Awkward Questions

So, filling out a character worksheet that I got online, I have found myself faced with a very awkward question.

A little background- I found the sheet while looking for character worksheets. I found this one with it's 100+ questions and decided that, even thought it was actually intended for role players, that the breadth of the questions would make it a great outlining tool for writing a work of fiction.

So I'm filling it out, and in the question about childhood (which I'm hoping their taking as a broad term to define anything that happened to the character before they hit college age) they have the question:

1. Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity?

Well, this isn't an unjustifiable question, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made that this was a question that really does define a lot about the character. If the character isn't a virgin when and how they lost their virginity can have a significant impact on how they interact with people of the opposite sex, and can even play into how people perceive them. If they are a virgin, the grand question of why they are, especially depending on how old they are, is bound to come up... and again plays a vital role in defining the characters social interactions.

So, filling this out for Eira, and suddenly I have to step back and say "Well, is she?"

See this is more complicated than it might seem, because a large part of the Eira's character is that she is both impetuous, but that she's also been shouldered with a ton of familial responsibility since she was a teenager. Earlier in the worksheet, I'd already determined that she didn't have her first real kiss until she was 17. That alone says a lot about her.

The virginity question, however seems so much more awkward.

Can a 32ish year old woman be a virgin without being socially awkward? I mean, I don't perceive Eira as a sexual character, that's Seren (more on her later), but she's also not a shy or awkward character. I just don't think she's someone who's ever really had a chance to date or really become involved with the opposite sex. This actually ties into something I have been kicking around later in the series (well past book one), when the possibility of Eira and another central character (who may or may not be in book one.... I know but I'm not telling) getting together romantically.

The notion that Eira was a virgin never entered into that equation. I didn't think it needed to.

Now, however that question is on the table, and I'm not at all sure how to answer it.