Letters 57 When we talk about virginity, we immediately think about sex, and from the day we experience it, the world seems to lose its greatest mystery. We are no longer virgins - what a great illusion of maturity. Virginity is a somewhat more elastic concept. We are virgins before coming home from school alone for the first time. We are virgins before the first sip of wine. We were virgins before we met New York. We are virgins before our first paycheck. And we can have been having sex for years and remain virgins in the face of new love. No matter how much we have loved and hated, no matter how much we have been rejected, discarded, seduced, conquered, there is no love experience that can be repeated, as our passions are varied and our stages are different, and all of this makes us beginners. Even in sex, we are virgins in the face of a new smell, a new kiss, a fetish not yet fulfilled. If we haven't yet worn red lingerie, if we haven't yet made love in the sea, if we still cultivate some taboos, what kind of know-it-all are we?