A Virgin at 30

Last week we read with great astonishment that the best-selling book in Venezuelan bookstores has been “Virgen a los 30” (A Virgin at 30), by the young and beautiful model Vivian Sleiman, published by Editorial Planeta. In it she tells the story of her choice to remain a virgin until true love comes along, and talks about the relationships she had with some men over those 30 years.

In the book’s prologue, Sleiman makes clear that if she has not given herself to any man, it is not because she is frigid or unable to feel; on the contrary, she describes herself as a passionate woman whose hormones are always close to the surface and who feels the ordinary things of daily life very intensely, sometimes twice as much as others. She simply decided to remain a virgin, not out of obligation but out of conviction, until the moment comes… if it comes.

The author explains that the book is not only about virginity but is also a call for women’s rights: the right to choose and to have that choice respected. It speaks about values, in an effort to recover values that have been lost. In an interview with Globovisión she said, in substance, that just as many people talk about promiscuity, homosexuality or infidelity, she talks about virginity, because, though some may not believe it, there are many beautiful women (she knows them) who are virgins and don’t say so out of embarrassment or modesty.

She says it was very hard for her to write and publish the book. When her brothers found out, they didn’t speak to her for a week, but now they are very proud of her. In it she questions men who approach women only on the basis of beauty. She described the book as a catharsis, born of being tired of seeing the same thing over and over in men, and said she did not reach 30 as a virgin because of religion or culture but by choice and conviction, because for her self-giving goes beyond the physical and is something more transcendent. She says she has kissed many frogs, and that she has fallen in love in her relationships, but that the men were not on the same wavelength, and so she decided not to give herself. She admits she has often wondered whether, in the 21st century, the world is wrong or she is.

It seems, Vivian, that you are not wrong at all. One sign of that is the success of your book, which many 14- and 15-year-olds are buying, because deep down, in the face of so much promiscuity, sexual license and sexually transmitted disease, not to mention the deep wounds to the heart that those who fall into it can suffer, many young people need the vision you are offering them, a vision that is hard to find in the media.

The book has caused such a sensation worldwide that the bishop of Córdoba, Spain, Demetrio Fernández, mentioned Vivian Sleiman in a pastoral letter titled “Flee from Fornication.” In it he said, in substance, that the incitement to fornication in the media, in cinema and on television is constant; that when sexuality is well directed, a person lives in harmony with himself and with others, avoiding all provocation and violence; and that when it is disordered, it is like a hand grenade that can go off at any moment and wound the one who carries it. This, he said, applies to every state of life: to single people, for whom there is no place for sexual activity; to married people, who must learn to govern their impulses for the sake of authentic love; and to consecrated people, who live their sexuality sublimated in a purer, self-giving love.

He noted that Vivian Sleiman’s book has become a best seller among young people because it shows that it is possible to reach marriage as a virgin even when the environment is unfavorable, and that it is possible to be faithful to one’s husband or wife, as so many married couples have shown.

Vivian, all that remains is for me to say, on behalf of many Venezuelan parents and young people, a thousand thanks! for the courage you have shown in making public such an exemplary life choice, one that can help thousands of young people around the world understand that sex is something very special that cannot be used whenever and however one pleases. How proud we are that it is a Venezuelan woman who is setting this example for the whole world!