The Hymen and the Virginity Stigma

My post this week was originally going to be about menstrual products - pads, tampons, etc - and their pros and cons and use, but that's going to get pushed back a week because I received a comment on the hymen post that really made my blood boil.  Someone who I really really hope was a spambot left a link to a website selling a "virginity restoration kit," claiming to repair the hymen and restore a woman's virginity so that her "shameful little secret" wouldn't come to light on her wedding night (I've since deleted the comment).

There is so much wrong with this product that I hardly know where to begin.

First of all, I'm picturing something like a bicycle tire repair kit - superglue and patches of vinyl... Which is ridiculous because, as we discussed, the hymen isn't a wall of tissue. It's a stretchy corona of mucus tissue.  The hymen doesn't pop like a punctured tire, letting all that precious virginity leak out.  It gets slowly eroded away through hormone exposure and the movement of daily life, like a cliff on the sea getting worn away by waves.  Inexorable, gradual, and irreversible.

There are definitely surgeons out there who are willing to do a "hymen repair surgery," which involves stitching worn sections of the hymen back together. The thing is, most of these surgeons will readily admit that the stitches fall out, often before the patient even gets to the parking lot because it's "like stitching through butter."  Most women who choose to have such a procedure do so because of religious or societal pressure to prove virginity by bleeding on the wedding night, something that only occurs in less than half of women during their first penetrative sex anyway.

Second of all, the hymen has absolutely nothing to do with virginity.  There is no way to look at woman's hymen and tell whether or not she has had penetrative sex, because again, THE HYMEN DOESN'T POP OR TEAR.  It's not like the safety seal on jar, with the little button that pops up to let you know it's been opened before.

And that's of course assuming an extremely heteronormative view of virginity - that is, one which regards male-and-female penis-in-vagina (PIV) sex as the only type of "real" sex.  What about oral sex? Anal sex? Gay and lesbian sex? Is a lesbian woman who has only ever engaged in sexual acts with women considered a virgin her entire life?  According to the definitions of this "virginity restoration kit", you could have anal sex with a hundred different partners, and engage is lesbian sex morning til night, and you'd still be a virgin.

Does that sound logical to you?  Maybe it does. I went to a Catholic high school, where peers drew very very fine distinctions between what was and what was not sex.  When we discussed anal sex in health class, some people said it was okay because "you're still a virgin."  Same with oral.  Isn't that the distinction that President Clinton made? Oral doesn't count? Well then what does count?  How can you define virginity so narrowly when the definition of sex can vary from person to person?

And what about non-consensual sex? If a girl's first experience with genital sex is rape, should she be shamed about not "being a virgin" any more?  Goddamn, that is some victim-blaming nonsense right there.

Thirdly, where is the male virginity restoration kit?  Shouldn't he be a virgin on the wedding night, too? We hear all this preaching about female virginity and "popping the cherry" (an incredibly misleading euphemism in itself) but where's the male equivalent?  Maybe we should come up with one right now, one that carries the same connotations of something irrevocably lost or broken.  Leave 'em in the comments.

And finally, all of this assumes that having premarital PIV sex is something horrible and shameful, enough that you should drop $29.99 + shipping and handling to shove some make believe up your hooha to keep your new hubby and his family from freaking out.  I have three words for you:

Sex.
Is.
Awesome.

Sex can be fun and hot and random, and it can be sweet and tender and beautiful, it can be rough or silly or awkward or mind-blowing or mediocre. It can be with a guy or a girl, or with multiple people.  It can be with someone you just met or someone you've known for years.  Sex can be vaginal or anal or oral or with fingers or toes or toys.  It can be kinky or vanilla. It can cause bone-shaking orgasm or just be kind of "meh." But there is one thing sex definitely is not, and that's shameful.

Virginity isn't physical, and it's nothing that can be proven by looking at party parts.  Virginity is a state of mind.

Girls ask things like, "If I use a tampon, am I still a virgin?" Well... have you engaged in any physical activity that you regard as sex? If not, then you're a virgin, regardless of what cotton contraption you use to stem the crimson tide.

