及来自焦点小组的原始定性数据以及对菲律宾男女的采访。对这些发现的后续分析表明，妇女的处女地位具有广泛的重要意义。男性认可女性贞操在结婚前很重要，妇女报告了更为严格的观点，包括使童贞与妇女的价值以及避免婚姻冲突联系起来的合法化信念。菲律宾妇女对未婚妇女表示反对，但对未婚男性表示反对，对男性贞操的重视程度较低。证据表明存在性双重标准，并支持以下论点：妇女自己可以认可限制女性性行为的文化信仰体系。女性的贞操主要是作为礼物（女性向男性提供的一种具体资源），或更常见地，是男性在异性婚姻的背景下要求女性获得的奖励。相反，男性贞操在很大程度上被视为一种污名。童贞丧失并没有被解释为规范的发展过程，