The Hymen Mystique

By Carole Roye, Women's eNews. Posted December 3, 2008.

The hymen is the focus of many traditions. In some cultures, the newlyweds are expected to consummate the marriage immediately after the wedding ceremony and then appear before their guests with the blood-stained sheet to prove that the bride was a virgin. But many women who have never had intercourse don't bleed during first intercourse because their hymen has already been disrupted.

I suspect that even though health advocates--such as the Boston Women's Health Book Collective who publish "Our Bodies Ourselves"--have for decades encouraged women to become better acquainted with their own anatomies, many women still don't even know what their hymen looks (or looked) like.

While men may boast about the size of their genitals, you never hear a woman talking about her hefty hymen or colossal clitoris. Women are simply not familiar with their reproductive anatomy. For one thing, it is much harder to see. (Of course the ovaries and uterus are not visible without special paraphernalia.) A man's equipment is easily visible to the eye. Many women are too shy, even with themselves, to pull out a mirror and take a look.

Best Answer for Teens

As for that common teen question about virginity, here's the best answer I can give after working with this group of patients for 20 years.

I believe that virginity is what the individual thinks it is. It certainly is for men, who bear no tell-tale signs of lost virginity.

The concept of virginity has an emotional connotation. It is more than just the physical disruption of hymenal tissue.

If a young woman has had a sexual relationship with her partner, and she feels that she has lost her virginity, then she has, regardless of what actually happened to her hymen during the encounter. There are ancillary issues that each woman must answer for herself. Is oral sex "de-virginizing?" Anal sex? I must hasten to add that a sexual encounter brings with it the risk of disease. Virgin or not, women must protect themselves during any genital contact.

I raise all this because a better understanding of their bodies might enable women to take more control during sexual situations. A recent national study of teen and young adult women in the United States found that 1 in 4 have a sexually transmitted disease.

Knowledge helps to demystify what is happening during sexual encounters. Some young women have told me that they don't really know what is happening during intercourse; they just go along with what their partner wants. Knowledge might empower them to take more control and have more enjoyment but also help limit their risks.

See more stories tagged with: hymen, hymenoplasty, virginity, surgical revirginization

Carol F. Roye, EdD, RN, CPNP, is a professor at Hunter - Bellevue School of Nursing at Hunter College and director of the school's Center for Nursing Research. She is also a pediatric nurse practitioner, with a practice in adolescent primary and reproductive health care.

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