Virginity in the context of "Heterosexuality"

Minerva (/mɪˈnɜːrvə/; Latin: [mɪˈnɛru̯ä]; Etruscan: Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. She is also a goddess of warfare, though with a focus on strategic warfare, rather than the violence of gods such as Mars. Beginning in the second century BC, the Romans equated her with the Greek goddess Athena. Minerva is one of the three Roman deities in the Capitoline Triad, along with Jupiter and Juno.

Minerva is a virgin goddess. Her domain includes music, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, and the crafts. Minerva is often depicted with her sacred creature, an owl usually named the "owl of Minerva" which symbolised her association with wisdom and knowledge, as well as, less frequently, the snake and the olive tree. Minerva is commonly depicted as tall with an athletic and muscular build. She is often wearing armour and carrying a spear. As an important Roman goddess, she is highly revered, honored, and respected. Marcus Terentius Varro considered her to be ideal and the plan for the universe personified.

Catherine of Alexandria, also spelled Katherine, was, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a princess and a noted scholar who became a Christian around age 14, converted hundreds of people to Christianity, and was martyred around age 18.

The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates her as a great martyr and celebrates her feast day on 24 or 25 November, depending on the regional tradition. In Catholicism, Catherine is traditionally revered as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and she is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on 25 November. Her feast was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969 but restored in 2002 as an optional memorial. In the Episcopal Church, St. Catherine is commemorated on 24 November, together with the martyrs Barbara of Nicomedia and Margaret of Antioch, while in the Church of England her feast day is 25 November.

The perpetual virginity of Mary is a Christian doctrine that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin "before, during and after" the birth of Christ. In Western Christianity, the Catholic Church adheres to the doctrine, as do many Lutherans, some Anglicans, Reformed, and other Protestants. In Eastern Christianity, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Church of the East both adhere to this doctrine as part of their ongoing tradition, and Eastern Orthodox churches recognize Mary as Aeiparthenos, meaning "ever-virgin". It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Most modern nonconformist Protestants, such as the Plymouth Brethren, reject the doctrine.

The extant written tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary first appears in a late 2nd-century text called the Protoevangelium of James. The Second Council of Constantinople in 553 gave her the title "Aeiparthenos", meaning Perpetual Virgin, and at the Lateran Synod of 649 Pope Martin I emphasized the threefold character of the perpetual virginity, before, during, and after the birth of Christ. The Lutheran Smalcald Articles (1537) and the Reformed Second Helvetic Confession (1562) codified the doctrine of perpetual virginity of Mary as well.

A nymph (Ancient Greek: νύμφη, romanized: nýmphē; Attic Greek: [nýmpʰɛː]; sometimes spelled nymphe) is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature; they are typically tied to a specific place, landform, or tree, and are usually depicted as maidens. Because of their association with springs, they were often seen as having healing properties; other divine powers of the nymphs included divination and shapeshifting. In spite of their divine nature, they were not immortal.

Nymphs are divided into various broad subgroups based on their habitat, such as the Meliae (ash tree nymphs), the Dryads (oak tree nymphs), the Alseids (grove nymphs), the Naiads (spring nymphs), the Nereids (sea nymphs), the Oceanids (ocean nymphs), and the Oreads (mountain nymphs). Other nymphs included the Hesperides (evening nymphs), the Hyades (rain nymphs), and the Pleiades (companions of Artemis).

In Greek and Roman mythology, several goddesses are distinguished by their perpetual virginity. These goddesses included the Greek deities Hestia, Athena, and Artemis, along with their Roman equivalents, Vesta, Minerva, and Diana. In some instances, the inviolability of these goddesses was simply a detail of their mythology, while in other cases virginity was also associated with their worship and religious rites.

Non-penetrative sex or outercourse is sexual activity that usually does not include sexual penetration, but some forms, particularly when termed outercourse, include penetrative aspects, that may result from forms of fingering or oral sex. It generally excludes the penetrative aspects of vaginal, anal, or oral sex, but includes various forms of sexual and non-sexual activity, such as frottage, manual sex, mutual masturbation, kissing, or hugging.

People engage in non-penetrative sex for a variety of reasons, including as a form of foreplay or as a primary or preferred sexual act. Heterosexual couples may engage in non-penetrative sex as an alternative to penile-vaginal penetration, to preserve virginity, or as a type of birth control. Same-sex couples may also engage in non-penetrative sex to preserve virginity, with gay males using it as an alternative to anal penetration.

The Gospel of James (or the Protoevangelium of James) is a second-century infancy gospel telling of the miraculous conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus, her upbringing and marriage to Joseph, the journey of the couple to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, and events immediately following. It is the earliest surviving assertion of the perpetual virginity of Mary, meaning her virginity not just prior to the birth of Jesus, but during and afterwards, and despite being condemned by Pope Innocent I in 405 and classified as apocryphal by the Gelasian Decree around AD 500, became a widely influential source for Mariology.

The Sot-Weed Factor is a 1960 novel by the American writer John Barth. The novel marks the beginning of Barth's literary postmodernism. The Sot-Weed Factor takes its title from the poem The Sot-Weed Factor: Or, a Voyage to Maryland. A Satyr (1708) by the English-born poet Ebenezer Cooke (c. 1665 – c. 1732), about whom few biographical details are known.

A satirical epic set in the 1680s–90s in London and colonial Maryland, the novel tells of a fictionalized Ebenezer Cooke, who is given the title "Poet Laureate of Maryland" by Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore and commissioned to write a Marylandiad to sing the praises of the colony. He undergoes adventures on his journey to and within Maryland while striving to preserve his virginity. The complicated Tom Jones–like plot is interwoven with numerous digressions and stories-within-stories, and is written in a style patterned on the writing of 18th-century novelists such as Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, and Tobias Smollett.