Virginity,,, Ssshhh... cheap ones here!!!!

Last night, My best friend is in town, so we all decided to meet up for a little chit chat. She started conversation asking why one of our (boy) friend broke-up with his girl friend after 3years. In the middle of the conversion one asked what was the best experience with her. Oh there it came, and started taking about their best sexual experience.  So I wanted to get some opinions from my friends about it. Most of them didn’t know anything about virginity or they just don't want to talk about it, specially when boys are around (girl) friends don't want to talk about it. No wonder; typical Maldivians!!


However I was able to create the discussion which I wanted. They started all the common tales about the whole virginity and hymen issue. I had to argue alone; no one wanted to believe the fact that there is no relationship between virginity and bleeding at the first intercourse.

I picked up 2 tales which I came across in this discussion.

1. A boy can feel whether a girl is still a virgin.
Many of my (boy) friends are expecting blood at the first intercourse with their girlfriends. They say that, even the blood didn’t come out the boy can feel her hymen. Don’t know what they are talking about. If even a doctor can hardly determine, if at all, if a girl is a virgin, then how can a boy? However the boy can feel if the girl is scared or tense. In such cases the girl may subconsciously contact her vagina, causing the entrance to the vagina to feel tighter.

Suddenly, a friend of mine peeped in to the talk and claimed that during sex he could feel if a girl was still a virgin. I doubled over in laughter. I tried to make it clear to him that he would better practice a lot to become a better lover. I think he is rather selfish and only focus on his own pleasure. That’s the crux about sex.

2. Being deflowered through exercising or the use of sanitary pads.
You can never break your hymen through exercising or using sanitary pads. You can only damage your hymen if you have intercourse with a boy or with sex toy. What can happen, however it that the hymen is slightly stretched for example through the use of tampons. But you already know that the hymen has nothing to do with your virginity. Even if the rim were to stretch slightly, nothing would be the matter. And all sports are well and truly harmless, so you can keep practicing which ever you enjoy.

We have talked about virginity more than needed. But it doesn’t seem that our society wants to think beyond bleeding at the first intercourse. It is important that you think what you want and what virginity means to you. You decide how you want to deal with your/ your girl friend’s virginity and whether you want to talk to others about your choices.

The most important thing is that you deal with sex in a way you feel comfortable with, Even if others disagree. First we should understand that virginity is a tool to control women’s sex life and a patriarchal system would never be able survive without rules over women.

To ensure this system there are many traditions such as the white for the bed sheet for the first night.

“The hymen story”

It’s just a tiny, superfluous bloody membrane! What is the big deal!!

Growing up, I never wondered about virginity. Never talked to people about it. I’m Maldivian you see. It’s not in our culture to talk about anything related to sex. It was ‘taboo’. But instinctively I knew that it was a very big deal. I had to ‘save’ it. If I wanted to be a good girl, I had to abstain from ‘taboo’. ‘Taboo’ was bad. I had to wait until I got married to have ‘taboo’. And if I was foolish enough to have ‘taboo’ before marriage, well then, I could just give up all hope of ever finding a good man who’d want me.
And then I grew up. And I learnt 3 very important things that changed my life, not necessarily in the order that they’re written down in.

I learnt that Taboo is the name of a game published by Hasbro and that it is wicked fun.
I found a man. (I don’t think any of them are ‘good’, but this one I like more than others obviously.)
I learnt that there is very very very very little that you cannot find on the Internet.

So I googled – What is the purpose of the hymen?

There seems to be a general agreement in medical and non-medical circles that the hymen serves no purpose. Much like the appendix. However given the fuss that’s being made about it I just had to find something bio-‘logical’ somewhere that would explain what the root of all this fuss-making was. And this here is the only believable explanation I found when I googled. Unfortunately it’s just a hypothesis, not a proven fact. But it sounds reasonable and logical to me:

Some of the last cells to mature in the female body are the cells of the cervix. Before these cells have matured the cell membranes are particularly vulnerable to being breached by pathogens, and the cervix remains very vulnerable to infection. It has been hypothesized that the hymen originally exists to protect the developing tissues of the vagina and cervix from dirt and pathogens during childhood, until the cells of the cervix and the cells of the vagina mature fully and start secreting the mucus which protects them in later life. In our modern day of bathing and wearing clothes, this is probably not nearly as important as it was to our un-bathed, pre-clothing primate ancestors.

 

So that’s the hymen explained, or is it? At what point did human beings start equating the presence of a hymen with virginity (being heretofore defined as ‘purity’)?

Once again, it’s Google to the rescue. According to anthropologists, human beings may have come up with the concept of virginity as it is mis-understood today, around the time they learned to domesticate animals, during the Neolithic era.

