Virginity and Virginification

I’m still trying to wrap my brain around all the thoughts that this article from MSNBC shook loose regarding women who undergo surgery to reattach their hymens so that they can be virgins again. Jane sent me the link and her reaction mirrored mine: EAAAAAUUUGH!

Since then my brain has been gnawing on the issue, and forcing me to examine my own horror. Why am I so squicked? And under what circumstances would someone want to surgically reattach their hymen? I can understand wanting to reclaim one’s own virginity if it was forcibly taken away by rape or assault, and I see the necessity when women are subject to honor killings should they dare have sex outside of sanctioned wedlock. But investing external value into the presence of a hymen such that one might pay a surgeon a good amount of money to reattach it for the pleasure of someone else… I don’t get it.

I also thought about and went back to re-read Candy’s and my discussion about virginity in the romance novel and how it’s a powerful and sacred construct affecting both heroes and heroines. But would a romance heroine be believable if she had her hymen reattached?

The surgery itself raises a lot of questions that I’m still puzzling over, not the least of which is how important virginity is in and outside of our culture. Outside of RomanceLandia, is losing your virginity important, and would you want it back? Me? No, thanks.

The balm to my what-the-fuck so far has been this interview series with the creator of The Virgin Project, a comic book that details individual’s experiences losing their virginity. Pages from The Virgin Project are making their public debut at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival Gala. Man, do I ever want to go to Seattle. If any of you ladies see the exhibit, please do let me know what you think!

Comments are Closed

  1. Rosie says:

    Why am I so squicked? And under what circumstances would someone want to surgically reattach their hymen?

    This is the marble rattling around in my head.  How authentic can it be even in the circumstances you suggest of rape or assault if YOU know it’s gone.  There can only be one time. 

    …to reattach it for the pleasure of someone else… I don’t get it.

    Me neither.  Just. Can’t.

  2. Sianne says:

    This sort of goes in the same category (for me at least) of women reconstructing their vaginas because they don’t “look normal enough”  What on earth is all this sudden fascination with our coochies?  They exist, they function, we shouldn’t have to pay other people to change them because a women’s magazine tells us there’s something wrong with it and men aren’t going to like us because of it.  As if young girls these days haven’t got enough to worry about.  Excuse my soapbox…

    How DO you reattach a hymen, anyway?

  3. AgTigress says:

    Sianne has raised the other question that came to my mind when I read this, the boom in ‘cosmetic’ genital surgery, which seems to me wholly objectionable.  I am, however, quite strongly opposed to all forms of cosmetic surgery other than those designed to correct serious physical faults or damage.

    On the issue of virginity, hymens vary a great deal, I believe, in their toughness, and activities other than sexual intercourse can tear a hymen sufficiently that the first experience of copulation causes neither pain nor bloodshed.  The classic cause is riding, but I suspect there may well be others.  Although it was a VERY long time ago, I remember my first experience of sexual intercourse quite well, and there was no bleeding and no pain – so presumably if I had been a new bride in a society which is concerned about such things, I should have been falsely accused of being soiled goods.

  4. Esri Rose says:

    Okay, the value of virginity to males was originally, “I had her first so I’m most likely to have passed on my genetic material.” The hymen never provided an evolutionary advantage to women, so for them to voluntarily have this done defies logic. I’m sorry, but I’m not having any bodily dongles installed until they can at least pick up Wi-Fi.

  5. SamG says:

    I certainly wouldn’t want mine back.  I have a very hard time with the ‘hymen-decides-worth’ that seems to be important to some people.

    I hope that the fact that I am kind, generous, hopefully possess a good sense of humor, honor and honesty and am at least average in intelligence means a hell of a lot more than a stupid membrane.

    I wouldn’t want a guy that thought that way…

    Sam…coming from a catholic family (that I apparently don’t agree with), this topic bugs the snot out of me…

  6. Miranda says:

    I posted about this article in my LJ, and the sheer number of things wrong with it is mind-boggling.

    #1 This is only a requirement for women. Men are supposed to be superstuds with the skill and experience initiate us into the realms of ecstasy, although all others are forsaken due to the power of our magic hoo-hoo. The quotes on the site are horrific “Do you feel like used goods? Unworthy to be cherished?”

