“That thrilling conquest” November 1, 2007 zuzu Lauredhel examines the five reasons why YOU should get a bionic hymen.
I don’t even know what to say. There just aren’t words for what I’m feeling right now. Shock? Disgust? Horror? A healthy mix of all three? The mindset of those requesting this surgery scares me. “The greatest, most beautiful gift I can give a man is bloody sex.” WTF?
That is so disturbing. Why don’t men who like blood so much just have sex with women during their periods? What, it’s only sexy if she’s bleeding because she’s hurt? I hate people.
The disgusting factor ratchets up a notch (which I thought wouldn’t be possible) once they address the fact that you can break your hymen doing things besides the obvious. “Sports and tampons make you dirty too, so you’re not allowed to do anything fun.”
You know, if my husband and I are having sex, and he even thinks that he hurt me by mistake, he freezes up. I can’t even imagine saying, “Hey, guess what, honey? I got my hymen re-installed so sex can hurt like it’s supposed to!” I mean, if you want sex to hurt for your own reasons, that’s your bag. But not that many guys are really into it.
Oh boy, don’t even get me started. I’ll leave it to hysterical Christians to figure out whether I “technically” lost my virginity to my first boyfriend (he went in about an inch and then I pushed him away). Right at the moment of my much-anticipated “deflowering,” my 16-year-old sweetie incredulously remarked: “what the hell? Why isn’t it more difficult to get inside?” I was so mad. I pushed him off, asked him what the FUCK he meant by that, and he said that all girls bleed their first time and have pain. To which I said: “Uh . . . . not if she’s been using dildos for the last four years.” Stunned, shocked silence. He said “well . . . . I guess that still makes you a virgin . . . but . . . . .” And that was the end of that. I broke my hymen deliberately at 12 because I heard that it would be painful otherwise, and GEE! Maybe I didn’t WANT to bleed all over a guy on my first time!!!!!
Who do some of these women think they’re fooling? Getting a new hymen will not magically turn you into a virgin again. If you and your partner have been having sex for 20 years of marriage, getting a hymen surgery will not erase that history for your anniversary. His penis has been in your vagina before. Many times. Now there’ll just be a barrier for him to break when you fuck. That doesn’t mean you’re a virgin again!! The definition of virginity is NOT “has an intact hymen.”
Hi, cheers for the link zuzu. I want to make it absolutely clear, since I thought this was a SotBO but it seems somehow not to be, that the post is not intended to blame the victims of this surgery in any way. The blame lies squarely where it usually does – the men who demand suffering, bleeding, surrender-play and tamper-proof seals from women, and the exploitative surgeons who sell bionic hymens so vigorously. Seeing commenters use my post as a hook for woman-blaming is making me feel a little ill.
One can hope that, if this surgery becomes well-known, it will undermine the “bloody sheets” demand on wedding nights – the type where the new wife gets punished/divorced/killed if she doesn’t bleed enough to satisfy everyone she’s a virgin. If all blood means is that she may have had this surgery, then it isn’t meeting the old social “need” and might become less important. Or perhaps cultivate a meme that lots of blood = surgery, little/no blood= woman didn’t feel a need for surgery, is more honest, etc. Doubt it will work, but in the short term, perhaps it can protect a few young women trapped in that type of barbaric culture. Best that they weren’t expected to bleed, but at least a little better that they have a way of showing blood if they must than be subject to punishment for lack of blood. Confusion to the enemy!
Aside: Does the hymen even have a use? Nope, though manly evpsychs would probably give you a couple of just-so stories on cue: I can think of three possible trumped-up explanations off the top of my head. But it’s just an embryological remnant: the vestige of the membrane between the inner ducts and the outer urogenital sinus. In some girls, the hymen never opens (imperforate hymen), a problem that has analogies in similar conditions like imperforate anus. And the range of “normal” pre-penetration hymen sizes/thicknesses/etc is very wide.
We really should not be that surprised. We live in a rape culture where sex very often IS violence. This would seem to be a natural progression. Ugh. Revolting.
