Injustice of Society

Throughout history, “revirginization” could have saved many female lives by offering them an escape from dishonor and, in some instances, death. Today, hymenoplasty is a procedure that provides women with that saving hand by sewing the regrets that come with the “I wish I did not” into “I never did” realities.

In a world where a woman is being judged for losing her virginity, is society overlooking the fact that sex requires a woman and a man?

In general, society embraces cultures that value family, respect and honor. These are all-important building blocks of society, but are most meaningful when equally applied to both genders. In the case of hymen reconstruction, women opt to undergo the procedure (more on that later) to avoid the disgrace of being exposed as a non-virgin or a girl men have had their way with.

Severe wedding night scenarios regularly occur when the groom and both families anxiously wait to verify that the bride is a virgin by looking for blood on the bed sheet. If there is no blood, the bride can be rejected, disgraced and, in some cases physically hurt. In some cultures, the humiliation of a non-virgin woman is accepted and welcomed as a “lesson” to the rest. (I wonder if this lesson would have been allowed to exist in a world where mother nature had made it possible to know if a man is a virgin or not. Maybe then, losing your virginity would have been made a marriage prerequisite).

Again, the times we live in have softened our attitudes about virginity, of course, but was it because the concept became outdated as women changed, or because society has really opened itself up to change? While we have progressed past the bloodstained sheet in many instances, the metaphor of the ritual still exists. The pressures to be a virgin and present yourself “intact” are great, and they force the women to avoid being ostracized by both family and her new husband.

A bride's virginity is still a hot commodity for the Middle Eastern family, even for those who have been in the United States for generations. You see mothers scanning the landscape trying spot the “good girl” for their unmarried sons. I find it humorous how these mothers claim to know which girls are virgins just by looking at them. “Mesh beyis temma ella imma” is a popular Arabic saying used when describing the would-be brides. The saying translates as “Never been kissed by anyone other than her mother.”

You might ask why these mothers don't question their sons to see if they are virgins or why it is okay for their boys to be boys as long as they don't marry the girls they fool around with before marriage. But those questions never surface. How is it that this double standard still applies?

It's worse than a double standard because in light of the premium placed on a female's virginity, the pressure to prove it is overwhelming, and women will go to extreme lengths to hide past indiscretions. For $2,800 a woman in Dubai or Lebanon ($4,000 in Beverly Hills) on the verge of marriage, can get her hymen reconstructed, and she becomes a brand new virgin who will please her husband on their wedding night and save herself and her family embarrassment and disgrace. The United Arab Emirates and Lebanon outlaw hymen reconstruction for unmarried women unless a guardian is present. It is legal for married women, some of whom are submitting to this procedure to please the husbands. (That's another, subject and the reason why a married woman would do that is unclear to me, but the practice is indeed rising.) Hymen reconstruction is criminalized in the first case and considered "plastic surgery," a private affair, in the second. I call this patriarchal inconsistency. Yet I digress.

Going back to the wedding night, friends outside my culture ask me point blank, “How would the people outside the family circle, find out if a bride is not a virgin?”

The answer lies on the other side of the bed: men want a virgin and are free to expose their wives without regard to how many women they were with before their new bride. Taking target can be anyone who feels wronged-her husband, her family and even his family too. The sad part is that there are laws in the Middle East in place to protect the man's interest, and where there are none, the culture accepts the humiliation of the woman as a “lesson” to those who have slipped up.

In many instances men do not want women with extensive sexual experience as their wives. Poor men! (Serves them right!). This is why some of them prefer younger girls-the younger the better, even 15-year-olds-when it comes to marriage. Most would say, “I need to mold her to what would make our marriage work.”

In short, men will continue to keep coming up with laws to control women's bodies, and women will continue to find ways to get around these laws. This will stop only when men stop regarding women's bodies as commodities of sort. The age-old tradition of a father's walking his daughter down the aisle and “giving her” to her new husband obviously means more in the Middle East. In this instance, the woman is seen as a possession. Men must start looking at women as humans and not vaginas.

But how can society be expected to change its attitude when so much interest is now being heaped on the vagina even in mainstream America? Look at this report from the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Michigan's website (www.drberenholz.com), noting that one of its fastest growing surgical enhancements is Designer Laser Vaginoplasty®:

Designer Laser Vaginoplasty (DLV®) is the aesthetic surgical enhancement of the vulvar structures (labia minora, labia majora, mons pubis, perineum, introitus, hymen). Hymenoplasty (reconstruction of the hymen) can repair the hymen as if nothing ever occurred.

The Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute is sensitive to the needs of women from all cultures that embrace these particular issues because of cultural, social or religious reasons.

 

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