    #2. Sex is biology. It’s a physical act that can be good or horrific, depending on circumstances, but it’s still an act. It is not a mystical union of souls, and it does not equal love. Giving the ‘first time’ magical powers doesn’t help anyone.

    I’ll be up front. Both mr.mir and I were virgins for each other. Although we loved each other, it took a while to get the dynamics of intercourse worked out so that everyone had a good time.

    #3 Dishonesty both to yourself and to your partner. If you decide for whatever reason that pre-marital sex is wrong for you, then stop having it. No one should do anything she (or he) thinks is wrong. However, pretending your past didn’t happen is not the answer. It’s your path, it’s helped form who you are to this point. Ignoring it won’t make it go away or help you learn.

    #4. Deflowering is a power dynamic. The defloweree has been claimed by the deflowerER, especially when a high level of importance is set around the act.

    #5. Many non-sexual activities can break a hymen. Is the woman not planning to exercise or use tampons?

  7. AgTigress says:

    The Wikipedia article on the hymen seems quite sound, and describes its many different states and shapes.  Note this sentence in particular, with reference to what I said in my post above:
    “Sexual intercourse is one of the most common ways to damage the hymen, although only 43% of women report bleeding the first time they had sex; which means that in the other 57% of women the hymen likely stretched enough that it didn’t tear.” (my italics).

  8. Marsh says:

    I’m disturbed by the inability to accept yourself as you are and trying to reclaim some inconsequential detail of the past as if by sewing back on your hymen somehow nullifies the fact that it was ever broken. Time doesn’t flow in reverse. Perhaps the woman in the article would like to return the spittle exchanged in her first kiss so that can now claim to have ever had only the one set of foreign fluid and bacteria in my mouth? Would that somehow validate her current relationship?

    There are a lot of moments in life I’d like to undo. But I don’t think reenacting them to make them like new is going to erase the memories of them from the mind.

  9. Amy (Jaded) says:

    I understand the idea that virginity is something special; I feel that way, because for me sex has a spiritual component as well as physical. But I don’t understand the focus on the physical aspects of virginity, or the sexual double standard that lets men sleep around while still expecting their wives to be virgins. (If I’m going to wait to have sex until I’m married, I expect my husband to extend me the same courtesy.)

    Then there’s the whole ick factor of lying to your partner, and the stupidity of assuming that the only way the hymen breaks is through sexual intercourse.

  10. SB Sarah says:

    “I’m not having any bodily dongles installed until they can at least pick up Wi-Fi.”

    I WANT ONE. NOW.

  11. snarkhunter says:

    Ugh. We talked about this on Jezebel the other day, and here’s all I have to say on the subject: virginity does not equal possession of a hymen. I am the biggest virgin to ever be a virgin (yeah, that makes no sense), but (TMI ALERT) I have no hymen. I have the remnants or something, or so the gyno told me a few weeks back when I finally asked out of sheer curiosity. (I mean, how else would I know if I had one at this point?) Should I immediately run out and get myself (re?)attached just so that my first time will be filled with MORE pain and bleeding?

    How about no. Unless you have one of those super-tough springy ones, a huge percentage of girls today break theirs by playing sports or using tampons or whatever.

    The only reason I can think of that this might be a good thing is for those women in families/societies where hymen…ality? does equal virginity, and not being a virgin equals death. Sew her back up if it will save her life, but God. What a horror.

    (Spambot word: reached64. As in, I will still probably be a virgin when I reach 64, at the rate I’m going.)

  12. Elizabeth says:

    Like Sarah said, I can see the use for rape victims trying to reclaim their bodies and for people in cultures where you could die for not having one, but for your normal gal over here? It’s ridiculous. It doesn’t give you back your virginity—you obviously still had sex with the other guy(s). All it does is make it easier to lie to your partner, which puts a little more tarnish on your soul and relationship than having sex, don’t you think?

    BTW, where’s Candy? I never see her posting anymore.

  13. e says:

    What a horrible conflation of virginity and chastity.

