Editing Virginity (section)

====Buddhism====
{{main|Buddhism and sexuality}}

The most common formulation of Buddhist ethics for [[Laity|lay followers]] are the [[The Five Precepts|Five Precepts]] and the [[Noble Eightfold Path|Eightfold Path]]. These precepts take the form of voluntary, personal undertakings, not divine mandate or instruction. The third of the Five Precepts is "To refrain from committing sensual misconduct".<ref>{{cite web|title=The Five Precepts: pañca-sila|url=http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sila/pancasila.html|publisher=Access to Insight|access-date=18 August 2012|archive-date=7 May 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050507081639/http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sila/pancasila.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Sensual misconduct is defined in the [[Pali Canon]] as follows:

{{Quote|Abandoning sensual misconduct, [a man] abstains from sensual misconduct. He does not get sexually involved with those who are protected by their mothers, their fathers, their brothers, their sisters, their relatives, or their Dhamma; those with husbands, those who entail punishments, or even those crowned with flowers by another man.<ref>{{cite web|title=Cunda Kammaraputta: To Cunda the Silversmith|url=http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an10/an10.176.than.html|work=Anguttara Nikaya|publisher=Access to Insight|access-date=18 August 2012|archive-date=11 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200911215322/https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an10/an10.176.than.html|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

Virginity, specifically, is not mentioned in the Canon. On the other hand, [[Sangha (Buddhism)|Buddhist monks and nuns]] of most traditions are expected to refrain from all sexual activity and the [[Sakyamuni Buddha|Buddha]] is said to have admonished his followers to avoid unchastity "as if it were a pit of burning cinders."<ref>{{cite book|last=Saddhatissa|first=Hammalawa|title=Buddhist Ethics: The Path to Nirvana|publisher=Wisdom Pubns; New Ed edition|date=December 1987|page=[https://archive.org/details/buddhistethics0000sadd/page/88 88]|url=https://archive.org/details/buddhistethics0000sadd/page/88|isbn=978-0-86171-053-9}}</ref>

The 3rd of the 5 precepts in Buddhism warns against any sensual misconduct, though the exact definition of it is unclear. Buddhists have been more open compared to other religions about the subject of sex and that has expanded over time. As with Christianity, although a traditionalist would assume that one should not have sex before marriage, many Buddhists do. There are different branches of Buddhism, like tantric and puritan, and they have very different views on the subject of sex, yet managed to get along. Tantric is a Sanskrit word; it is typically translated as two things or person being bound together. In the time of Gotama, the man who came to be known as Buddha, sex was not taboo. The world the prince lived in was filled with earthly pleasures. Women naked from the waist above were in the court solely to serve the prince. Gotama's father even constructed a chamber of love. Prince Gotama and founded the beginnings of Buddhism, which included the denial of earthly pleasures in order to follow the Middle Way. The stark contrast between the way Buddha lived his life before and after rejecting the material world may arguably be one of the reasons Buddhism evolved the way it did. In the present, the mother of a Buddha does not have to be a virgin; she must have never had a child, however.