Rubine hair and rules.

There is an ongoing skirmish in my life between what I want to do and the rules which prohibit me from doing it.

I'm not talking about anything socially harmful, like killing my next door neighbour or stealing someone else's shoes. Those are against the law. I'm not even talking about smoking weed or anything as transgressive as that... I am, of course, talking about my hair.

For those who know me, you'll know that my hair doesn't tend to stay the same colour for long. It's been bleached blond for about two and a half years, but that gets dyed over on a regular basis: purple, red, black, blue, green, orange - all colours I had in 2012. I miss having weird coloured hair, but I also know that school kicks up a fuss, so I tend to keep it fairly normal in term time. Usually blond. Occasionally red. Once or twice purple, but that doesn't tend to last long.

Last week, I got bored of my four-month stint of having hair the same colour, and decided to dye it. I chose a colour called Rubine, which has been kicking around my cupboard for around a year. It was a dark red, so I figured it would give me gorgeous burnished locks for the final five weeks of formal education. Unfortunately, my hair must be extra-porous or something, because it ended up a lovely shade of magenta. Which, while not my fault, is not something I was going to complain about.

Apparently my hair is closely linked to my academic performance though, as my new pink hair raised a few eyebrows. More than a few, to be specific, and so the last week has been spent trying to get teachers off my back. I've been told to wash the colour out of my hair. I pointed out this will just make my hair a paler pink. Apparently that's fine. However, upon washing my hair, I was told it was still too bright.

I haven't had a good week. The Boy's sister hasn't been well, so he cancelled a date to look after her; I managed to lie on a red ants' nest and have bites all over my shoulder; and someone I know died of cancer.

I've spent the week wanting to laze in the sunshine and eat picnics and dance to Frank Turner songs. None of these things have happened. Instead, my weekend started with the deputy headmistress calling my mother to complain about my hair. It is "inappropriate". It must be changed.

I don't appreciate being told my hair is inappropriate. What, exactly, is so harmful about pink hair? Does it affect my academic performance? Does it distract my classmates? No. Apparently, it's just about what other people will think. "How will my actions reflect upon the school?" quaver the teachers. Well, if parents would suddenly decide against sending their child to my school just because one Sixth Former has pink hair, are they really the sort of narrow-minded people you'd want associated with your institution? Oh. Wait. All sources point to yes.

I don't appreciate being told to acquiesce and play by the rules. When there are things you disapprove of, I've been told - by the very school, no less - that you're not supposed to lie down and play nice. You have to fight. So yes, I am fighting about something ridiculous: hair isn't a key philosophical or political issue. Nobody gets hurt because of it. Which is another reason why I'm pissed I have to change it. Of course, by far the easiest and most sensible thing to do would be to dye my hair black and stop giving the powers-that-be anything to complain about - but I'm not known for being sensible.

Mum told me about the phone call. We got in a fight. She sighed, and said she didn't know where my rebellious streak had come from - except for maybe my Gran.

My Gran loved my hair. She said that you might as well do things while you were young. Remembering this made me cry, those ugly snotty jarring sobs in between long bouts of silence that sound exactly how I imagine heartbreak does. She wouldn't have wanted me to give in.

Therefore, I will not dye my hair black. I will wash it, and cover it in whatever colour dye I have left in my fridge. And if the school can't deal with that, then they should consider whether they really support individuality and creativity the way they claim to.

Not a Madonna or a whore.

Everywhere you look, there are conflicting messages about heterosexual girls' virginity. If you have sex, you're easy. If you don't, you're frigid.

It's amazing how prolific the Madonna/whore complex is, how it's permeated even modern-day life. In its most basic form, it's the idea than girls come in two models of sexuality: Madonnas, the image of purity and chastity; and whores, sexualised and seductive. Which one is portrayed positively depends on the tone of the writer, if either is at all. It's a hangover from ancient times, when women having sex outside marriage would ruin your reputation, and illegitimate children were a threat to inheritence. Thus Madonnas were idolised. Since the rise of birth control though, girls who won't put out are uptight; they need to loosen up. What are you meant to listen to? It's a tangled skein of contradictions.

Honestly, it seems like a wonder anyone has normal functioning relationships at all.