    Yet, the academic in me is highly amused. I actually wrote a thesis on Livy’s History, Augustine, and Lessing’s Emilia Galotti. Livy and Lessing write about Romans who conflate chastity and virginity, leading to the dangerous conclusion that it’s better to commit suicide or have yourself killed rather than be raped. At least Augustine had his wits about him and realized that you could still be chaste, even if you weren’t a virgin. Silly fetishization of the hymen, this is.

    I wish this had been written on a few weeks earlier—I would have loved to include it in my last conference.

    lost68…am I a lost member of the ‘68 generation?

  14. EJ McKenna says:

    This topic really annoys me too. Good on you for raising it here as well.

    Let’s invent a ‘problem’ and supply the ‘solution’ all in one expensive package. Have we run out of neuroses that we need to invent more?

    It’s preying on gullible people, and perpetuating the myth that hymens exist in the first place. I’ve never been convinced they exist and (as I said on another post over at Dear Author) an obstetrician told me not every woman has one anyway.

    Grrrrrr!

    (But thanks for posting the topic)

  15. Cori says:

    I was a virgin the first time my husband (then fiance) and I had sex, but the hymen was already long gone. I don’t really know how, I don’t remember any ripping experience earlier in life, but there was nothing in the way. That didn’t make saving myself for him any less special, and it’s certainly not like he wasn’t going to believe me when I told him I was a virgin. I’ve always thought of a hymen as a problem that makes the initiation to sex more painful than it has to be. Who’d want to go through that twice?

  16. Leah says:

    I held off my then boyfriend for a long time.  When I finally gave in, I had the ripping, the pain, the blood—and of course he turned out to be a jerk who wasn’t worth it.  I always laugh when I hear the songs “Like a Virgin” and “Feels Like the First Time”—because it was just not that wonderful.  Having my hymen “repaired” could hardly erase that fiasco!

  17. Alyssa says:

    This amused me in a disturbing kind of way.  Most of my time I have my head firmly buried in pre-modern Japan where *gasp* they had no word for virgin, and most certainly no word for hymen.  There was no real value in being a virgin/not being a virgin.  It’s interesting how different cultures/time periods look at the concept of virginity. 

    Also, as the daughter of a rape victim, I’m not really sure how reattaching the hymen would be empowering.  For my mother, taking back the act of sex, and making it something she chose, was far more empowering.  Although everyone is different and for some it might be worth while.

  18. Cora says:

    I had to read “Emilia Galotti² in highschool and I and two other girls got into an argument with the (male) teacher who tried to convince us that Emilia being murdered by her father for the sin of falling for an aristocrat was somehow an empowering message for the bourgeois masses, whereas I and the other two girls saw it as a murder, pure and simple. Actually, it is an honour killing, but that term didn’t yet exist in western discourse back then.

    Still, reminding a certain brand of anti-immigrant pundit that Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, one of our great writers and thinkers, justified and glorified in “Emilia Galotti” can be used to counter “our culture is better than theirs” arguments.

  19. Sandra D says:

    This just baffles and squicks me in many ways. Kind of closing the barn door after the horse is out isn’t it? The woman in the article has two children, who in their right mind is ever going to believe she’s a virgin? It almost says to me that she’s trying to erase that whole prior relationship, and wouldn’t that include erasing the children if she’s in such a hurry to erase what created them? This is the same problem I have with annulling a marriage that has produced children, if you’re saying the marriage never existed then aren’t you saying your children are bastards? Ugh, the view is scary from up here on my high horse and soap box.

    became21: nah, even if I became 21 again I still wouldn’t have my virginity back tg.

  20. thirstygirl says:

    Wow, the only [vaguely] justifiable reason I can see for this surgery is honour killings and that’s it. The other reasons, I imagine, is somehow to make The Guy feel all super-special and I’m The First etc. And what kind of person *needs* that sort of badge?

    Yes, I get that for some people ‘saving it’ for the right person is the right decision *for them* but this is a pretty dishonourable way of faking that, no?

    [and TMI ahead- I was one of those girls who had the uber-thick hymen. Seriously-  a couple of hours of PAIN before we could get through it and the entire experience was enough to cause me to be physically unable to have PIV sex for a couple of years afterwards. Fortunately I ended up with a very lovely man who worked around that until we could get that particular combo working. Why would I ever want to repeat that?]

