We're of the know-art-when-we-see-it school, but we're stymied by a British art student's decision to hold his de-virginizing in a London art gallery.

Clayton Pettet, a second year at Central Saint Martins is inviting patrons to watch his back-door deflowering at “Art School Stole My Virginity” being held January 25 as an piece of "performance art."

Pettet, 19, will engage in (safe) sex until orgasm, then ask gallerygoers what they thought of the performance. Isn't that what X-tube is for?

Although virginity itself is an abstract idea, the moment the hymen is broken is completely physical, and thus the exact moment of deflowering can be pinpointed. For women that is. The loss of male virginity is still more abstract - an undetectable moment in time, does male virginity really exist? If so, can a male ever lose his virginity?

This idea becomes more complex when one considers all types of sexual relations. Men and men, women and women? Virginity has almost become heteronormative in its definition, given that in the most graphic of terms it is the moment when a penis first penetrates the vagina. Therefore when is the moment of loss for a human male?

...In this immersive art piece, Clayton Pettet will explore the answers to this question in one of the most innovative and intimate ways possible. 

Pettet insists he's not popping his cherry willy-nilly: “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.”

He says true performance art should only be performed once, "and this is the ultimate once-in-a-lifetime performance." But don't go expecting "There's a reason I haven't said the layout of the piece, the location of the piece, or what is actually going to happen—for people comparing it to a live sex show, I can assure you it will be nothing like that."

h/t: Queerty