It worries me, to see so many of my peers tied down to a certain misunderstood notion of what ‘Virginity’ is. It’s even more bizarre and rather sick that even today, people would build their ideals around age-old myths. In most cultures, virginity for women is an absolute must for her to be considered worthy of ‘marriage’. Being a virgin is seen as the sole basis to judge one’s purity of character. As emotionally traumatic as the concept may be to those women at the receiving end of the ‘society’s wrath’ at their alleged lose of virginity before marriage, it is still something that they chose to live with. This is because, in conservative societies such as ours, it is infused that losing virginity before marriage is a shame to the honour of the family. Young girls take this upon themselves as a sin and sulk within the confines of all the chaotic confusion and ostracism that is thrown to them. They are wasted emotionally and physically. Adding to the trauma is the guilty, remorseful attitude of their families. Oh and it’s just the beginning... people around, the so called ‘society’ maintain a callous indifference to the tortured sentiments of the family. Mercilessly the girl gets branded as impure and characterless for the rest of her life. No wonder, with such mindless attitude brewing all around, instances of suicide, are on the rise. If Virginity is such a huge issue, then what exactly is it??
Most people, surprisingly even women think virginity is that ‘magic cup’ of a tissue called Hymen. The Hymen, or the Vaginal corona, is a fold of mucous membrane that surrounds or partially covers the external vaginal opening. It forms part of the vulva; external genitalia in women. As a female foetus develops during gestation, her internal reproductive organs and her vagina develop separately from her external reproductive organs (the labia and so forth). The vagina starts out as a solid cord that runs from the body wall to the uterus. Between the fifth and seventh months of gestation, that cord slowly hollows out and turns into a tube. But it still doesn't have an opening to the outside of the body; it ends at the body wall. Finally the body wall starts to disintegrate at the point where the vagina meets it and an opening forms in the body wall, and becomes the orifice of the vagina. So the hymen is simply the remains of that body wall clinging to the inside of the opening of the vagina after the opening forms. It is the "leftovers" of the sheet of flesh that used to separate the internal genitals from the external ones before the vagina had an opening. Hymens exist because the vaginal opening forms. Nothing needs to be "broken" in order to create that opening, it was already there before the woman was even born. In newborn baby girls, the hymen is thick, pale pink, and redundant (folds in on itself and may protrude). Their hymenal opening tends to be annular. As the baby girl grows up, her hymenal opening increases by about 1 mm every year. As the little girl reaches puberty, her hymen turns thin, smooth, delicate, almost translucent and mostly crescentic, under hormonal influence. Again although crescentic or rim-shaped hymens are common, it is normal to have other shapes as well; Imperforate, Microperforate and Septate. In almost all cases, during the first sexual intercourse, a girl’s intact hymen is stretched and split broken by an erect penis. This results in bleeding and which in many cultures is considered the point of ‘losing virginity’. ‘Bloodletting’ as it is called, becomes a matter of public display in several societies, where the sheets of the marriage bed are shown to the entire neighbourhood to prove the worthiness of the wife. And it follows that throughout history, the presence or absence of an intact hymen is taken as the ‘test of virginity’.
Now here’s the real ‘Gyaan’!
1. An intact hymen can be broken in many, yes many! non-sexual ways such as:
• Through an accident or injury
• Horseback riding, bicycling, high jumping, gymnastics or similar sports
• Insertion of finger or instruments by doctor during pelvic examination
• Tampon insertion and etc!
2. Researchers have estimated that about 0.03% of women are born without enough leftover tissue at the vaginal entrance, which would just mean that the process of the formation of the opening of the vagina was a bit more thorough than normal. These women simply do not have a hymen.
3. Women with imperforate hymen are recommended by doctors to get it surgically removed. Now why would someone resort to voluntarily losing the so called ‘virginity’?
Answer: Post puberty, there is no way for the menstrual fluid to get out as the vaginal opening as it is blocked by the imperforate hymen. This fluid is backed up inside the vagina and causes a condition called Hematocolps. It causes pain and irreversible damage to the, otherwise normally functioning reproductive system.
4. Scientists do not understand why humans even have a hymen as it does not serve any function, what so ever. In some animals, say in guinea pigs, hymens dissolve when they are fertile, letting male guinea pigs mate with them, then grow back and completely close off the vagina when the guinea pigs are not in heat. But in humans, the hymen is just a left over tissue that will be worn down over a woman’s life time, sex or no sex.
