Did you know, that in some parts of the world women are killed by their families because they were raped or suspected to be sexually active?
This is called an honour killing.
Allow me to enlighten you.
An honour killing occurs when a person (typically a woman) is murdered by their family because of some dishonour – real or perceived – that that individual has brought upon the family. An honour killing is carried out to restore the honour of the family.
In many cases, this involves killing women who are suspected to have lost their virginities, either to consensual sexual intercourse, or rape.
In many of these scenarios, a woman is concluded to have lost her virginity after undergoing a virginity test.
A virginity test is a process to determine if a woman is a virgin. It typically involves inserting fingers or objects into the vagina to check for an 'intact hymen'.
But what is even an 'intact hymen'?
Now, this is where the virginity police run into big problems. There's no such thing as an 'intact hymen', which is why I've put it in quotation marks.
The idea of an 'intact hymen', or even virginity more broadly, is unscientific and medically inaccurate. Most people think of the hymen as a something like a seal that covers the vagina. So, they assume that only women who have had sex should have holes or openings in their hymens, while virgins should have 'intact hymens', i.e hymens without any openings.
This couldn't be farther from the truth.
In actuality, the hymen is a thin membrane that surrounds (not covers) the vagina.
Pictured below are different types of hymens.
Type A is the most common, and hence is labelled 'normal'. But notice that almost all of them have openings?
Yeah, contrary to popular belief, the hymen isn't supposed to completely cover the vagina.
Think about it for a minute. If the hymen were to be completely closed, forming a seal over the vagina, how do you think menstruation would happen? Like if you were on your period, how would your menstrual blood flow out if your vagina were completely covered by the hymen?
It wouldn't.
We know this because a small number of women are born with an imperforate hymen (pictured in B above), and this happens to be a very serious condition. It is normally discovered at the beginning of puberty, when most girls begin to see their period. These young girls experience very severe menstrual cramps, albeit without seeing any blood.
Then they are taken to a doctor which is when their imperforate hymen is discovered. Because their hymen is completely covered and blood is unable to flow through, they experience something called hematocolpos, which is when menstrual blood accumulates in the vagina because of an obstruction to its flow. This pooling of blood in the vaginal canal is what causes the severe cramps.
An imperforate hymen is treated by – I guess this should be obvious – perforating the vagina surgically. The doctors create the opening that should have been there from birth.
If the hymen were what many people imagine it to be, virgins wouldn't be able to menstruate. Thankfully, this is not the case.
However, there are many more myths and misconceptions surrounding the hymen and female virginity.
For example, many people believe that when a woman has sex for the first time, her hymen 'breaks' and this causes her to bleed. So if a woman has sex and doesn't bleed, then it means it's not her first time. This is false.
The hymen is an elastic organ and it stretches as a woman ages. In most post-pubescent women, the hymen would have stretched enough to allow penetration without causing the hymen to tear. This means that many, if not most women do not bleed during their first time having sex. And if they do bleed, it's more likely to be as a result of forceful penetration and insufficient lubrication than injury to the hymen.
Furthermore, this particular belief is not only false, but dangerous. It has led to the death of many women because when their husbands report that they didn't bleed, it's assumed that they weren't virgins and if it's a society that practices honour killings, the woman would be killed. Imagine how many women have been killed because they didn't bleed on their wedding night, even though they were virgins.
Another misconception is that you can tell or test when a woman isn't a virgin by simply examining her hymen. This is the virginity testing I talked about earlier. This is also the reason a lot of people focus so much on female virginity and less so on male virginity. Because of the assumption that female virginity can be tested (while male virginity can't). But guess what?
Female virginity can't be tested either. At least not accurately.
In one study, medical professionals examined the hymens of 36 pregnant teenage girls, but they were able to confirm penetration for only 2 of the 36 girls. Do we interpret this as cases of immaculate conception? Of course not. The point is this: virginity testing, even when done by a professional isn't accurate in determining a woman's virginity.
In another study, the hymens of teenage girls were studied to determine who had had sex among them, and then the girls were asked afterwards to confirm the results. 52% of the girls who admitted to having sex had no identifiable changes to their hymens, i.e their hymens were still 'intact', despite the fact that they weren't virgins.
Even in cases of rape, the hymen still doesn't always bear signs of the event.
In a study of child rape victims, only 2.1% of the abused children had visible injuries on their hymen.
So, if medical professionals can't always tell when a hymen is intact or not, if a woman is a virgin or not, how do the virginity testers do it? What are they doing when they claim to be checking your daughter's virginity?
I'll tell you for free; they are scamming you. A woman's virginity cannot be tested any more than a man's virginity can, and anyone who claims to be able to test it accurately is a scammer.
Some people also claim that a woman who has had sex, especially with multiple men, would have a 'loose' vagina, and that this would be a way to tell if she's a virgin or is promiscuous.
This is also wrong. The vagina is a very elastic organ and repeated sexual intercourse with multiple partners cannot permanently stretch the vagina. The only thing capable of permanently stretching a vagina is childbirth, not sex.
No matter how big a man's penis is, it cannot permanently stretch out a woman's vagina. Also, the vagina tends to loose its elasticity as a woman ages, so the vagina can feel looser as you grow older, but this has nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with ageing.
It is also worth noting that some women are born without a hymen, so in what category do we put those women?
It should be obvious at this point that the whole concept of virginity is a scam. A big one. One that has been used to deceive and control women.
In countries like Afghanistan, women are imprisoned for failing a virginity test. In some other countries, they are killed for not having a stained bedsheet on their wedding night. Even if your country doesn't practice honour killings or imprisonment, the concept of Virginity is still very misogynistic, inherently. Many women all over the world are traumatised by it, either by being subjected to virginity tests or by being shamed for being sexual. It typically only applies to women and is used to judge our worth. But no woman's worth is in her vagina, that's a lie of the patriarchy. Virginity is and has always been a patriarchal tool to oppress women and restrict their freedom. It's high time we let go of it.
Virginity and all the things we associate with it are social constructs.
Let women be. Let women live.
Sources and Further reading
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