Injustice of Society

Romantics will tell you that successful long-term relationships are based on the foundation of love and honesty. Honestly though, a large number of marriages are built on deception and virginity.

Throughout history, “revirginization” could have saved many female lives by offering them an escape from dishonor and, in some instances, death. Today, hymenoplasty is a procedure that provides women with that saving hand by sewing the regrets that come with the “I wish I did not” into “I never did” realities.

In a world where a woman is being judged for losing her virginity, is society overlooking the fact that sex requires a woman and a man?

In general, society embraces cultures that value family, respect and honor. These are all-important building blocks of society, but are most meaningful when equally applied to both genders. In the case of hymen reconstruction, women opt to undergo the procedure (more on that later) to avoid the disgrace of being exposed as a non-virgin or a girl men have had their way with.

Severe wedding night scenarios regularly occur when the groom and both families anxiously wait to verify that the bride is a virgin by looking for blood on the bed sheet. If there is no blood, the bride can be rejected, disgraced and, in some cases physically hurt. In some cultures, the humiliation of a non-virgin woman is accepted and welcomed as a “lesson” to the rest. (I wonder if this lesson would have been allowed to exist in a world where mother nature had made it possible to know if a man is a virgin or not. Maybe then, losing your virginity would have been made a marriage prerequisite).

Again, the times we live in have softened our attitudes about virginity, of course, but was it because the concept became outdated as women changed, or because society has really opened itself up to change? While we have progressed past the bloodstained sheet in many instances, the metaphor of the ritual still exists. The pressures to be a virgin and present yourself “intact” are great, and they force the women to avoid being ostracized by both family and her new husband.

A bride's virginity is still a hot commodity for the Middle Eastern family, even for those who have been in the United States for generations. You see mothers scanning the landscape trying spot the “good girl” for their unmarried sons. I find it humorous how these mothers claim to know which girls are virgins just by looking at them. “Mesh beyis temma ella imma” is a popular Arabic saying used when describing the would-be brides. The saying translates as “Never been kissed by anyone other than her mother.”

You might ask why these mothers don't question their sons to see if they are virgins or why it is okay for their boys to be boys as long as they don't marry the girls they fool around with before marriage. But those questions never surface. How is it that this double standard still applies?

It's worse than a double standard because in light of the premium placed on a female's virginity, the pressure to prove it is overwhelming, and women will go to extreme lengths to hide past indiscretions. For $2,800 a woman in Dubai or Lebanon ($4,000 in Beverly Hills) on the verge of marriage, can get her hymen reconstructed, and she becomes a brand new virgin who will please her husband on their wedding night and save herself and her family embarrassment and disgrace. The United Arab Emirates and Lebanon outlaw hymen reconstruction for unmarried women unless a guardian is present. It is legal for married women, some of whom are submitting to this procedure to please the husbands. (That's another, subject and the reason why a married woman would do that is unclear to me, but the practice is indeed rising.) Hymen reconstruction is criminalized in the first case and considered "plastic surgery," a private affair, in the second. I call this patriarchal inconsistency. Yet I digress.

Going back to the wedding night, friends outside my culture ask me point blank, “How would the people outside the family circle, find out if a bride is not a virgin?”

The answer lies on the other side of the bed: men want a virgin and are free to expose their wives without regard to how many women they were with before their new bride. Taking target can be anyone who feels wronged-her husband, her family and even his family too. The sad part is that there are laws in the Middle East in place to protect the man's interest, and where there are none, the culture accepts the humiliation of the woman as a “lesson” to those who have slipped up.

In many instances men do not want women with extensive sexual experience as their wives. Poor men! (Serves them right!). This is why some of them prefer younger girls-the younger the better, even 15-year-olds-when it comes to marriage. Most would say, “I need to mold her to what would make our marriage work.”

