Virginity, the myth of the broken hymen that persists in the XXI century despite having no scientific basis
Virginity is a farce, say Ellen Støkken Dahl and Nina Dølvik Brochmann, and armed with one of those hula hoops lined with a delicate transparent plastic film, they set out to explain it to their audience.
Brochmann holds it and Dahl breaks it with a powerful blow.
The scene, performed during a TED conference in Oslo by these two Norwegian doctors and writers, convincingly illustrates an idea The one most of us have grown up with: that the first time a woman has vaginal intercourse, the hymen breaks and bleeds as a result. And at that moment the virginity is lost.
Although the talk of the authors of “The book of the vagina: everything you need know and that you have never dared to ask” took place in 2017, and the fact that the hymen does not undergo a change after coitus is a fact recognized by medical sciences for a long time. more of 100 years, the idea that this part of the female body can reveal her sexual history is still prevalent in our society.
“In current popular culture there are many examples of the myth of the hymen: on television, in books. It is still believed that most women bleed the first time they have sexual intercourse and that it is possible to notice a difference between women who are virgins and those who are not”, Dahl tells BBC Mundo.
“It is very practical to believe that nature has given us a kind of proof of virginity in the female body, if what you want is to control the sexuality of women”, he adds.
And although the WHO and the UN consider virginity tests (which involve a vaginal examination to verify if the hymen is “intact”) as a violation of human rights and advocate its prohibition, these are still practiced in twenty countries (including the United Kingdom and the United States), as well as hymenoplasty, a surgical procedure that offers to “repair the hymen” despite the fact that it is not broken.
Open, elastic and with a hole
What does the hymen really look like then and what exactly happens to it afterwards? of the first sexual intercourse?
Far from being a delicate membrane that covers the entrance to the vagina, “the hymen is more like a hair tie (like the ones seen in the photo below) or a rubber band“, indicates Brochmann in the TED video that has millions of views.
Its shape, in general, is like that of a donut or crescent, with a large hole in the middle. It is also a hyperelastic structure capable of accommodating the penis without suffering damage.
“Most hymens are bits of meat —hymenal caruncles— very different in each woman. They can be two, three larger pieces, or four or five smaller pieces, like small tongues or petals, the same color as the mucosa of the vagina” , Marta Torrón, a pelvic floor physiotherapist and expert in physiosexology, explains to BBC Mundo, who dedicates a large part of her time to dissemination.
“That is why, because they are the same color (and because we are not used to looking at our vulva and vagina), women do not know that those little pieces are their hymen, and that they will have it all their lives”, she adds.
Dahl compares the hymen to a cloth-covered elastic band.
That is, “the hymen is not a closed membrane that breaks and disappears (after penetration). In the majority —in the 59% of cases— the hymen is open and that is normal“.
In case it was not, we would be facing an “imperforate hymen, something that is considered a malformation, and that needs an intervention, since in this way the flow or menstruation will not be able to come out and of course, it will not be able to having intercourse”, says Torrón.
Its appearance can be as varied as that of the clitoris, vulva or any other part of a woman’s body.
How it’s really the clitoris (and the uncanny similarities it has to the penis)
Fundamentally, there is nothing in his appearance that reveals a before and afterl intercourse, as of repeated so much we have come to believe. Therefore, there is no medical procedure to determine if a woman has had vaginal sex or not.
“In all these years I have seen thousands of women, thousands of vaginas. In most cases, you cannot know if they have had intercourse or not”, emphasizes Torrón.
A study dating from 1906, for example, revealed that a sex worker’s hymen was unchanged, maintaining an appearance similar to that of a young woman who had not had sexual intercourse.
Another more recent one, carried out in 2004, noted that of 36 young pregnant women kept their hymen intact.
Why should we change the concept of “losing virginity”
In short, the hymen can remain as it is not only after penetration, but also even throughout the pregnancy.
Hymen as a seal of virginity
Withouta scientific basis, virginity is shown as a social construction, a concept deeply rooted for centuries in many cultures to control the pleasure and sexuality of women , agree the experts consulted by BBC Mundo.
Vesalius wrote that not all female virgins they had a hymen.
However, it was not until the century XVI when a connection between the idea of virginity and a specific part of the female body was first established.
The link of the hymen “with the vitrude flourishes in the fantasies of men throughout history until the 16th century, when the famous Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius
discovered some remains of meat around the vaginal opening during the dissection of the corpses of two virgin women”, explains Eugenia Tognotti, professor of History of Medicine at the University of Sassari, in Italy.
“Vesalius wrote in his book on human anatomy (which contains one of the earliest descriptions of the anatomy of the hymen almost correct) , that not all virgin women had a hymen “, Tognotti tells BBC Mundo.
However, later, he added that the “so-called ‘intact’ hymen can be a ‘virginity test
‘”, he continues the historian.
With this last assertion, “unknowingly, Vesalius gave the hymen the symbolic meaning that would become dominant during the next five centuries, despite advances in the knowledge of female anatomy showing that the hymen, like many other parts of the body, varies greatly in shape and size”.
Blood on the sheets
Other ideas that prevail in the popular imagination is that of bleeding.
The sheet with drops of blood re —or the handkerchief dyed red in other cultures, such as the gypsy— on the wedding night, constitutes proof of the woman’s preserved honor.
Most women do not bleed after the first intercourse.
To begin with, “the vast majority of women do not bleeds in this situation and many feel guilty or weird. ‘Why haven’t I bled?’ they wonder. ‘Well, because your body is normal, you know it and you’ve understood when to have intercourse,’ I would tell him”, comments Torrón.
“Without knowing how his body works, intercourse can damage the mucosa (the inner skin of the vagina) and that is why it bleeds, but not because the hymen is broken”, clarifies the expert and adds that, with arousal, the “vagina becomes long and wide”.
And in the event that the hymen —a tissue with little vascularization— suffers a small laceration, “it tends to recover quickly, like any other mucosa of the body”, explains Dahl.
And what is true in the idea that the hymen can be broken by riding a bicycle, practicing some rough sport or by inserting a tampon?
“For riding a bicycle, definitely not, because (the hymen) is a structure that is inside the vagina. Unless you ride the bike with the seat inside your vagina, that would be very difficult”, says Dahl jokingly.
“The idea of that riding a bicycle, dancing or riding a horse can change your internal anatomy, I find it absurd“, he adds.
The same is stated by the Spanish physiosexologist. “There is no truth to this. Any. Since we have no idea of the reality of the body, we try to explain why there is no bleeding”.
“The real explanation is that your hymen and your vagina they are elastic”
Breaking the myth
For Torrón, it is important to disclose this information about the hymen, which weighs “not only on religious people”, to erase it from collective thought.
In many countries virginity tests are still carried out, despite the fact that the WHO and the UN condemn them for violating human rights.
But in addition to the impact it may have on women’s sexual health and well-being, it is crucial to eradicate these false notions by influence they have in the field of forensic medicine, he says.
“When a woman arrives who says that she has been abused and that there has been penetration, they assess her vagina and if the hymen is intact, if they do not see lesions, they doubt her”, she explains.
Dahl considers that, information aside, it is important to stop worrying about whether a woman is a virgin or not.
“Because the problem is the idea that a woman has to be a virgin and they are using a biological misunderstanding to build her arguments”.
“Therefore, the most important project ahead of us is to stop thinking that women should be virgins”.
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