  21. SonomaLass says:

    This fascinates me, and horrifies me, all at once.  It hit me oddly because I’m reading some Regency romances (a category I’ve never really gotten into before), and the one I just finished is Eloisa James’ _Potent Pleasures_.  If you’ve read it, you know that most of the conflict stems from the fact that the heroine was “deflowered” before marriage—by the hero, who (SPOILER ALERT) doesn’t recognize her, marries her, and then blames her for having lost her virginity before marriage.

    Honestly, I was having some trouble with this aspect of the book before SB Sarah posted the MSNBC article. I know we’re talking about fictional recreation of historical/cultural attitudes, but I guess this is one reason I have had trouble with Regencies in the past.  I just can’t like me a hero who lives by such a double standard, and who will eventually get let off the hook for it because there’s a technicality of some sort that makes her still “pure” enough for him, and he doesn’t need to be for her.  And in reading romance, I want to love both halves of the main couple!

    Anyway, put me firmly in the “wouldn’t go back if I could” category of former virgins.

  22. thirstygirl says:

    And now I am thinking of this godawful CONTEMPORARY Judith McNaught book, the one which finally convinced me to never read her again, in which
    1-the hero convinces the heroine that she should have sex with him cuz only LOSERS still cared about saving your virginity till marriage, then
    2-cast her aside as a piece of trash the moment she’d given it up because she was clearly Such A Wh*re, then
    3-finally realised he was IN LURVE with her and this somehow man the utter lack of respect that he’d treated her with all right, and
    4-the heroine accepts his behaviour because at least she only ever had sex with her One True Lurve.

    Reiterating the key point here: published in the early 1990s. I can’t even remember the name of this trainwreck but it fills me with fiery hatred to this day.

  23. Jennie says:

    Well, I could think of a lot of things I’d rather do with the $5k the surgery costs.

    (and would insurance even cover something like this?  I can just see a court battle over whether someone’s hymen was a medical necessity.)

  24. Maybe if I got Superman to fly around the earth really fast and reverse its rotation…

    This is just a bunch of hooey. The hymen means nothing. And the first time? Heh, I got to point as a young woman where the whole idea of virginity was a huge bother, and I was ready to recruit the nearest slack-jawed goon to rid me of the dreaded affliction. I knew it was going to be a disappointment. Why forever associate that disappointment with someone I cared deeply about?

    As for wanting it back? Have any of these born-again virgins with children seen what a vagina looks like right after a baby has passed through it? I’m tellin’ ya, honey, hymen or no, it isn’t ever going to look or feel virginal again.

  25. SonomaLass says:

    The balm to my what-the-fuck so far has been this interview series with the creator of The Virgin Project, a comic book that details individual’s experiences losing their virginity.

    SB Sarah is right again.  This series was wonderful!  Made me want to rush out and tell my own story to someone who’d make a comic about it….

    Now, how many romance novels can we think of where the hero’s virginity, or the story of how he lost it, is important?

  26. quichepup says:

    The woman who had her hymen re-attached as an anniversary gift to her husband? No.

    I find it interesting that they don’t interview any male “spiritual virgins” though they claim there are some out there.

    corner95-corner 95 spiritual virgins and see how many are men

  27. thirstygirl says:

    ooo male virginity? hmm There was a book called Peaches [i think] by Patricia Morsi which dealt with mutual virginity rather well. Cross-stitch- Jamie Fraser was definitely a virgin. I’m pretty sure that both Jenny Crusie and LaVyrle Spencer have done this in the past but I can’t remember the titles off the top of my head… isn’t that kinda sad given how often its a feature for the female characters?

    [and a random hat-tip to Beatrice Small and her revelation that you could have enjoyable sex with someone other than your One True Lurve and it still didn’t make you a slapper]

  28. Barb says:

    As with most plastic surgery, I understand it to the point where it helps get rid of emotional trauma or in the context of cultural problems, but no way would I want / have ever wanted to undergo a treatment like that. Being one of the gals who ripped her hymen doing sports, and had a rather unspectacular deflowering (rather a “oh, duh, that’s it?”) I guess that doesn’t really help my yearning there 😉

  29. Trix says:

    I feel that the only people who value virginity in this day and age are those who dread comparison, and those who want to appeal to that kind of person.

