There’s been a documentary on UK television (Channel 4) about this, called “Designer Vaginas”(!), and an on-going programme called “Cosmetic Surgery Live” on Five a couple of weeks ago featured an operation of that type being carried out using the latest laser techniques. Needless to say, it was being carried out in the USA.
Now, I’m a bloke and, whilst I usually find films involving extreme close-ups of women’s sexual organs somewhat stimulating, watching this sort of thing made me want to stay away from that, er, neck of the woods for quite a while.
Not that I’d find it appropriate to frame them and hang them on my wall, or anything, but I preferred the ‘before’ pictures; I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a lot of blokes felt the same way. Not that male aesthetic appreciation is or should be the most decisive factor, of course.
Well, I was idly flipping channels one evening and stumbled across “Dr.90210” (I wasn’t watching it, I swear ) and a young woman from an African culture was getting surgery for precisely that purpose. She was getting married and it was really, really important that she appear to be a virgin. It’s something I think is silly but can be a life-or-death situation in certain cultures…
Egypt’s the main place for Middle Eastern women to get it done. They put a new flap of skin across, and apparently they also put a little fake blood capsule up there for that “authentic” virgin-stained sheet experience.
Indeed. Given how stupid others can be about it, I’m not surprised how dispirit some women get. I was watching a documentary compairing the birthing experience in different countries (Japan was by far the most high tech and luxurious). They hung out in an Afghani women’s hospital. I won’t tell you about the woman who delivered because her story was too horrible. But, another young woman came in just after her wedding night. No, scratch that. Her entire family and her new husband’s family came in because he said she didn’t bleed enough the night before. Girl couldn’t have been older than 15 and a feudal war is about to break out because losing her virginity wasn’t as wretchedly painful as it can be for some other unfortunate women.
So angry.
And then there’s female circumcision. </hijack>
P.S. If anyone else has seen this documentary, please let me know! I really want to get a copy!
I personally like the after pictures better. I also think I would rather like a tighter hold. My first sex was with a virgin, stunningly tight, and it was the most amazing thing ever.
I also think this type of surgery is a great idea for women to avoid being punished by death or what-have-you. Even outside of the Middle East, some men just can’t get over the idea of marrying or dating someone who isn’t a virgin (which is patently hypocritical since many of these same men have had plenty of sexual experience but write it off as youthful mistakes or meaningless flings–how come it only applies to one gender?–that sort of attitude really pisses me off). That said, I’m not going to leave someone because I don’t think their vagina is tight enough. Sex is sex, and as long as we’re both satisfied in that part of the relationship and in all the other aspects, there’s nothing wrong with all that. YMMV.
The problem is that hymen surgery perpetuates myths that all women should have full, tight hymens that bleed. This simply isn’t so.
Many virgins don’t bleed, or don’t even have hymens or much hymen (for whatever reason). A virgin isn’t going to think she needs an operation, and therefore is going to face these stone-age prejudices after her wedding night if there isn’t a great red gush.
Only by refusing to succumb to the “must-bleed” myth can the situation ever be improved. There are literally young girls of 14 and 15 being killed by their families and their husbands’ families because they didn’t seem “virginy” enough.
I am reminded of the advice of a very wise man, printed in that most sage of journals, Easyrider magazine, many years ago (back before Harleys were respectable).
I paraphrase: ‘Make sure, if you’re gonna get married, that she’s got a pretty pussy. Thirty years out, you’re gonna be looking at that thing, trying to get aroused. If it’s ugly now, imagine what it’s going to be like in thirty years.’
Between erectile dysfunction treatment and vaginal rejuvenation, I guess that advice is passé.
Do they offer the flipside of the hymen surgery? Like, hymen removal surgery. I had a friend in college who had a horrible time the first time she had sex. Nineteen, loving relationship with a very patient guy, but she just had the hymen from hell. It took them three tries, it was very painfull, quite a bit of blood. She said it took forever to heal.
It would be nice to be able to spare young women that sort of experience.
I have read that often that “stunningly tight” feeling is from vaginismus, which is Not a Good Thing. A virgin may well be tight because she’s nervous as hell, though I’m not saying that was true in the case of your partner.
Sure, but you don’t need cosmetic surgery for that. Any gynecologist can take of it if you ask. The thing is you probably won’t know you might need it 'til you try…
It should probably be done at the gyno office anyway, prior to embarking on the sexual career; hell, it makes a lot more sense than (male) circumcision, and the last thing you need to make an awkward and unprepared situation worse by having a big flow of blood, or worse yet, a hymen that won’t give way. Somehow, I don’t think I missed all that much insofar as that part of the experience.
'Course, then the husband won’t be able to be certain that his wife is a virgin on their wedding night. :rolleyes:
Imagine a ham. The bone is in the central portion of the ham when the cross-section is viewed.
With a little, um, imagination, one could parlay the overhearing of various whispered stories (minus the loss of one’s car keys and the ensuing three-mile hike, mind) with that of a caricature of a loose vagina, combined with a little knowledge of retooling, into a somewhat-imaginable imagine of a reboring-of-sorts, attained by the insertion of the ham, small end first, into the orifice and removing the bone, thereby introducing a new resembling, if not immediately viable, vaginal opening.
It’s very rare, but every now and then a gynecologist will have to treat a girl whose hymen doesn’t have any breaks in it at all. As in, it’s an intact membrane that completely blocks off the vagina. You can imagine the problems that would occur once she gets her period, never mind sex…
Then you get women who never had hymens in the first place. Apparently hymens are a relic of foetal development, anyway.
I read some article somewhere or other which was putting forward the theory that the hymen has lost its cultural significance in the West, since most teenage girls use tampons that have the effect of stretching or removing the hymen years before they have sex for the first time.
That’s a lot of hymens in one paragraph. :dubious:
I keep reading in the in-box literature that the hymen isn’t broken by using a tampon. maybe we break them by other means, though… I would guess Western girls are more physically active on average than those of Eastern civilizations, or at least the more sexist ones, and I think hymens can be broken if you (for example) fall just right on your bike.
as to the actual topic, I don’t see anything too terribly wrong with such surgery, if it’s not in response to pressure from others. I’m one of the weird ones that has just always disliked the way my arrangement looks, before I ever even saw or had any concept of anyone else’s, or anyone saw mine, so I’ve actually considered this. I’ll probably never be able to justify the expense, so I doubt it will happen, but it would make me a thousand times more comfortable with my body as a whole, so it’s hard for me to see it as a bad thing if there are others for whom this might be the case.
) and a young woman from an African culture was getting surgery for precisely that purpose. She was getting married and it was really, really important that she appear to be a virgin. It’s something I think is silly but can be a life-or-death situation in certain cultures…