5. Some Women have it rather easy! They possess flexible or elastic hymens that do not break down despite many intercourses. They can if I may say, fool the world, by clinging on to the ‘virgin’ tag. But even such women should get their hymens broken if they are keen on procreation. As it is, human child birth is extremely painful compared to other animals, to the degree of risking the lives of both the mother and the child. The human baby is born rather incapable of surviving on its own. Without the nurturing and protection from its mother, it will not survive, even for a few days. Contrarily, most mammalian babies are able to stand, walk, leap and jump right after birth. This is because unlike other animals, human babies use most of their time and energy in the womb to develop the complex, highly developed brain that sets our species apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. It allocates very less energy in developing instincts and body strength vital to survival on their own like other animals. Therefore at birth, the head size of a baby is just small enough to escape a tight fit through the cervical opening. If the baby stays longer in the womb, it will be born more developed, but giving it birth will almost be deadly. And if the hymen is not broken, the child birth will almost be impossible without the risk of killing either the mother or the child.
6. If sex is defined by a male-to-female intercourse then that would make a lesbian who has had over one hundred female partners, but no male partners, still a virgin.
7. Some women have delicate hymens that rupture without noticeable bleeding even at the first intercourse. No visual ‘bloodletting’ is seen. It does not traditionally prove that the woman was a ‘virgin’ before she had sex, but the truth is that she was exactly that.
8. Another myth is that sex leading to ‘deflowering’ or losing virginity is more pleasurable than intercourse carried out at any later point, post losing virginity. The truth is that the feeling of heightened pleasure is only due to the mental knowledge of first time sex, the satisfaction that your partner has gotten intimate only with you. It’s more to do with hormones and neurological excitation rather than physical pleasure. Physically, the feeling of the inside of one’s vagina may change due to certain body changes, especially childbirth, but the degree of tightness, resilience, springiness, and strength of the vaginal walls depends less on wear and tear to the vagina and more on the skin and muscle tone and general health.
9. Historically speaking, virginity has almost exclusively been about women. Men have simply never been held to the same standards of sexual behaviour as that of women. But in practical terms, men can also be virgins. Everyone is a virgin at birth, and some people stay that way their whole lives.
So what now is ‘Virginity’?
It is an abstract concept. Literally. Anthropologists believe that human beings may have come up with the idea of virginity at about the same time as they learned how to domesticate animals and plants, during the Neolithic Era. Over eras, the meaning associated with virginity has continued to evolve. The word virgin, from its Greek and Latin origins for both man and woman means "androgyne" or a person who is whole unto themselves. In ancient times, the virgin huntress icon Diana was a goddess because of her independence, not her subservience or the state of her hymen, she was on her own by choice, and not owned by any man, nor did she wish to be. However, the more common meaning and implication of the term came to change around the 13th century and derived a sexist and moralistic meaning. With that change, the word now implied that staying a virgin until marriage guaranteed that a woman would uphold the family honour by passing from father to husband as an object that was owned, her virginity, her own body, was a thing of value that would be owned by her father, until such time as ownership of her virginity, body and sexuality would be transferred to her husband. Some of the reason for this was to establish a higher "bride price", at a time when marriage was utilized to gain land and dowry. Another was that at that time, given the lack of birth control, having strict controls on virginity helped to see to it that there were fewer illegitimate children born.
As may be obvious, there is NO medical definition of virginity. In fact, many aspects of the concept of virginity are downright insulting and stereotypical. For some people ‘virginity’ is a matter of life and death, for others it’s simply a physical state of being. Different cultures have associated different sensibilities to ‘virginity’, some with more brutal consequences than others. But in today’s age, where the scope for liberal thinking is better than ever, I say to those who have pondered, ‘question and question everything, until you find answers to your quest’. In some form or other, virginity will always be with us, for it is one of the major life stages, in terms of sexuality, and it's one that eventually ends for the vast majority of people on the planet. So we're probably always going to be talking about it. Consensual sex between mature adults who are comfortable emotionally and capable physically, is a matter of personal choice. Yielding to the moral policing by the ‘society’ that places a need for the institution of marriage before sex is again a matter of personal choice. But what can definitely change is the hostile and mindless attitude over a small piece of tissue!
I convey my sincere acknowledgements to those listed below in enabling me to write this post as meaningfully as I intended it to be:
1. http://www.scarleteen.com/ one of the best sites for sensible sex education.
2. Hanne Blank, Historian and Author of ‘Virgin: The Untouched History’
3. Heather Corrina, Author of ‘Magical Cups & Bloody Brides: Virginity in Context’
