The 40 Year-Old Virgin: Virginity, Singleness, Weirdness

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on March 28, 2006.

On Christmas Day, 2005, after opening presents and hanging out at my sister-in-law's house, my wife and I drove to her mother and step-father's place, just a few minutes away. After the recent busyness, we all were looking forward to a quiet and pleasant evening of cinematic entertainment. My brother-in-law had loaned them a copy of Judd Apatow's The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005), promising that it was most hilarious. Figuring that I never would spend my own money to see this film (and yes, harboring a secret curiosity as to its content), I plopped down on the couch and proceeded to enter the world of junior-high toilet humor.

If you're interested in mixing the sacred with the profane, if you like dissonant experiences, then do what I did and watch The 40 Year-Old Virgin on one of the Church calendar's holiest days. If you're not interested in dissonance (and if you don't ever plan to watch this film), then let me just confirm your worst suspicions: it is extremely bawdy, coarse, and, well, funny (again, in that junior-high sort of way). Steve Carell plays Andy, an employee at a "big box" electronics store (a la Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.), who is the middle-age virgin in question. One night, during a poker game with his work buddies, he inadvertently indicates that he has lived a full four decades without doing the nasty. It's not that he hasn't tried, mind you; it just seems that every "opportunity" ended up in failure, usually due to some clumsy move on his part.

His buddies, ever looking out for his best interests, then attempt to set up new opportunities for one-night stands, all of which fail. However, this doesn't mean that Andy isn't interested in romantic engagements with members of the opposite sex; during the course of the movie, he meets and falls in love with Trish (Catherine Keener), a clerk from a store across street. She is a single mom in her 40s, and Andy is desperate to hide the fact of his virginity from her, lest she think him a loser.

The relationship between Andy and Trish ends up altering slightly the tone of The 40 Year-Old Virgin by presenting us with contrasting views of relationships. Right up to the credits, Andy is shown as a gentleman — clumsy and socially naive, perhaps, but nevertheless a gentleman. His buddies, on the other hand, hold immature, degrading views of women and sexuality (though by the end of the film, they "repent" a little bit and take a cue from Andy's perspective).

Keep in mind that Andy and Trish's relationship alters the movie slightly. The majority of The 40 Year-Old Virgin is still a bawdy romp, and I cannot recommend it to anyone, especially in such an esteemed forum as cinekklesia. In addition, while the movie ultimately vindicates Andy as the "better man," he nevertheless bears the brunt of most of the jokes. Besides his virginity, the movie makes fun of the fact that he engages in activities stereotypically associated with men who have, well, never grown up: he collects old action figures (in their original packaging, of course), paints figurines of fantasy characters, and plays video games. (He also walks around his apartment, playing his tuba, presumably reliving his days in high school band.) If he were ten years younger, we would expect him to be living with his parents, reading comic books, and attending Star Trek conventions.

Thus, The 40 Year-Old Virgin attempts to make a strong correlation between Andy's sexual status and his hobbies. The only element we're missing is the causal explanation: is Andy a virgin because he has never grown up and maintains the interests of a 13-year-old, or has his virginity somehow stunted his emotional development (i.e., if he had just "done it," would he have graduated to more mature pursuits of a "masculine" variety, like football or automobile repair)? This supposition, whether intentional or not, seems to mirror our culture's perception of sexuality not as an act of intimacy between two people who love and remain committed to each other, but rather, as a necessary part of one's intellectual and emotional development. In other words, without having sex, one is not fully adult; if one remains a virgin at 40, then he/she deserves both pity and derision.

All of this may sound like old news to American Christians, who have been reminded repeatedly about the evils of "The Media's" treatment of sexuality. From the blunt sex-outside-of-marriage-is-wrong-so-don't-do-it messages to the more genteel "celebrations" of the "special gift" that deserves honor rather than degradation, we are awash in talk about sex and the improper portrayals thereof. However, if we just dig a little deeper into our own perceptions of virginity, singleness, and family, I hypothesize that we would find our views closer to The 40 Year-Old Virgin's than we would like to admit.

If there is one topic on which American Christians, especially Evangelicals, obsess, it is the family. This obsession facilitates a culture in which "married with children" serves as the default status — to be unmarried after a certain age denotes something "wrong." Sure, the single middle-aged are not banned from church life, but I suggest that those of us who are married ponder the single man's/woman's status a little longer than we should: Why aren't they married? Are they odd? Are they even trying to meet someone? This is not mere conjecture: anecdotally, I remember two instances in which fellow Christians (one of whom was a pastor) mocked the single middle-aged, implying that they were creepy and socially inept. This simplistic and cruel sentiment is simply unacceptable in a Church that should be more concerned with spreading the Gospel than obsessing over one's marital status.

Christians would do well to re-read Paul's advice in 1 Corinthians 7:25-40, which begins, "Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy" (v. 25, NIV). He goes on to advise Christians not to change their marital status or to focus on the matters of this world for "the time is short" (v. 29). Rather, we should maintain our focus on God — so much so that Paul advises believers not to marry since marriage serves to disrupt that focus (vv. 32-35). Of course, others remind us repeatedly that Paul was not making a command but rather, offering advice and suggestion. This is true. However, if "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness..." (2 Ti 3:16), then do not Paul's words in 1 Corinthians have something to say to us? Reminding us, perhaps, that family life is not the ultimate goal of existence? Provoking us to consider whether our spouses and children have become idols, whether "family" itself has morphed into an idol?

Imagine that! Perhaps we can wrest something edifying from The 40 Year-Old Virgin after all!