Holy hymen, all is lost
Posted on June 11, 2008
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I’m currently reading the book, The Red Tent.
Ok, so it’s fantastic, but that’s not the point. So far what I’ve gotten from it is that the natural phase of menstruation has lost its holiness and acknowledgment of sanctity and bond between women and amongst women. Blood between the legs symbolizes fertility (therefore life of course), but also the loss of life (miscarriage), and of course, the loss of virginity.
Which ironically coincided with this story from the NY Times today, about how Muslim women are getting reconstructive surgery to simulate an unbroken hymen.
I often have thought that Western society emphasizes virginity so much because of the moral purity women are supposed to uphold; I kind of still feel that way.
I remember a biology teacher once told me, “Any woman who has had sex can never choose to be a virgin again, but a virgin has all the time in the world to choose to be like that woman.” This is true.
There is something holy (and I mean in the existential sense) about the blood of the womb–in birth, in womanhood, in intercourse, in death. It comes with the moon and it comes monthly with the earth.
But virginity’s time-base is presented upon choice, not by natural forces or entirely by the body’s disposition.
Yet it feels wrong for men to advise when and when not to take that choice, and what it all means.
I suppose that’s where the bond of women are lost; and reconstructive surgery attempts to find it?
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