Surgery to Make Yourself a Virgin Again
Women Have Surgery to 'Restore' Virginity
June 20, 2003 -- In a world of extreme makeovers where human bodies are at present fashioned to gild, this may be the ultimate plastic surgery. Information technology is for women only. It is veiled in secrecy. And it fixes a tiny part of the beefcake rarely mentioned in polite visitor.
You may know it past a variety of slang terms. Technically, it's the hymen, a thin membrane that partially covers the opening of the vagina. A girl who has never had sexual intercourse is supposed to take her hymen intact.
At present, a new surgical technique is giving girls with a past a new future.
"The hymen's a delicate membrane that separates girls from women," said Dr. Robert Stubbs, who runs the Cosmetic Surgicentre in Toronto, where, in a simple, half-hour performance, he turns sexually experienced women into surgical virgins.
The surgery is chosen hymen restoration — a relatively unproblematic process that stitches back together what a moment of passion might take shattered.
'Queen of Virginity'
In New York City, the operation has created a new course of royalty: "They call me the Queen of the Virginity, " says Cuban-born Esmeralda Venegas, who runs the Ridgewood Health and Beauty Centre in Queens.
Hither, board-certified plastic surgeons repair the thin membrane, either by stitching the frayed ends together or by adding a patch of tissue from the vaginal walls. Either way, it'due south a procedure that's a lot easier and less dangerous than the usual nips and tucks women come here for.
Just the psychic pain associated with the decision to undergo the surgery is immense. We met one immature woman, a 17-year-sometime we'll call Rosalita, who — forced past centuries of tradition — traveled incognito to Venegas' clinic.
"I heard when I was young that all the girls that get married, they bled for the commencement fourth dimension," Rosalita said.
For Rosalita, the idea that brides should bleed on their wedding ceremony dark was very important.
"Yeah, that's important, because they know that y'all are a virgin," she said.
But Rosalita is not a virgin. She's come up to the dispensary to regain what she lost during a contempo holiday — a moment of lust, she says, non dearest.
Rosalita is from the Dominican Republic and lives in New Bailiwick of jersey with her mother. She doesn't have a boyfriend right now, merely believes she'll never get married without at to the lowest degree the illusion of virginity.
Catering to a Culture of Machismo
She's not alone. Venegas says several hundred scared immature women from many cultures — Latinas, Mideasterners, Chinese, Koreans — have paid her $two,500 each to take their hymens restored. Sure, it'southward a business organisation, she says, but what'south behind the practice makes Venegas aroused.
"It's most machismo, 100 percent," she said.
In fact, the hymen is not a reliable marking of virginity. In many girls, information technology is torn or destroyed during active sports. But that hasn't tarnished its allure. And even if it's faux, Stubbs is willing to proceed with the ruse.
When asked whether he believed that by restoring a woman's hymen he was restoring her virginity, Stubbs said: "Well, what is virginity? Virginity is not well defined."
Necessary Deception?
But, in fact, a adult female who's had sexual relations is not a virgin, and past restoring the hymen Stubbs and other surgeons are allowing patients to be deceptive.
"Yes. Oh, I agree. I mean, I'1000 not saying it's non deceptive," he said. "But there are little white lies and big lies."
That deception is acceptable, says Stubbs, for patients whose culture makes this surgery far more than serious … perchance a affair of life and death.
A young woman we'll call Fatima has gone to Stubbs' clinic. She says she doesn't like the thought of deceiving a future husband, just says she feels she must.
"I'm not going to feel comfortable to lie to him. Just I guess I have to lie to protect the relationship," she said.
Fatima, 20 or so, is from the Heart East and came to the Toronto area with her family equally a teenager. A Muslim, she says her family is non observant, simply is very traditional. So every time she met with her ex-boyfriend she had to sneak out of the house and lie to her parents.
Her parents as well don't know that she'due south come up to Stubbs' clinic. "I could never e'er tell them that, never. I would tell them anything, simply not this," she said.
Fatima says if she is not a virgin when she gets married she would be humiliated — and maybe killed, perhaps even by her parents.
Honor Killing
Fatima is talking near accolade killing … a ghastly, aboriginal ritual in the Eye East. Nosotros traveled to Cairo, Egypt, to learn about the roots of the do, and were told it rarely happens today, only is ever a possibility in a civilisation where the virginity of a helpmate belongs to the whole family.
"For them, if she loses her virginity, that means she has disgraced the whole family unit," co-ordinate to Iman Bibars, a woman who has long fought to raise the condition of Egyptian women — especially poor women, for whom, Bibars says, "virginity is their most valuable possession."
But astoundingly, this precious particular doesn't fifty-fifty belong to the women themselves.
"It is something that belongs to their father and their brother and their uncle that they have to keep in a safe place until the family approves of how they give it away," she said.
Put some other way, "The honor of the family and of the men are in between the legs of the adult female," Bibars said.
Equality — Except When It Comes to Sexual activity
To illustrate just how ingrained this notion is in traditional Arabic cultures, consider this: In Arabic, the hymen is referred to colloquially as "wish al-bent," or "confront of the girl." In other words, without it, you accept no identity, y'all are no one.
Fifty-fifty very hip, well-off university students in Cairo concord this belief.
Students nosotros spoke with agreed that is very important for women to remain virgins earlier spousal relationship. They said that among their friends, girls don't accept sex before they become married.
"Information technology'south the notion that women are a very pure thing, very pure creatures that, men shouldn't impact women out of anything simply a sacred relationship that is marriage," one female person student said.
The young men — who written report and piece of work with the women as equals — heartily agreed. They all expected that the women they marry will be virgins.
Even so they don't have to be virgin grooms, nor does whatever other man in this supposed equal order.
The male students acknowledged that there is equality in many aspects of their guild — except in the surface area of virginity.
In fact, the female person students said they idea it was unlikely that the men they marry will exist virgins.
These students said they'd heard about hymen restoration for women, merely don't actually approve of it. 1 pupil said she'd live alone rather than live a lie.
But other female students said that if a woman who has had sex actually wants to get married, she should go alee and have the operation.
In Cairo, as in much of the Middle East, the operation is a cloak-and-dagger, not just for the patients, just for the doctors besides. There is no law against hymen reconstruction, but it carries such a stigma that no physician 20/20 contacted there would either acknowledge it was existence done or even talk about information technology.
Nevertheless, Stubbs says he's received due east-mails from doctors in Egypt and all around the globe asking him to explain how to do the surgery. He is the acknowledged expert.
Some of these women have to exist examined by a gynecologist before their wedding ceremony night, and so the surgery has got to exist convincing. But Stubbs says he thinks he can fool fifty-fifty a gynecologist.
And best of all, says Stubbs, he can fool the family on the wedding night, when the bride volition, as required, bleed.
Defenseless Between Tradition and a New Reality
Back in New York, that'southward Rosalita's goal for the procedure.
Like all the women nosotros talked to, she knows that a few sutures don't actually brand her a virgin again. And that simple surgery doesn't close the culture gap. But for a generation caught between the traditions of their by and the reality of their lives today, this petty operation at least offers an alternative to dishonor, or even the possibility of expiry.
Fatima, who underwent the process at Stubbs' clinic, wants people in her culture to understand what she's going through and perchance reconsider their long-held beliefs.
"I'm trying to give them a message; maybe they would attempt to modify a bit — and forget about the onetime style and move on to more important things in life."
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/2020/WomensHealth/story?id=123701&page=1
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