I am going to tell you something that a lot of people might think is weird, if not downright alarming.

I am a virgin. And I am 23 years old.

Don't worry: you don't need to pity me, or look away from the screen and pretend you never read this. Being a virgin isn't something to be ashamed of, and I'm not. As a culture, we approach virginity as something that is lost or given away – and that gives the world a power over us. Coming clean is a way for me to take that power back.

It's not that the culture in which I grew up didn't beat me over the head with the concept that having sex is what separates helpless, scrawny boys from real, masculine men – it did. (Even literature in my high school's abstinence-only sex education classes recognized sex as a gateway to manhood.) It's not that I don't know that sex is regarded as the pinnacle "achievement" that validates one's manliness – it does. It didn't escape my notice when, in my late teens, sexual adventures became a type of currency. In high school it bought respect, and in college it got free beers from the guys. (I eventually stopped going out to bars alone because I couldn't find people to just talk with – everyone seemed too distracted trying to find their newest "sexual conquest" or "score".)

And it's not as if I didn't hear all that same kind of cultural messaging, all those years, as Elliot Rodger did, apparently, before he went on his murderous rampage last week in Isla Vista, California. But Rodger wrote and recorded that he felt somehow insignificant because he didn’t have sex – or, more accurately, because women were not throwing themselves at him to be used as sexual objects. I just know that his thought process – and that of the men who agree with him – is completely wrong.

First, no person deserves sex; we're not born with the right to be able take from another person's body that which we desire. Sex is an experience people have with one another, not an achievement to which one is entitled. You don’t unlock sex. It must be consensually earned – and anything short of that is rape.

Second, there is nothing wrong with being a virgin, regardless your age – and the reasons that people don't have sex are as varied as the people who don't. Maybe the reason is that you haven't had time for romance, or that you’re asexual, or that you haven’t had the opportunity to have a relationship that leads to sex. Maybe, like me, the reason is that you want the emotional intimacy that comes from physical closeness more than the physical act – and you simply haven't found someone who wants the same thing. Whatever the reason, you're not less of a person than anybody else because of your choices. You're certainly not less of a man.

Knowing why I'm a virgin doesn't mean it's always been easy to ignore the idea that I'm somehow inferior to my sexually-experienced peers. Virgin-shaming isn't as upfront and in-your-face as slut-shaming, but it's the other side of the same misogynist coin: they're both ways of assigning worth (or the lack thereof), based purely on someone's very personal sexual experience. Virgins often find themselves the butt of jokes and the center of bad plotlines from popular teen movies – all of which can easily make you feel inferior, and beyond insecure.

My decisions about sex, like those of a lot of virgins, have been my own. But for years I was ashamed of my sexual inexperience – especially during college. Like a lot of men around my age, I was more than once tempted to lie and pretend that I wasn't a virgin when the subject came up – especially with women. Once, in a psychology class, the professor asked students to raise our hands if we first had sex at a certain age. She started at 14 years old, and a few guys – grinning – rocketed their hands into the air; as the ages she called out increased, more hands rose. I nervously glanced toward a shy girl I had a crush on and saw her hand raise at 18. I didn't want her to look down on me and so, timidly, I put my hand up, too.

Why lie? It felt like everyone assumed that I already had (or soon would have) sex, especially before graduating college. And it felt like the women I'd wanted to date expected that I would bring some sexual experience to the table, and that not having any would turn me into a project rather than a partner.

But I eventually didn't see any alternatives to being honest, when what I wanted was a connection with someone that was about more than just sex. Plus, I came to realize that talking about sex, whether or not you're having it, is always awkward – hell, it can become downright humiliating, depending on what people say. I've even had a few people tell me that I'll never find love, solely because nobody will "put up" with dating a virgin of my age.

I know, however, that it's no more easy for me to be vulnerable with someone and say that I haven't had sex – knowing that people may react with disgust or disdain – than it is for women to be vulnerable and admit they've had sex when people may well react with similar disdain or disgust (or in more destructive ways then that).

But just because something is difficult doesn't mean it's not worth doing. I know the kind of reaction this piece is likely going to get. I know the nasty comments people are going to write about me, and about this – and I know it that it won't make me ashamed of the choices I've made because they're the right choices for me.

And I know that at least one person will read this and realize that they're not alone, and they're not "abnormal", and they've got nothing to be embarrassed about.