"Sex is everything!" scream some sources. "Sex is the whole point of human existence! People only exist to be eye candy! See this girl? SHE IS TITS AND A BUTT. She's there for you to fuck! See this shirtless guy? HE IS THERE FOR SEXYTIMES. If you're not having sex YOU ARE WRONG. Asexuality doesn't exist! People should want to fuck ALL THE TIME. The answer to any of your woes is to HAVE MORE SEX."

I exaggerate, but you know the sentiment. If that sounds overly familiar, and I'm not exaggerating, then that's just scary. The advertising industry is the worst. It seems like ANYTHING can be sold if you stick a pair of tits next to it.

Then there's the more insidious 'sex-positivity' that comes from Cosmo and that ilk - the sort that doesn't actually encourage you to enjoy sex, but how to "make your man" happy. Your own enjoyment should come from pleasuring your boyfriend/husband/one night stand! Your sex drive should be malleable to his! If you ask for him to do anything for you, you're a greedy scum-sucking road whore!

On the flip side, you've got the Modesty Police and all those conservative moral guardians. No sex before marriage, or you will be forever tainted and no man will ever want you again. If you get raped, it is YOUR FAULT for being a sneaky whore and tempting men! These are the people who think women should be meek and mild. You know those chastity balls where girls take vows never to even TOUCH a boy before marriage? That's the extreme end of it. 

Looking at these contrasting positions, I find it strange that I, as a person, seem to fall more in line with the latter - the chaste one. I've had a few chances where I could have had sex: my friend's drunk friend who asked me to eat her out; my crush and I spending the night making out heatedly on an airbed; the boy I'm dating staying over at my house. (It was great; he'd lied to his parents about where he was, the same way as I'd lied about who I was having for a sleepover. I loved the puerile secrecy of it.) But I've never gone there, not yet.

I think I must have been corrupted by television. For all my sex positivity - which largely comes down to "YOU DO YOU!" - I don't want my first time to be on a whim. I want it to be... as near to perfect as possible. I want it to be with someone who loves me, male or female. But that requires relationships. I'm normally too lazy for those: I am a virgin out of passivity. That said, I'm pretty ambivalent about my virginity. It's just a transient status which has no wider reverberations on my personality, akin to saying "I bleach my hair" or "I have asthma". It's hardly a sufficient summary of my whole personality, you know?

One of my friends lost her virginity to a boy she'd known for three weeks, and been dating for two. I was kind of surprised - another friend and I sat, over coffee, wondering if she'd come to regret it. We thought she'd get hurt. But while our concern for her well-being may have been valid, it was misplaced: we were treating sex as something dangerous. We were denying her agency, something I take up arms about in all other situations. If she wanted to have sex with him, why were we this surprised about it? It was like we were slut-shaming. I spent the next few days mulling over that conversation, hating myself for being so judgemental.

In the same way as over-sexualisation is bullshit, modesty is bullshit. The idea that girls should cover up lest they tempt men to rape them? Utter balls. But it's still permeated our culture.

I'm half-expecting everyone who reads this to raise their eyebrows, but you're probably young liberal sorts, more likely to wonder why a virgin is writing about sex than why a girl would talk about her sexuality on the internet.

If things keep going this way, there is a good chance I'll screw The Boy. It seems too far away to think about in detail; even last night, when we were rolling around in my bed in only our underwear, firmly established at second base, sex never really crossed my mind. (I thought I could feel his boner against my thigh, but I didn't want to ask in case I was wrong, or my intentions were misconstrued.) It's less about actively protecting my virgin status, more just a reluctance to do anything in case I regret it later. It's not even an aversion to sex - hell, just writing this is making me want to jump his bones - but an aversion to trying to force the pace of our relationship.

Maybe I need to live more in the moment. Maybe I need to stop second-guessing myself. I definitely need to stop judging other people. It doesn't matter if your first time is with someone you love or someone you barely know; as long as it's consensual, it's all good. I will lose my virginity when I feel comfortable, and I shouldn't be made to feel guilty if it's sooner or later than anyone else.

It doesn't matter if you're a nymphomanic or totally asexual, Jezebel or the Virgin Mary - judgement is bullshit. The virgin/whore dichtomoy is bullshit. Real sex positivity comes from just doing things that give you pleasure, and fuck other people's considerations: you do you.