Hymens and Horrors

Regarding the hymens:

So I was driving home the other day, and I turn on KKLA-FM for the commute. Local talk show host Frank Pastore was on the radio, and starts talking about how young Muslim girls are having hymen reconstruction surgery before married off in their homeland. The crazier part is the government was paying for the surgeries. So Frank asks if this is a good or a bad idea,and whether or not its been done in the US.

Suddenly, this flash back of an article I read originally published on the Wall Street Journal raced through my mind. I recalled that a woman in her late forties had that procedure done as an anniversary gift to her husband to simulate a "wedding night" experience. (Hm. Ew?)And since every woman's first time having sex is so blissfully smooth and pain free and desiring for a re-enactment, hymenoplasty is getting more and more popular.

Next thing I knew, I was on the phone with Frank airing out my views on this woman, the procedure, abstinence and the cost of deceit to your future husband. We had a brief but to the point conversation, after which I was very giddy, cos, heck, how often are you on the radio?

I didn't have time to get into it, but I really wanted to confront what virginity is and what it means to our society today. Are people out there still archaic enough to think that just because a woman bleeds a little bit on her wedding night that she is pure as snow? Are we so stone aged to think that just because she does not bleed that she has slept with the entire village? And additionally, is virginity just a state of having a membrane in tact? Besides being a state of body, should it not also be a state of mind and soul? Because if purity is what it is about, then purity resides in the heart and soul, too.

As for me, I find it completely sexist that a man needs to be with a virgin - to the degree that she must have a procedure to re-attach her hymen. And while I understand that there are many cultures that would ban a woman who has willfully (or not) lost or given away her virginity before marraige, I believe it is the culture that must accept the woman. She should not have the threat of disgrace, banishment or shame. Her husband, her protector and defender and friend (yes, all those things) should accept her as she is without having her lie to him about her past.

And as for the horrors (if that wasn't horrifying enough):

When I was little, I saw this made for TV movie called Bay Coven. It scared the little socks off of me and I loved it. I retold it so many times to my friends at school (all of whom had to be in bed before this movie came on, I'm sure). I recalled the hairs standing on my arm everytime I talked about how creepy it was. And now alas, time and technology re-released this film. It has been released as "Bay Cove" (why? donno). And yes, Woody Harrelson is in it!