You know, as unpleasant as I find the idea of having my hymen back, I can totally see doing this if is was your kink or the kink of someone you love very much. I mean, if my partner was sweet and loving and respectful except for some powerful unsatisfied virgin rape fantasy that I either shared or was willing to play along with it might be on the table, assuming he or she was willing to go to equally extreme measures to satisfy my kinks. Ultimately, it seems to me that the distinction between this and, say, corset training is one of degree rather than kind. So as huge an ick factor as there is with this, I have to support the use of new and innovative technologies to satisfy sexual desires in a careful and consensual way. But really, that’s the only justification I can see for this. I find it ironic how two-faced the promotion for this procedure is. As Ursula L points out, this totally disempowers the hymen=virgin assumption. Inherent in the procedure is the fact that having a hymen does not make you a virgin. Yet the reasons they give for getting the procedure are squarely rooted in the hymen-virgin conflation. Essentially, they are saying “Get this surgery to exploit, manipulate, or play with this concept that we have rendered completely meaningless!” Also, they’ve unapologetically made it all about male pleasure and kink and power, with only the oblique reference to “receiving… more pleasure when making love.” How does that work exactly? Anyway, other people have thoroughly articulated why that pisses me off.
What confuses me is that it seems like the types of guys who want (re-)hymenated virgins also seem to be the types of guys who run away squealing at menstrual blood. I don’t get it. *boggles*
After a childhood of hearing about ‘bloody sheets’ and broken hymens, I was quite pleasantly surprised to feel all pleasure and no pain my first time. . . and I think my boyfriend would have been traumatized if I’d felt anything else. As Mnemosyne says, not that many guys are actually into this kind of thing.
You know, I was my wife’s “first”, not that it would have mattered to me even a little if that hadn’t been the case. I was afraid that there would be pain and bleeding. There wasn’t, because we had done a pretty extensive amount of fooling around before finally deciding to take that last step. I was glad, because she was a person who had chosen to have sex with me, not a possession I was laying claim to. And while the experience was certainly thrilling, it wasn’t because I felt I had “conquered” her. Actually, I think that might have detracted from it, if I had felt that way. It would have meant that she didn’t want it as much as I did (though I suppose many of these yahoos are going into it with that assumption, and the further assumption that she’s doing it to please them – must suck to think you’re so unsexy). If, on our twentieth wedding anniversary, she suggested that she get surgery so that our anniversary-night celebratory sex be painful for her and bloody, I would ask her if she was out of her mind. Will. Never. Understand. The mindset. Understand why the women do it. Will never understand the cultural attitudes that drive them to it. Deliberately tearing open a weeks-old surgical wound and ejaculating into it. Thrilling. Christ.
Wow! That Pravda article has convinced me: I want to get me a bionic hymen. Being a man and all, I’m not sure where I’ll have the surgeon install one on me, but it just sounds sooo kewl … not!
Rose – Aside: Does the hymen even have a use? Isn’t this like reinstalling your wisdom teeth? Yes, it is. Worse, really. At least wisdom teeth once had, and could still have, a use. Due to some orthodontics and pulled teeth in my youth, I have full use of mine.
You know, if my husband and I are having sex, and he even thinks that he hurt me by mistake, he freezes up. I can’t even imagine saying, “Hey, guess what, honey? I got my hymen re-installed so sex can hurt like it’s supposed to!” I mean, if you want sex to hurt for your own reasons, that’s your bag. But not that many guys are really into it. And even those who are can’t be expected to be into blood, and even if they are into blood, this particular scenario may not appeal to them. It’s on the rather uncontrolled side of things, and it’s not generally considered responsible to put someone in a situation you can’t control in order to make sure they’re okay. I’ve noticed the kind of guys who are really into the idea of sleeping with a virgin are also the kind of guys who would be freaked out by a woman who likes kinky pain. It’s that “Oh, what I do is just normal! That’s how men and women are! It’s those people who negotiate and talk about consent who are freaks!” thing. This type wants to hurt her, but they don’t want her to like it. Ick.
Am I the only one who sees this “re-virginization”/”bionic hymen” nonsense as a stepping stone to or form of FGM? After all, some types of FGM are more minor than the full clitoridectomies or labial removal and solely constitute suturing to create a smaller opening to the vagina. The purpose of such suturing, of course, being to make PiV sex more about the penis re-tearing the vaginal opening than about mutual sexual pleasure, causing pain to the woman and giving pleasure to a certain type of man. Why on earth isn’t this bullshit put on the FGM continuum instead of being considered some form of harmless plastic surgery? While on the one hand it boggles my mind, on the other it seems oh so very par for the fucking course.
