(Anonymous)
The thing I wonder is, did he have to sleep with another woman, or at least pretend to be sleeping with one (or several), after Voldemort came back? Because if Dumbledore had been in Voldemort's shoes, I can well imagine him monitoring Severus' love life in order to determine his allegiance.
Voldemort knew for a fact that Snape was so in love (or infatuated lust or whatever) with Lily to have pleaded to him for her life. One would imagine that this was a rare occurrence, even among his closest subordinates -- for him to presumptuously ask his Master to spare the life of a mudblood who has thrice defied the Dark Lord and is clearly an enemy. If Voldemort had any sense, he would monitor Snape's private life, at least to some extent, before trusting him again post-resurrection. A healthy 36-year-old heterosexual man showing zero interest in other women sexually, after all these years following the death of his object of desire, would be a good sign that the man might not have gotten over Lily and thus still harbors dangerous resentments for her death.
Although the important factor here is Voldemort's lovelessness. Love does seem to be his one area of complete and utter ignorance. He overlooks quite a lot of how human psyche acts when it comes to caring emotions towards others. But then again he also does have a psychotically keen instinct for how to exploit people's loving emotions (baiting Harry with Sirius, and the Death Eaters' favorite method of coercion having been the capture and torture of family members).
So I don't know. Would Snape have thought he has to take a lover for appearance's sake? Was Pettigrew stationed at his house to report back on Snape's sex life or lack thereof, including whose name he whispers when he wanks? (Eww.)
In either case I don't think he canonically looks to have died a virgin, not because he can't stay celibate for 17 years after Lily's death (I think it is very likely -- even realistically likely -- that he has, because he was so devastated and hung up on his martyr mentality after that; he also became so antisocial that I imagine the teacher-era Snape would have regarded sex as too much interpersonal work to be worth the hassle) but because he once stepped back from his Lily love. Remember he couldn't choose Lily over his Slytherin friends when she told him it was them or her. So that was his choice, no matter how much he might have regretted it after the years to come. Then later years found him eagerly doing Voldemort's bidding; in other words, when he left school and joined the DEs, he was full of hope, if headed in the wrong direction, and full of vitality and ambition, looking forward to a life of fulfillment. Of course he would have had sex with people. He could have even fallen in love genuinely and taken a girlfriend or boyfriend.
Not that there would be anything wrong in interpreting Snape as having died a virgin... Some people do, you know, and not just ugly people, but mostly people who don't have that much interest in human-to-human sex (don't necessarily have to be completely asexual) and those who never like people around them enough to want to have sex with them. Or those whose social skills are so inadequate that they have a hard time getting to first base. Even men can be like that -- in fact, because of the inequality between the gendered norms (there's always men out there willing to sleep with any woman, whereas the same doesn't apply to your average women) it might even be likelier for men to be like that than women. So if Snape was like that and for financial or psychological reasons didn't decide to hire a sex worker, he may well have died a virgin and that's nothing to write home about. He doesn't have to be a virgin when he dies but then he doesn't have to not either, is what I'm trying to say here.
-raisin_gal
Voldemort knew for a fact that Snape was so in love (or infatuated lust or whatever) with Lily to have pleaded to him for her life. One would imagine that this was a rare occurrence, even among his closest subordinates -- for him to presumptuously ask his Master to spare the life of a mudblood who has thrice defied the Dark Lord and is clearly an enemy. If Voldemort had any sense, he would monitor Snape's private life, at least to some extent, before trusting him again post-resurrection. A healthy 36-year-old heterosexual man showing zero interest in other women sexually, after all these years following the death of his object of desire, would be a good sign that the man might not have gotten over Lily and thus still harbors dangerous resentments for her death.
Although the important factor here is Voldemort's lovelessness. Love does seem to be his one area of complete and utter ignorance. He overlooks quite a lot of how human psyche acts when it comes to caring emotions towards others. But then again he also does have a psychotically keen instinct for how to exploit people's loving emotions (baiting Harry with Sirius, and the Death Eaters' favorite method of coercion having been the capture and torture of family members).
So I don't know. Would Snape have thought he has to take a lover for appearance's sake? Was Pettigrew stationed at his house to report back on Snape's sex life or lack thereof, including whose name he whispers when he wanks? (Eww.)
In either case I don't think he canonically looks to have died a virgin, not because he can't stay celibate for 17 years after Lily's death (I think it is very likely -- even realistically likely -- that he has, because he was so devastated and hung up on his martyr mentality after that; he also became so antisocial that I imagine the teacher-era Snape would have regarded sex as too much interpersonal work to be worth the hassle) but because he once stepped back from his Lily love. Remember he couldn't choose Lily over his Slytherin friends when she told him it was them or her. So that was his choice, no matter how much he might have regretted it after the years to come. Then later years found him eagerly doing Voldemort's bidding; in other words, when he left school and joined the DEs, he was full of hope, if headed in the wrong direction, and full of vitality and ambition, looking forward to a life of fulfillment. Of course he would have had sex with people. He could have even fallen in love genuinely and taken a girlfriend or boyfriend.
Not that there would be anything wrong in interpreting Snape as having died a virgin... Some people do, you know, and not just ugly people, but mostly people who don't have that much interest in human-to-human sex (don't necessarily have to be completely asexual) and those who never like people around them enough to want to have sex with them. Or those whose social skills are so inadequate that they have a hard time getting to first base. Even men can be like that -- in fact, because of the inequality between the gendered norms (there's always men out there willing to sleep with any woman, whereas the same doesn't apply to your average women) it might even be likelier for men to be like that than women. So if Snape was like that and for financial or psychological reasons didn't decide to hire a sex worker, he may well have died a virgin and that's nothing to write home about. He doesn't have to be a virgin when he dies but then he doesn't have to not either, is what I'm trying to say here.
-raisin_gal