Virgin cover art

Virgin

The Untouched History

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Virgin

By: Hanne Blank
Narrated by: Fran Tunno
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

About this listen

Why has an indefinable state of being commanded the attention and fascination of the human race since the dawn of time? In Virgin, Hanne Blank brings us a revolutionary, rich and entertaining survey of an astonishing untouched history.

From the simple task of determining what constitutes its loss to why it matters to us in the first place, Blank gets to the heart of why we even care about it in the first place. She tackles the reality of what we do and don't know about virginity and provides a sweeping tour of virgins in history - from virgin martyrs to Queen Elizabeth to billboards in downtown Baltimore telling young women it's not a "dirty word." Virgin proves, as well, how utterly contemporary the topic is - the butt of innumerable jokes, center of spiritual mysteries, locus of teenage angst, popular genre for pornography, and nucleus around which the world's most powerful government has created an unprecedented abstinence policy. In this fascinating work, Hanne Blank shows for the first time why this is, and why everything we think we know about virginity is wrong.

©2007 Hanne Blank (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Human Sexuality Psychology Psychology & Mental Health World Funny Middle Ages
All stars
Most relevant

Would you listen to Virgin again? Why?

Yes, it's a great short history of not just virginity but touching on a variety of related topics including the historical status of women and families, the medical establishment's understanding of women's anatomy and sexual health, issues surrounding rape, religion's role in all of these things, the way government and other institutions deal with sexuality and virginity. Honestly when I got to the end I just wanted it to go on.

What did you like best about this story?

There is an exploration of the issues while continuing to see it all as part of a larger narrative. There is humour as well as a serious discussion of issues. It made me think a lot about things I had assumed or never questioned.

What does Fran Tunno bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

The narrator was very clear and read with a sense of understanding and even enjoying the book themselves, which made it easy to listen and consider the content.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

It's hard to pin down one particular thing as it is still very much swimming around my head, but there were definitely moments where I laughed out loud, got very angry or frustrated (destroy the patriarchy!), or just very sad for some of the people described.

Fascinating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.