Gay Teenager To Lose Virginity In Front Of Live Audience For ‘Art’

A gay British teenager plans to lose his virginity in front of a live audience as “performance art.”

Clayton Pettet, a 19-year-old student at Central Saint Martins art school in London, will have sex for the first time as part of a project called “Art School Stole My Virginity.” Pettet, who has been planning the project for three years, called the art show a “once in a lifetime performance.” Pettet and a friend will engage in safe sex at an art space in the London Borough of Hackney.

Pettet expects 50 to 100 classmates and other members of the public to attend. After the performance, Pettet will hold a Q&A, asking the audience if they sensed a change in his partner’s attitude toward him.

“I’ve held on to my virginity for 19 years, and I’m not throwing it away lightly. Basically it’s like I am losing the stigma around virginity,” he said.

“Since culturally we do hold quite a lot of value to the idea of virginity, I have decided to use mine and the loss of it to create a piece that I think will stimulate interesting debate and questions regarding the subject,” Pettet added.

Clayton Pettet has told his teachers about the performance, but not his parents.

Birmingham-based gay artist Hannah Honeywill told Gay Star News that Pettet’s project was an “interesting thing” since virginity is a “heteronormative term.” She also questioned whether he would actually be losing his virginity on the day of the performance.

“It’s an interesting thing for a gay man to do as virginity is such a heteronormative term,” she said. “In straight relationships it is female virginity that is the precious thing, a pure thing relating to Christianity.”

Honeywill continued, “As gay people we can happily sidestep all of that. We don’t have to conform to those heterosexual rules. Then I wonder, is he actually losing his virginity?”

Hannah Honeywill said if Clayton Pettet really wanted to make an impact, he would have chosen something more subtle.

“When you’re in the art world, naked bodies having sex? It’s not new,” she said. “The sexual body is pretty standard stuff. I don’t think it’s shocking.”

“Art School Stole My Virginity” will be held January 25, 2014.