Hymenology

Not the Goddess Hymen. But after fruitlessly wading through hundreds of naughty images this morning to find a picture of the Goddess Hymen, I decided Ceres was close enough.

This morning, I opened my New York Times Book Review (March 25, 2007) to find Alex Kuczynski’s review of Virgin: The Untouched History, by Hanne Blank. Reading it purely for its Continuing Medical Education merit, I was struck by the following:

Blank’s thorough scholarship is to be commended, even if I found my eyes glazing over during passages about the Protoevangelion, an apocryphal Gospel from the second century A.D. that describes the courtship of Joseph and Mary; the rise and fall of convents; and the difference between annular and fimbriated and crescentic hymens. While the author admits that, as pieces of tissue go, the hymen is “really awfully dull,” she nevertheless devotes an entire chapter to it.

Annular? Fimbriated? Crescentic? Clearly I have major holes in my education! A quick google led me to the discovery that there are, per Our Bodies, Ourselves, six different types of hymens. I also discovered that the procedure to rebuild a hymen, hymenoplasty, heretofore common only in those retro corners of the globe where men still care about such things, is on the rise in America:

For her 17th wedding anniversary, Jeanette Yarborough wanted to do something special for her husband. In addition to planning a hotel getaway for the weekend, Ms. Yarborough paid a surgeon $5,000 to reattach her hymen, making her appear to be a virgin again.

“It’s the ultimate gift for the man who has everything,” says Ms. Yarborough, 40 years old, a medical assistant from San Antonio.

This, too, is still one of the dark places on Earth.

As a surgeon, this gives me the creeps. You might assert that a hymenoplasty is no different than any other type of cosmetic operation, but I don’t think the argument holds up to inspection. Cosmetic surgery is all about correcting deformity or restoring beauty. Hymenoplasty reconstructs a bit of tissue for the sole purpose of destroying it all over again.

And then there’s Ms. Yarborough’s claim that this is the ultimate gift for the man who has everything. Has your man had everything, Ms. Yarborough? Have you given him that threesome he so fervently desires? Would cost a tad less than $5000, I imagine.

I think a guy who would allow his wife to undergo unnecessary surgery just for the once-in-a-lifetime (until the next hymenoplasty) opportunity of ripping through the surgical site, maybe that’s a guy who doesn’t deserve everything.

My hymen-google also led me to Wikiality, the Truthiness Encyclopedia — yes, Stephen Colbert has his own version of Wiki! This is from Stephen’s article on Virginality:

According to many Youth Ministers, what we’re trying to avoid having to actually having to talk about here is far more than just the act of “doing It.” While the liberal media wants to undermine virginality and corrupt America’s children by insisting that virginality concerns sex alone, the truth of the matter is quite different. Virginality affects your entire essense as a person; that’s why it’s so shameful to talk about It. Virginality is not available to godless liberals, gays, lesbians, terrorists, or people who have non-abstinent sex before they are married. Virginality is only for Christians, Republicans, and Amerisexuals.

And what does Stephen have to say on hymens?

I read somewhere that your hymen will grow back in one to two years if you don’t have any more non-abstinence “sex” and don’t do masturbation. LikeaVirginality can happen much more quickly for boys, who don’t have to worry about that pesky hymen in the first place.

There ya go, Ms. Yarborough. This from a doctor — Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, no less. If your husband wants a hymen-bearing wife so much, make him wait for it.

***

My opinion? We waste way too much energy worrying about virginity and the loss of innocence, and put way too little energy teaching our kids about love, about what it takes to maintain a successful relationship.

But that would require teaching by example, which is beyond most people.

D.