Virginity

Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, predominantly towards unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth.

Like chastity, the concept of virginity has traditionally involved sexual abstinence. The concept of virginity usually involves moral or religious issues and can have consequences in terms of social status and in interpersonal relationships. Although virginity has social implications and had significant legal implications in some societies in the past, it has no legal consequences in most societies today.

The term virgin originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern, and ethical concepts.Heterosexual individuals may or may not consider loss of virginity to occur only through penile-vaginal penetration, while people of other sexual orientations often include oral sex, anal sex or mutual masturbation in their definitions of losing one's virginity.

Virgin Group

Virgin Group Ltd. is a British multinational branded venture capital conglomerate founded by entrepreneur Richard Branson and Nik Powell. Its core business areas are travel, entertainment and lifestyle, and it also manages ventures in financial services, transport, healthcare, food and drink, media and telecommunications; together, Virgin's businesses consist of more than 400 companies worldwide.

Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by Companies House, who class it as a holding company; however Virgin's business and trading activities date to the 1970s. The net worth of Virgin Group was estimated at £5-5.5 billion as of November 2014.

Name

The brand name "Virgin" arose when Richard Branson and Nik Powell formed a record shop. They considered themselves virgins in business. Branson has described the "V" in the logo as an expressive tick, representing the Virgin seal of approval.

Corporate affairs

Virgin Group has its headquarters at The Battleship Building in the Paddington district of the City of Westminster. Previously it was in The School House in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

Virgin Records

Virgin Records, Ltd. was a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell and Tom Newman in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, the Human League, Culture Club, Simple Minds, Lenny Kravitz, dc Talk, the Smashing Pumpkins, Mike Oldfield, Spice Girls and more on their list of artists. It was later sold to Thorn EMI in 1992.

Wholly owned by Universal Music Group after its purchase of EMI in 2012, UMG absorbed its British operations to create Virgin EMI Records in March 2013, which absorbed Mercury Records UK.

Today, the operations of Virgin Records America, Inc. (a unit of Virgin Records, Ltd.) are still active and are headquartered in Hollywood, California, as it operates exclusively via Capitol Music Group since 2007. A heavily minor amount of artists remain on Virgin Records America's roster, which today is mostly occupied with European artists such as Bastille, Circa Waves, Corinne Bailey Rae, Ella Eyre, Grizfolk, Walking on Cars, Seinabo Sey, and Prides. American artists include only L'Tric and Rise Against.