They ask, "My boyfriend went down on me, am I still a virgin?" Well, do you consider oral sex to be virginity-losing sex? It's all up to you. If you decide that having oral sex means you're still a virgin, then guess what? You are.  Because everyone's definition of "real sex" is different, everyone's definition of virginity is different. Rather than saying you're a virgin or not, be honest with yourself and your partners about your sexual history.  Instead of, "I'm a virgin," say "I've never engaged in PIV sex" or "I've received oral sex but never given it" or whatever list of activities you have or haven't tried.

They ask, "My first time was disappointing, or I was raped, can I be a virgin again and have a do-over?" You can have as many do-overs as you like.  People make a huge deal about a girl losing her virginity, but all it means is that you've had a physical experience you've never had before.  No one talks about "losing your push-up virginity" the first time you do a push-up, or "popping your car cherry" the first time you drive a car. Nothing is lost or broken or destroyed, it's just different.

Ugh. My fingers are getting tired.  I'd like to talk about the whole societal and historical context for virginity, but that's going to have to wait for another day.  Perhaps a mid- or early-week post.  Goddamn spam bots, getting me all riled up.  I need a cocktail and some knitting, and it's not even one in the afternoon here.  For more on defining virginity, check out this awesome Scarleteen article, "Three on Virginity."

Anatomy: The Hymen

First things first: please accept my profuse apologies for this post being a full week late. My husband and I were out of town last week looking at houses, as we're moving between states pretty soon, and it's been kind of a busy time.  The next few weeks may see posts being early or late as we prepare to move.

Dear Readers, I am ludicrously excited to do this post. It's the reason I started this blog to begin with, and the whole hymen issue is something that gets my hackles up.  We'll go into the social pressures around female virginity at some point, and the whole "purity" debacle, and what the "first time" is actually like, but I feel that this is one issue where the anatomical facts and the social expectations are of equal importance.  So the hymen gets its own post. Yay!

I've taken classes in human sexuality 3 times in my life: an ongoing "Family Life" course over 5-7th grade, a religious studies elective in my senior year of high school, and a humanities elective during my second year of college.  NONE OF THEM DISCUSSED THE REALITIES OF THE HYMEN.  The college course touched a bit on the atypical hymens, but not one talked about what it really is.

If you're like me, you've grown up hearing phrases like "popping the cherry" as euphemisms for a girl losing her virginity. You've heard of things like a  "torn hymen" and bleeding during sex as proof that it was her first time.  You've seen shows like True Blood, where poor vampire Jessica can't have sex without pain because her crazy vamp healing abilities make her hymen grow back.  You've seen things like Law and Order SVU where they say an intact hymen is proof that rape hasn't occurred.  You've read Game of Thrones and similar stories where a girl's virginity is called into question, so she's examined by doctors or religious elders or midwives to determine if her hymen is still in place.  Perhaps you grew up with a religious background that emphasizes female purity, and have been told that things like tampons can break the hymen.

You probably picture the hymen as something like this:

Ahh Cassandra, yours is the first episode of DW I ever saw.

Or, to use words, you picture it as a thin veil of tissue stretched across your vagina, a barrier or membrane that is torn or popped or broken when you have sex (or use a tampon, if my religious upbringing is to be believed).

And there is a type of hymen (called an imperforate hymen) in which this is the case.

But for most of us, the hymen is just a thin corona of mucusy tissue located an inch or so inside the vaginal opening. It's stretchy, and delicate, and actually wears away over time due to estrogen exposure and physical activity.

Your hymen is a unique snowflake. A beautiful, mucus-y snowflake.

Remember a few weeks ago I asked you to take out a mirror and identify the structures in the vulva anatomy post?  Let's do that again.  Take a look at your vaginal opening (a flashlight may be helpful here) and see if you can identify anything that looks like a ring or crescent or squiggly shape just a bit inside.  That's your hymen.  Just that.  It's nothing that will tear or pop during sex, or that any doctor or priest or midwife could look at and say, "Yep, she's a virgin."  It's just a little flap of tissue, sort of like the webbing at the base of your fingers, only even thinner and stretchier and it fades away over time.