    Personally, I prefer my partners to know what they’re doing sexually – I can’t conceive of sleeping with a virgin.

    Of course, since I was abused at a young age, perhaps the concept of “virginity” (which is religiously mandated – I’m not religious – and about tracking the sprogs – I’m not going to have children) is less important than it might be.

    As it was, I was desperate to ditch my “virginity” voluntarily as soon as I could.

  30. Mel L. says:

    This actually got me thinking about that Dara Joy book Ritual of Proof, where men are the ones whose virginity has to be taken…painfully. I got sort of a kick out of it at first, and then I thought about it again.

    I guess the problem I have with this whole issue is that there really is no reciprocity. I don’t think most men have any concept what its like for a woman to lose her virginity. Its a big deal: physically, emotionally, etc. And its sort of a burden around our necks, even when its gone.

  31. Sianne says:

    …..is it just me or are we being bombarded with virginity issues all of a sudden?  If we’re not obsessed with the latest teen celebrity losing theirs, we want to rebuild our own.  It’s just…weird.

    I wandered over to MSN to check out the hymen story and found another one that mentioned “chastity balls” where preteen girls pledge their virginity to their fathers.  I had to agree with the writer of the article that that was seriously creepy.

  32. Denni says:

    Had actually heard of this procedure…my mind still wonders why?  I really don’t get it.

    OTOH, this subject probably ended my enjoyment of historical romances years ago…particularly the book where the heroine lost her virginity falling off a horse (blood & everything).  I rode horses for years, fell off more than I care to remember, played sports, and danced for years (splits anyone?).  And when the time came, the hymen was present and uncomfortable.

    So, I’m not convinced about “accidentally lost it.”

    I’ve read some SF stories regarding male virgins, like role reversal.  Wen Spencer did one called “A Brothers Price”, the name of the other one I read is escaping me just now (older authority woman & young virginal male, and a penus coating painfully removed during first sexual encounter).

    Sarah…ThinkGeek sells a tee shirt with built in wi-fi detector…can body parts be far behind?

  33. thirstygirl says:

    Sianne- from an outsiders POV, there is something weird going on. Seriously, it’s like a collective “ARGH those wimmins have been having Sex For Fun and earning money and might have other things to do than breed! ARGH! FREAKOUT” emergency has been declared in response to [maybe] Hillary Clinton-as-President which ends up in a big pile of ‘That’s the answer! Let’s get completely mental in respect of controlling womens sexuality again and fetishize virginity! BRILLIANT!’

    No, for reals. Other countries have elected female heads-of-state; publicly funded healthcare which includes contraception, abortions AND natal-care; not to mention [soon-to-be] publicly funded HPV vaccines and yet the world has signally failed to end. [go NZ!]

    But few “western” countries have such a, umm, theocratic tendency as the States. And religion does tend to, umm, have some common misogynistic themes? [says the daughter of an Anglican minister, which counts as Pretty Religious by NZ standards but Unwashed Godless Heathens by some USA churches]

    :army75- it’s going to take at least another army to stop me commenting on this thread:

  34. Denni says:

    Mel L…I think that’s the other book I was thinking of, by Dara Joy. It was well written, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it either.

  35. I don’t think most men have any concept what its like for a woman to lose her virginity. Its a big deal: physically, emotionally, etc.

    Count me among the head-scratching men. For me, the having it was the burden. The getting rid of it was just a relief. I didn’t feel like I was giving my “flower” to anyone. I just felt like I was finally crossing over from the land of the haven’t yets to the land of the haves. It had more to do with understanding than with intimacy. I’ve never quite understood the importance placed on it. It has value only because it can be taken, and once it is taken, it can no longer have value? Sounds screwy to me, and historically, when things are screwy, it’s the woman who usually gets screwed.

    Sure, in anthropological terms, it was probably nice for the caveman to know the baby was his, but if that’s the only practical purpose virinity serves, it just isn’t necessary now. Hell, when paternity is in question these days, half the fathers out there want nothing more than to think the baby isn’t theirs. Or am I watching too much Maury Povich?