In short, men will continue to keep coming up with laws to control women's bodies, and women will continue to find ways to get around these laws. This will stop only when men stop regarding women's bodies as commodities of sort. The age-old tradition of a father's walking his daughter down the aisle and “giving her” to her new husband obviously means more in the Middle East. In this instance, the woman is seen as a possession. Men must start looking at women as humans and not vaginas.

But how can society be expected to change its attitude when so much interest is now being heaped on the vagina even in mainstream America? Look at this report from the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Michigan's website (www.drberenholz.com), noting that one of its fastest growing surgical enhancements is Designer Laser Vaginoplasty®:

Designer Laser Vaginoplasty (DLV®) is the aesthetic surgical enhancement of the vulvar structures (labia minora, labia majora, mons pubis, perineum, introitus, hymen). Hymenoplasty (reconstruction of the hymen) can repair the hymen as if nothing ever occurred.

The Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute is sensitive to the needs of women from all cultures that embrace these particular issues because of cultural, social or religious reasons.

Marco Pelosi II, a gynecologist in Bayonne, New Jersey, has been performing hymen repair since 1975 and says that his procedures save the mental anguish associated with not being a virgin. "For a woman that has been raped, is it fair that she be raped all over again by being shamed because of a broken hymen that wasn't her fault?” he asks. “How about the girl who was tricked into sex? No one used to talk about it, but that has changed."

For me, common sense does not seem to cut it anymore. The value of virginity is greater than ever–price tag, $2,800-$4,000.

I can see the new movie coming to Middle Eastern cinema: “The Hymen: International Obsession.” Where did this obsession come from?

Named after Hymen, the Greek god of marriage, the vaginal protective has served as the marker of virginity. This is the case even though it can be ruptured by nonsexual activity, including sports such as horseback riding (which is why in many parts of the Middle East there is little in the way of organized athletics for women). In early times, a bride's intact hymen was widely considered the only method to ensure the paternity of any ensuing children. Anytime you quote historical mythology to give basis to what is judged today, you know there are problems.

Times have changed on our attitudes in so many other aspects of life that it would be wonderful to embrace the romantic notion that love and trust should outweigh anything else.

It's a slippery slope though because in many circles in the United States and Canada, it's a shame to be a virgin (or simply not cool), while in the Middle Eastern world, virginity is an honor and a sign of virtue. I don't see why women don't bond together and unite for more equality, and with a bigger voice, demand that men follow the same rules. I trust that in the right hands it can happen, and I love the dream that it will.

What in the world is going on?

In this day and age, prominent Malaysian lecturer Abu el Hasan al Hafez is encouraging women to wear chastity belts to ensure better protection from rape. During a lecture, he once said that women will feel "safer" if they protect their vaginas. He insisted that his aim is not to demean women, but to protect them. He reminded his listeners that Malaysian women wore chastity belts up until the mid 1960s. In other words, he's not inventing the idea, but encouraging a return to a useful tradition.

I'm sorry, but this is the "logical" extension of the argument: Punish women to protect them from men, either by segregating them and restricting their movement, covering them or locking them in a chastity belt.

Here's what a protected woman's day would look like: She gets up in the morning, puts on her chastity belt (in case she forgot to put it back on during the night), gives the key to her husband or brother or son, who hopefully won't lose it. She stays at home all day, and if she really must go out, she has to take someone with her for protection. If no one is available, and she ventures out into the dangerous world, she only has herself to blame if she gets raped.

Now, can someone please tell me why all men are not offended by this blatant show of sexism?

I recall a short story called "Sultana's Dream," by Rokeya Hussain. In it, Sultana, falls asleep one day only to find herself in a Utopian society called Ladyland. In this place, gender roles are reversed. Women roam the streets freely, while men are kept in segregation at home. The justification is that since men are "dangerous" to women because of their nature, they, not women, should be locked away. No sense punishing the victim. The society is free of crime and exploitation, and it is scientifically advanced thanks to women's universities that taught women to master science and positively use natural resources. It is ruled by a wise queen who won the last war (which the men lost) through her own cleverness and that of the other women.