Inspired by the question asked of Cecil, I asked my girlfriend about the purpose of the hymen and she, too my utter surprise, said that there is no such thing as a hymen - it is apparently a social construction to bely the importance of virginity that has been passed down through the generations. Of course, not having a vagina, I can’t refute this by showing pictures of my own hymen (if anybody was actually that twisted and took pictures of theirs), but I tried to prove her wrong by showing her a multitude of sites that corroborates the existence of it. She still denies it 100%. Apparently there are a few ob/gyn nurses that have written a few sites on the net about how the hymen is a figment of our imaginations.
So what I ask of you guys is if you guys have any links to medical literature on the net that either corroborates or refutes this, please post a link. Of course your valuable insights are also welcome!
Thanks!
You just want to see pictures of vaginas, don’t you? (I kid, I kid!)
Seriously, the hymen is an actual, physical part of an unpenetrated vagina. It’s a small barrier of skin which is often visible to a trained eye. [Jeanne D’Arc (Joan of Arc) was examined on several occasions to see if hers was still intact.] During the first penetration, the hymen tears, sometimes resulting in slight bleedling.
Many young women lose theirs without sexual activity because of sternuous exercise, or tampon use. In some countries where virginity is cherished, some girls who have, er . . . indulged undergo a surgical procedure to have a hymen reconstructed.
Your girlfriend might be somewhat right about the *origin *of the hymen being social in nature. Some scholars believe that it was sort of artifically selected for in that women who could prove that they were untouched were more attractive as mates.
And it’s not just in humans.
Apparently the Earth had one too.
I’ve never heard that there are people who believe it doesn’t exist. I have heard that modern girls and women may not have anything left to “tear” once they have sex for the first time because girls and women are more physically active nowadays.
One thing that’s always baffled me about the hymen is this: if it’s a “barrier” of some sort, how does a girl bleed during her period if she is “intact”? I’ve imagined that its structure is more like that of a gasket. A little extra skin surrounding the interior of the vagina that allows fluid through, has almost no elasticity, and when stretched, ruptures a bit and bleeds.
Of course, I never remember that I’m curious about it when I feel like googling stuff.
A normal intact hymen has a small opening in the center, large enough to allow fluid to pass, but not large enough for a penis. I think I read on this board, though, that there are occasionally cases where the hymen has no hole and the young lady therefore does not emit menstrual fluid. Such cases are generally noticed fairly quickly upon reaching puberty and brought to a gynecologist, and the results can be rather messy.
As for its purpose, personally, I think the simplest explanation is that it serves as one more line of defense to help keep dirt and germs out of the reproductive tract for as long as possible. Having a small opening, and being “disposable”, seem like the sort of “design compromises” one sees so often resulting from evolution.
Here is an illustration of different types of hymens (probably NSFW since, well, it’s an illustration of different types of hymens). On the Finnish Wikipedia site, it said that if a girl has a hymen which completely covers the vaginal opening (which is very rare), it might be necessary to perform a procedure to perforate it slightly in order to let menstrual blood out.
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This properly belongs in Comments on Cecil’s Columns.
Link to the relevant column is here.
Also modified title to distinguish it from the existing thread in the forum.
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I question the validity of this speculation; certainly, once a woman becomes sexually active (presumably at the onset of physical maturity, roughly 12-14 years old in prehistoric cultures) she’s far more likely to get dirt or germs in the reproductive tract, and at this point the hyman would fail to provide the hypothesized protection.
It is, as discussed in [thread=403845]this recent thread[/thread], probably a mistake to look for a strictly functional purpose for the hyman in human beings when no obvious need exists. It appears in many other placental mammals (as Cecil notes in the previously referenced column) and is likely little more than a mostly harmless evolutionary hold-over that has little impact upon reproductive fitness.
To the O.P., there is no question that the physical hymen exists, as any gynocologist can attest, and no postmodern revisionary feminist biological philosophy can sweep it aside. The concept of a maidenhead, however (that is, a barrier that is “supposed” to be in place until a woman cleaves herself inviolately to a man) is clearly a social construct of patrilineal, or at least male-dominated, society in which sex outside of strict social bonds is proscribed. There’s no reason to extend this argument–which is testable and reasonable–to biology any more than it is to find a “reason” for the existance of the vermiform appendix, male nipples, or other vestigal or neotenic features which serve no current functional needs but don’t otherwise impair reproductive fitness.
Stranger
raises hand
I waited 'til my wedding day before I had intercourse.
Trust me. The hymen exists.
Maybe someone just misheard Hymenoptera as Hymen of Terra?
Not that it’ll stop them from trying.
Are you suggesting that Admiral Hymen Rickover was named after something that does not exist? :eek: :dubious: 
The hymen is real.
It’s the female orgasm that’s the myth.
I saw nothing in the OP to suggest that this bit of ignorance came from feminists. A feminist is one who believes in economic, social and political equality for men and women.
the horror…the horror…
I knew someone would get there before me.
in Sean Connery voice
Well played, you rogue!
Just a WAG of what the OP’s girlfriend means but:
If we were to give a name to a particular 1/2" square section of flesh on our forearm, “The Grusk” and treat it as a particular part of our body, then could we say there is such a thing as a grusk? The grusk isn’t an organ, it’s just a particular part of flesh that someone gave a name to. In truth the grusk is just skin, and anything beyond that is just a name and sociological stuff that has been attached to that name.
Personally, I would say that given as the hymen isn’t a random part of the body and that some talk needs to happen about it at some time, it seems like having a word to discuss it is for the best. So I would vote that it is a part. But if a feminist wants to relegate it to being simply a social construct…meh, alright.
But do they take sugar on their porridge? :dubious:
While this is the meaning of the word originally, it has grown to mean more generally anyone who advocates women’s rights and interests in any way. Some people who do so aren’t advocating anything having to do with social “equality,” examples of which are too easy to produce for me to bother here. And there are those who consider “equality” for women to mean a total liberation of the social construct of women from the male-created construct they believe we labor under. The assertion that the hymen doesn’t exist would be such a consideration: males labled the hymen and considered it important because it established “purity” in a woman prior to the claim of a given man on her. Otherwise, beyond some inconvenience at the moment of first intercourse, no one would pay it any attention, so the theory goes; the analogy above to a patch of skin is not quite apposite, I would say, rather, analogizing to the web of skin/flesh between the fingers, equally unimportant, definitely identifiable, and given no constructed meaning.