Am I the only one who sees this “re-virginization”/”bionic hymen” nonsense as a stepping stone to or form of FGM? While on the one hand it boggles my mind, on the other it seems oh so very par for the fucking course. *ding ding ding!* We have a winner!
Yeeshhhhh…. I’ve had sex while my partner was menstrating, blood doesn’t bother me. But the idea of having sex with a virgin has always seemed horrible to me, I just plain don’t want to hurt someone that way. Kinky pain is one thing, but this, ugh. When I first met my wife I was worried that she might be a virgin, and felt nothing but relief when I found that she wasn’t.
Hey, I was thinking the FGM angle too! I have been for a long time about a lot of this, seems there is a whole movement going on here in the states with men pushing for women to surgically modify the interior or exterior portions of their genitalia. I saw a picture once online of a mutilated vagina some proud husband posted, it still haunts me.
Another question this raises: What would happen if they didn’t do this? Are women seriously this scared of the consequences? And to what extent do the men they’re doing this for realize it’s going on? It seems the sort of thing that would be don’t ask, don’t tell in areas where virginity is mandated. Have to admit, though, the first image that popped into my head was an irising door, which just seemed a spectacularly bad idea for the location. Robo-vagina dentata.
But the idea of having sex with a virgin has always seemed horrible to me Oh, good. Because that kind of attitude couldn’t possibly be just as traumatizing as a negligible amount of pain overshadowed by sexual pleasure! Not that you should ever have to have sex with a virgin, and not that there is anything wrong with preferring women with a certain amount of experience, and good for you for not being a virgin-fetishist. But good lord, most women don’t feel much or any pain if they’re actually aroused and in control of the act. Treating virgins like dirtyscary bags of potential pain, on the other hand… Seriously, for guys who freak out about this, you don’t have to be some kind of sex god to “initiate” a virgin. Just lie back and let her run the show at her own pace. The only thing virgins and their partners have to know is that it doesn’t need to hurt, and you can stop at any point if it does. It’s really not such a big deal.
The content Lauredhel linked to is an ad for surgery, right? Disgusting, but I rather doubt any of the stuff it says about the great demand for hymenoplasty is true. You don’t sell much surgery by saying “Men don’t really care; in fact, your husband will probably freak out if you’re in pain and bleeding.” Better to make shit up about all the women rushing to get this surgery and the men who love them.
That’s a good point, Mythago. On the other hand, you don’t see ads like this for, say, getting webbing surgically installed between your fingers. Despite the fact that I can see such a thing actually being useful to some people, there’s just no demand for it. Exaggerated as it may be (this is an ad, after all), the demand for replacement hymens exists, and that’s bad enough.
*shudders* I can think of about eighty million more fun ways to have sex involving pain. I can think of at least two to have sex involving pseudo-virginity, both safer than the surgical one. And I am so, so fucking glad that my first partner was not a virginity-fetishizing pushy freak, and that my own first time, while painful, didn’t screw me up for life. Eeughh. That article makes my skin crawl.
I want bionic irising hymens installed in my ears to close when I go swimming and keep the water out. To go with the webbing installed between my fingers to make me swim faster, which is a fabulous idea (except I’d have to give up my love for fingerless gloves and go with mittens instead).
Eeeeuuuuuggghhhh. I was so horrified by fiction I read at 14 that I decided to get pro-active and went to work making sure that no one would be able to hurt me in that area. Now, I am still revolted and sickened by the idea that it’s okay to hurt someone just to make their anatomy fit yours. For those who trot out the excuse that some culture demands a gory spectacle or else the victim will be killed, it seems to me that a simulation could be provided that would not be painful for the patient. And for those who think this culture is so superior to those, how come books for young girls–and the mothers of young girls–don’t tell them flat out HOW to make damn sure it won’t hurt??
Indeed, prior to such surgery women did come up with inventive ways of faking the hymen–it usually involved taking pig’s bladders with animal blood in them to bed on the wedding night, if memory serves. You can find that kind of thing in Renaissance-era midwifery manuals.
Absolutely disgusting, more so for being so culturally predictable. Although, I really *do* think “bionic hymen” needs to be added to the 12 days of Christmas Pussy. Maybe as a stocking stuffer?