Intercourse isn’t the only cause of hymen breakage. Many women and girls break their hymen through participation in athletics such as gymnastics, horseback riding, or even serious falls and collisions. Still, the hymen is most associated with a woman’s virginity; and it’s breakage the sign of virginity lost.
Much attention of late has been placed on the role of virginity and Islam with discussions of honor killings, hymenoplasties and virginity certificates becoming more common. While still taboo, people are beginning to speak out on both sides regarding not only the emphasis of female virginity as a precondition to marriage, but also the methods at which non-virgins will go to ensure their honor and the honor of their family members.
Gigimo's Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit
The latest method to stir this debate is a product from the Chinese company Gigimo. It is called the Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit. For approximately USD 30, the kit can be purchased online and sent anywhere, including predominately Muslim nations such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. In Egypt, the Gigimo kit has incited outrage amongst the conservative Muslim Brotherhood who is calling the device shameful, and un-Islamic. Members of the Brotherhood are calling for the Kit to be banned, importers to be exiled and users to face either exile or the death penalty.
The Artificial Hymen Kit is only the latest method a non-virgin woman can take to seemingly restore her virginity. While cheaper and arguably more easily obtainable than the hymenoplasty surgery, the kit will not pass virginity inspections by gynecologists. The Kit is a pouch containing a blood-like liquid that is inserted by a woman into her own body. During intercourse it is ruptured creating the illusion of virginal bleeding. It is meant to fool the lover, not the doctor.
Opting for Surgical Reconstruction: the Hymenoplasty
The hymenoplasty is more likely to do both. It is the closest a woman can get to restoring her virginity. The thirty-minute procedure can cost a woman between USD 500 and USD 5250 depending on the country in which the surgery is performed. The number of operations is unknown as the surgery is not covered by insurance companies and more importantly is a taboo topic of conversation. However, surgeons performing the operation report the number of women requesting the hymenoplasty are increasing. One clinic in Paris performs on average 3-4 operations per week.
These and other methods of creating the illusion of virginity are signs of a stirring debate amongst religious experts and clerics, and human rights activists. Both sides argue the ethics of virgin certification, artificial hymen kits, and hymenolplasties. Those in favor of such devices claim they are offering life. They believe the alternative would mean death by honor killing, public shame and legal discrimination, expulsion from formal education or being determined unfit for marriage.
Those against these practices argue that they are as repressive as the archaic outlooks they are meant to fight against. Such critics argue that kits, surgeries and the like simply reinforce the emphasis on virginity. They argue instead for educating the public on the facts of hymen breakage and bleeding, and the oppressive nature of forced virginity.
How to Achieve Gender Inequality
While the later may be more difficult to achieve, as it is a fight against cultural mentality, the former is less disputable. It is a fact that many women have broken hymens from causes unrelated to intercourse, while others, whose hymens do break during intercourse, do not bleed. It is further estimated that 30-40% of women with both natural and reconstructed hymens do not bleed during intercourse. Making the emphasis on bleeding as a sign of virginity unreliable.
It is such statistics which activists hope will change the mindset of those placing such emphasis on female virginity. The UN estimates that there are 5000 honor killings every year in developing and developed nations alike. Regardless of one’s stance on Gigimo kits and hymenoplasties, their controversy is bringing a once taboo topic into the public forum. This, coupled with the increased attention on honor killings, is bringing the fight against forced virginity and its repercussions to light.
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