Virginity at a price

The UK National Health Service has revealed this week that there has been an upsurge of women getting their hymen reinstated; this operation is called Hymenoplasty. The operation costs between £1,800 and £4,000 and is available on the NHS. This fact alone had the tabloids and its readers up in arms; that the taxpayer is funding what they regard is a ludicrous waste of cash.

 

The operation to restore a woman’s vagina back to ‘virginal status’ is mainly performed on Muslim women, the NHS stated.

 

Muslim women have said they need the operation to preserve their honour to avoid years of abuse or disownment from their future husbands.

This constant fixation with female virgins and religion disturbs me; it reeks of sexism.

 

History has evidence of the virgin fixation from Mary, mother of Jesus, having to defend her virginity despite being pregnant, to Fundamentalist Muslims dying as martyrs to go heaven and receive 70 virgins for their suicide bombing. Women in history have always had to explain their vaginas or give their hymens up as gifts to men.

 

Why is it in 2010 that women have to be sexually untouched before they can be respected in a marriage, yet men can be sexually adventurous and their honour isn’t being questioned?

 

Muslim women are so worried that they are having invasive surgery to re-apply their hymens so their husbands will respect them: this doesn’t sound like a loving trusting marriage to me.

 

And the demand is growing. Dr. Magdy Hend, Consultant Gynaecologist said: "In the past, we would do one or two hymen reconstruction operations a week. At times now, we get two to three cases a day. The demand has tripled. During the Hymenoplasty procedure – viewed by some as invasive and degrading – the hymen is stitched or reconstructed so that it will tear again and bleed on the woman’s wedding night.

In some cases, the vaginal lining can be used to create a false hymen. A blood capsule can then be inserted into the lining to ensure realistic blood flow when the membrane is broken.

 

Dr Magdy Hend, who started hymen reconstruction more than 18 years ago in the Middle East and the Gulf, added: "In some cultures, they like to see that the women will bleed on the wedding night. If the wife or bride is not a virgin, it is a big shame on the family." He said he was surprised by the "very good response" to the service and said there is "big competition on the market".

 

Most of his clients, he told More4 News, are in their teens or early 20s.

"They might be British of ethnic background, they might be immigrants, or some people come from abroad - Asia, Middle East, the Gulf - and they don't want to have it done back home," he added. He said demand is increasing, particularly from UK residents.

Muslim women’s groups have defended the need for surgery saying that, if it saves a woman’s life, then it is indeed a life saving operation.

 

The question I would like to raise is this: what woman is going into a marriage and a bed with a man who has openly displayed his predilection for murder? This is not an ideal situation for any young bride and, as usual, it’s the women who get the brunt of it first.

 

No woman should be ashamed of her sexual choices.

 

It also raises the issue of women who were raped. Are they ‘unclean’ because their hymen is not intact? This only compounds the feeling of blame on women who have been sexually attacked. A hymen is not a sign of pureness; it a small piece of skin that can somehow make or break a woman’s life, even in these modern days.

This is the 21^st century, yet we still have a culture of inspecting wedding night bedding for blood stains here in the UK. Moderate Muslim groups have warned that upsurge in Hymenoplasty is a growing sign of fundamentalism on the rise within our communities.

 

This isn’t just a Muslim issue either. We have the virgin fixation in our own modern Christian culture and its right at the heart of our Royal Family. I recall when late Lady Diana Spencer was marrying Prince Charles nearly 30 years ago, the then Lord Chamberlin had to ‘vouch’ for the Lady’s virginity before she could marry her Prince. Did he go in there and look himself?

Yet Prince Charles was allowed to have sown his own oats; he didn’t need to be a virgin. It all smacks of hypocrisy and mistrust and we all know how that ended.

 

This obsession with women’s sexuality is a step backwards. Men have never had to prove their sexual history in any culture that I know of and yet women are still made to feel unclean, unworthy and under pressure to have an intact hymen.

 

It is a man’s world and we allow it to continue.