I wonder whether it was just animals they found ways of domesticating. And the fact that there were never any connotations of ‘purity’ associated with men’s virginities… Curiouser and curiouser? Or just downright suspicious.

We’ve all heard a whole bunch of people, with religious as well as non-religious agendas, wax not-so-lyrical about the significance of a woman’s hymen.

Well guess what – everything we’ve been told about virginity and purity and hymens – all bullshit. Here’s some stuff that I found that made me feel shocked, angry and then relieved, in that order exactly.

1. 0.03% of women are born without a hymen.

Unfortunately they are a minority and no one seems to believe they exist. Maybe in a decade or two they will be respected and accepted much like the homosexuals are after decades of campaigning for their rights. (I know, I know, you’re tempted to interrupt and ask, “Are they really??? Are gay people really respected and accepted????” – I was being sarcastic.)

Maybe that wasn’t very shocking to you. It shocked the hell out of me though. It wasn’t a i-can’t-believe-it kind of shock. It was more a oh-god-those-poor-girls-who’ve-been-having-anal-sex-thinking-they’re-saving-their-virginity kind of shock.

And there’s more.

2. Not only are so many women not born with hymens, hymens also come in different shapes and sizes.

Types of hymens

These are the four common types – A normal hymen, imperforate (a thin membrane that completely covers the opening), microperforate (thin membrane that almost completely covers the opening) or septate (thin hymenal membrane has a band of extra tissue in the middle that causes two small vaginal openings instead of one).

Who’d have thought right?

What really pisses me off is, has no one noticed how all the people who make a big fuss about the existence or lack of a hymen are the ones who don’t even fucking have it!

Over the ages, women who weren’t virgins when they married have been disowned, sold into slavery, scarred, beaten, mutilated, killed – all in the name of ‘honour crimes’. The sad thing is the morons who came up with that oxymoron were allowed to define what virginity was, only because they were in a position of power. Why is it a big deal? And how does every girl child know that it is a big deal? Because it was deemed so by her parents, older members of the family, elders of the community and let us not even bring into the discussion the power that religious authorities have – people in power, men and women alike, can be such shits sometimes.

Family, Education, Religion, Medicine, (and in some countries) Law – the same institutions that are the pillars of a ‘good’ and ‘moral’ society – seem to have completely taken control over women’s sexual and reproductive rights and needs. Um – anyone else hear echoes of ‘PATRIARCHY!’ and ‘MISOGYNISTIC!’ in the back of their heads?

According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, ONE of the many confusing definitions of ‘Virgin’ is ‘a person who has not had sexual intercourse.’ What does ‘sexual intercourse’ here include? To most young girls sex is penetrative, vaginal sex. Why only vaginal sex? Because that’s where the hymen is silly. Thank god, we don’t have a hymen somewhere up our arses because then these poor girls would have no (pardon the pun) outlet at all!

I find the whole thing very confusing. On the one hand, virginity is associated with purity, which means sex is obviously impurity. BUT, that doesn’t stop girls from kissing boys. It certainly doesn’t stop them from having oral and anal sex. And since the morons they marry can only check for the hymen, they can’t ever know whether they’ve had oral or anal sex. Does that mean that a girl who has anal or oral sex only is still pure?
I take it back. I don’t find it confusing. I find it distasteful. I find it offensive. No woman’s life or dignity should be at the mercy of any man – be it her husband, priest or even father. And it certainly should not be controlled by the existence or absence of a fucking membrane – least of all because it has no bloody biological purpose.

Check this out – Apparently, when female guinea pigs are ready to make babies, their hymens dissolve so that they can enjoy some good loving and then – wait for this – THEY GROW BACK AGAIN, when the guinea pig is no longer on heat. What a neat party trick! (Hanne Blank – she’s the ultimate authority on Virginity)
So does the hymen really have any other purpose than as a party trick? Ask the girl who sold it for 32,000 dollars. Ask the guys who told the 14 year old suicide bomber that he’d have 72 virgins pampering him in heaven. Ask the 13 year old who gave it up too soon. Ask the fucking guinea pig. I promise you they’ll all have the same answer.

And if you feel like having a good laugh at the aforementioned ‘morons’ this is a good site to check out: http://www.ironhymen.com/

I felt great when I heard this story though!!

“All those stories about deflowering made me pretty insecure. Penetration, pain, blood i heard so many things from my friends. First I thought: what the hell I’ll just push ahead and be done with it. But I couldn’t do it because I love my girlfriend too much. So I brought up the subject and it turned out that she felt frightened too. From then it was so easy. We made love!! It did not hurt she did not bleed. We both felt relieved." So; my advice:
DON’T LISTEN TO ALL THESE TOUGH STORIES. THEY ARE NOT JUST TRUE.