  36. thirstygirl says:

    oh yes, and I feel like I should mention that I was almost Freakishly Late [I was almost 17 by the time I had sex] and that I had actually decided that I wanted to get this whole “first time” thing over and done with so that I never had to think about it again…

    The fact that I seem to have had a whole generation’s worth of hymen-angst with resulting negative side-effects never actually moved me from my original stance which was: “yosh, let’s get this thing DONE”

  37. Eirin says:

    I’m so disturbed by the concept of sexually active women being “soiled goods” I hardly know what to say.

    Both words are incredibly offensive, either separate or together, when used to describe and/or refer to anything more sentinent than milk.

    Excuse me, I feel spot of boiling blood coming on…

    Spamfoil: run38. Hee

  38. AgTigress says:

    ‘Cavemen’ probably only knew the baby was ‘hers’:  it is unlikely that humans came to understood the mechanics of paternity until the Neolithic period, when they moved out of the hunter-gatherer phase and started to keep livestock.  There is no particular reason why any mental connection should be made between mating and breeding until people notice that if one kills off that bad-tempered bull, the cows don’t come into calf any more.

    Eirin:  I hope you realised that I used the term ‘soiled goods’ with deliberate sarcasm, to try to bring a dose of reality to all this nonsense.  It is, indeed, incredibly offensive.  That was my point.

    I think we also need to stress again the vast variation in the configuration and elasticity of the hymen, even though it hase been implicit in this discussion, in the varying experiences related by those who have commented.  That statistic I quoted above – that a small majority of women, 57%, experiences no bleeding and little or no pain on first intercourse, is important.  This will be because their hymens always had a naturally large opening, or were very elastic, or had previously been stretched and/or torn through physical exercise of various kinds.

    I don’t think tampon use will do it alone, by the way:  the cross-section diameter of a tampon is a good deal less than that of an erect penis.

    There is a lot to say on the issue raised by the comments on the Eloisa James book – the issue of ‘girls who do’ and ‘girls who don’t’, which, believe me, was alive and well in the 1950s, let alone the 1820s, and was the cause of much injustice, as well as ill-advised, and later, unhappy, marriages.  Perhaps the subject of another thread one day?

    I must word this carefully.  Leaving aside people from Asian, African and Middle Eastern cultures, and restricting ourselves to European and American culture, I think that the upsurge in interest in virginity fits in with a number of other tendencies in modern US life that seem to be focused on returning to the Middle Ages / Early Modern period.  A society that was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment, and therefore should not be carrying all the guilty baggage from the past that some of us have to drag around (post-Imperial guilt and all), now seems to be saying, ‘Hey! We have never had a medieval period!  We wuz robbed!  Let’s have some fundamentalist religion, good old-fashioned denigration and oppression of women, and then let’s have an Empire, too, so that we can ensure that people in other countries will hate us for centuries!’

    That’s how it sometimes looks from this side of the pond, I fear.  But when have humans, the only species that can learn from history, ever actually done so?

  39. Miranda says:

    I feel like I should mention that I was almost Freakishly Late

    I was 23. Blame a deep Southern Baptist upbringing, a terror of pregnancy, and not being particularly good-looking in high school.

    Code word: bill97. That wasn’t his name, nor were there 97 of anything.

  40. This isn’t a new concept, really.  For centuries women have been doing things to try to make their hoohah new again.  In “Sex In History” by Reay Tannahill there is a whole section on the methods prostitutes used to be able to sell their “virginity” over and over again (one involving broken glass, eep), and tricks women used to ensure there there would be bleeding during intercourse their first time, just in case there wasn’t.  Some women who have undergone type III genital mutilation will have the process re-done after giving birth, so that their husbands can have the experience of deflowering them again.  Technically that’s not hymen reattachment because they just let the labia minora fuse together, but it’s the same concept.

    As someone who lost their hymen hitting a hay bale on the neighbor kid’s ten speed, I can safely say I did not miss the experience of awkward, painful first time sex, and see no need of replacing the aforementioned hymen in order to get the joy of that milestone.  My first time was lame enough, thanks.

    Although when I was a teenager, Virginia Henley’s books had me convinced that my first time was going to be some kind of medieval nightmare with blood spraying the walls or something.

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