TimmyHHymenoplasty - Virginity 2.0
June 17th 2008 10:01
An interesting new phenomenon has taken off in the Islamic world, particularly amongst European Muslim women. The procedure is known as “hymenoplasty”, it involves the restoration of a woman’s hymen, supposedly to provide proof of virginity.
The increasingly popularity of the operation in France is reportedly due to a court decision to annul the marriage of two French Muslims, after the wife was unable to prove her virginity on her marriage bed.
Some of the discussion has centred on a perceived women’s rights disaster which could follow the courts decision to side with the husband. Unfortunately, the case had very little to do with whether of not a woman’s broken hymen is synonymous with the end of her virginity.
A 23 year old French student quoted in the New York Times last week said “In my culture, not to be a virgin is dirt…Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”She claims to be undergoing the surgery because her hymen was broken as a child, when she was riding a horse.
Almost anything can break a woman’s hymen, from sports to tampon, not just sexual intercourse. In fact, many women are born without a hymen. What this mean is that there's no definitive way to prove a woman's virginity, even a “hymen-test”.
Sadly for some Muslim women, this fact seems lost on many men in their culture. Many demand a doctor’s note or a bloodstained sheet in order to verify virginity. The procedure is obviously unacceptable in the eyes of future husbands. But the repercussions of not having the surgery and being beaten on a wedding night hardly seem like an attractive option.
Dr. Marc Abecassis, who performed the hymenoplasty on the student, told the Times.
He even explained that “I have colleagues in the United States whose patients do this as a Valentine’s present to their husbands. What I do is different. This is not for amusement. My patients don't have a choice if they want to find serenity and husbands.”
Hanne Blank, author of Virgin: The Untouched History says,
“Were the real-life stakes not so murderously high, hymenoplasty would very nearly qualify as a sort of bizarre body-mod performance art: the surgical construction of a body part designed to behave in a particular way, entirely for the benefit of an audience. But there are millions of women who can't afford to consider either hymens or hymenoplasty on any terms but those of survival. As a woman, a feminist, and a virginity scholar I condemn the commodification of the hymen and of virginity utterly. But I also acknowledge the virginity Catch-22 faced by so many women in, for example, majority-Muslim cultures, and for women who cannot escape from a culture that would punish or kill them for not being virgins at marriage, I think that hymenoplasty is a literal lifesaver, much in the way that safe accessible medical abortion can be, and for this reason I completely support women in making the medical decisions that are best for them.”
The increasingly popularity of the operation in France is reportedly due to a court decision to annul the marriage of two French Muslims, after the wife was unable to prove her virginity on her marriage bed.
Some of the discussion has centred on a perceived women’s rights disaster which could follow the courts decision to side with the husband. Unfortunately, the case had very little to do with whether of not a woman’s broken hymen is synonymous with the end of her virginity.
Hymenoplasty - Virginity 2.0
A 23 year old French student quoted in the New York Times last week said “In my culture, not to be a virgin is dirt…Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”She claims to be undergoing the surgery because her hymen was broken as a child, when she was riding a horse.
Almost anything can break a woman’s hymen, from sports to tampon, not just sexual intercourse. In fact, many women are born without a hymen. What this mean is that there's no definitive way to prove a woman's virginity, even a “hymen-test”.
Sadly for some Muslim women, this fact seems lost on many men in their culture. Many demand a doctor’s note or a bloodstained sheet in order to verify virginity. The procedure is obviously unacceptable in the eyes of future husbands. But the repercussions of not having the surgery and being beaten on a wedding night hardly seem like an attractive option.
Dr. Marc Abecassis, who performed the hymenoplasty on the student, told the Times.
He even explained that “I have colleagues in the United States whose patients do this as a Valentine’s present to their husbands. What I do is different. This is not for amusement. My patients don't have a choice if they want to find serenity and husbands.”
Hanne Blank, author of Virgin: The Untouched History says,
“Were the real-life stakes not so murderously high, hymenoplasty would very nearly qualify as a sort of bizarre body-mod performance art: the surgical construction of a body part designed to behave in a particular way, entirely for the benefit of an audience. But there are millions of women who can't afford to consider either hymens or hymenoplasty on any terms but those of survival. As a woman, a feminist, and a virginity scholar I condemn the commodification of the hymen and of virginity utterly. But I also acknowledge the virginity Catch-22 faced by so many women in, for example, majority-Muslim cultures, and for women who cannot escape from a culture that would punish or kill them for not being virgins at marriage, I think that hymenoplasty is a literal lifesaver, much in the way that safe accessible medical abortion can be, and for this reason I completely support women in making the medical decisions that are best for them.”
| 82 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