If, however, you do see a solid barrier, or a band of tissue running down the center, or a wall of tissue with one or several small holes in it, we may have a slight problem.  While the hymens picture above are fairly typical and won't cause major problems with things like penetration, menstruation, or tampon use, there are several forms of hymen which can be problematic.

A chart showing typical and atypical hymen forms. The dark bit is the visible opening of the vagina

Image 1 is a "typical" or lunate hymen - thin, crescent-shaped, blocking very little of the vaginal opening.  Image 2 shows a hymen that has shrunk or worn away significantly, leaving only small bits behind.  Image 3 shows the "annular hymen" in which the hymen creates a ring around the entire vaginal opening. This is fairly typical in young children, with the hymen changing shape to images 1 or 2 around puberty, though it may persist into adulthood.  

The first row of hymens are pretty typical and safe and don't generally require any sort of medical intervention to make tampon use, penetrative sex, or menstruation easier.  Though if you have an annular hymen, penetration and tampons may be a bit uncomfortable, in which case you should talk to your doctor.

The hymens in rows 2 and 3, however, can often be very problematic and require minor surgery to correct.

Images 4 and 5 are what are called "septate hymens" meaning there are one or more bands of tissue extending across the vaginal opening - like the spetum in your nose that divides your nostrils.  They tend to be thicker and less elastic than than those hymens in the top row, and can impede tampon use and penetrative sex.  Tampons may become trapped behind the tissue band or be blocked from entering all together, and penetration can cause the bands to rupture (painfully and with quite a bit of bleeding) or may not be able to get through at all.  Sometimes these bands will break on their own or stretch out enough that tampons, fingers, toys, or a penis can fit through on one side, but often you will need help from a medical professional to correct it.

I've heard stories of girls attempting to correct septate hymens through self-surgery. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS YOURSELF.  Firstly because the risk of things like infection, nerve damage, and extreme blood loss are extremely high when you don't know what you're doing; and secondly because it's something that can be fixed in minutes by your doctor, usually with only a local anesthetic and usually right there in the office.

Why can't all gynecologists look like David Tennant?

 Seriously.  They just numb you up, snip the bands, and stitch or cauterize the cuts.  It takes less than an hour (some girls have said more like 20 minutes) and recovery is very quick.  No muss, no fuss, you could be using tampons within a few weeks.

Images 6, 7, and 8 show hymens which almost completely block the vaginal opening and thus are generally referred to as semi-imperforate hymens. A cribiform hymen sort of looks like a colander (pasta strainer) - a solid membrane with several small holes in it which allow menstrual fluid to drain.  The labial and microperforate hymens have just one opening - a long narrow one or a single small one, respectively. Any of these three will almost certainly make penetration and tampon use impossible (and any attempts extremely painful) and will need medical intervention.  The surgery is very similar to the one for a septate hymen, but both the procedure and recovery will be a bit longer as there is more tissue being removed.

Image 9 is the most dangerous form of hymen - imperforate.  This is the type of hymen most of us picture, or what we're taught is the typical hymen.  It's that first image of Cassandra.

An imperforate hymen is a bitch indeed.

It's the solid veil of tissue extending across the entire vaginal opening.  It's usually thick, not stretchy, and can be very, very dangerous.

See, if the typical hymen really were the mythical full-barrier hymen, girls would be dropping dead left and right... because menstrual fluid would never be able to escape.  It would just build up inside the uterus and vagina, and would eventually cause sepsis or endometriosis - very painful, very dangerous.

The good news is that the imperforate hymen only occurs in 1-2% of women and can usually be diagnosed at birth or in early infancy.  The other good news is that, whether it's corrected in infancy or adulthood, the procedure for correcting it is simple and low-risk, just as for the other atypical hymen types.  Some doctors will perform the procedure under local anesthetic as for septate or semi-imperforate hymens, but others will recommend you be fully anesthetized (knock out) and have it done in an actual operating room.  It's sort of like popping a balloon, but way gentler and less explosive and in far more sanitary conditions.

Matt Smith is really my 3rd or 4th choice for ideal gyno.

For a first-hand account of the difficulties of an imperforate hymen and the experience of the surgery, check out this article from XOJane: It Happened to Me.

Next week we will take a closer look at the clitoris, which is even more amazing than you may think.