Virginity, the broken hymen myth that persists in the 21st century with no scientific basis

Virginity is a sham. Those who claim are Norwegian doctors and writers Ellen Støkken Dahl and Nina Dølvik Brochmann, who, equipped with a hula hoop lined with a thin transparent plastic film, set out to explain the issue to their audience.

Brochmann holds the hula hoop in the air and Dahl breaks it with a powerful blow.

The scene, presented during a TED Talk in Oslo, Norway, vividly illustrates an idea most of us grew up with: that the first time a woman has vaginal intercourse, the hymen breaks, and so , she bleeds. And at that moment, virginity is lost.

Dahl and Brochmann are the authors of a book published in Brazil with the title Viva a Vagina – Tudo que você always wanted to know. The lecture took place in 2017 and the fact that vaginal intercourse does not cause changes to the hymen has been recognized by medical science for over 100 years.

But the idea that this part of the female body can reveal her sexual history continues to predominate in our society.

“In popular culture today, there are many examples of the hymen myth – on television and in books. It is still believed that most women bleed at first intercourse and that you can see a difference between women who are virgins and those who are not. are,” Dahl told BBC News Mundo (the BBC’s Spanish service).

“It’s very practical to believe that nature has provided us with a kind of virginity test on the female body, if your intention is to control women’s sexuality,” she adds.

And while the UN and WHO consider virginity testing (i.e. a vaginal examination to verify that the hymen is “intact”) a violation of human rights, advocating its ban, such tests continue to be practiced in more than 20 countries (including the UK and US), as well as hymenoplasty – a surgical procedure that offers “repair of the hymen”, even if it is not torn.

Open, elastic and with a hole

But then, what is the hymen really like and what actually happens after the first sexual intercourse?

Far from being a delicate membrane that covers the entrance to the vagina, “the hymen is more like a rubber band to hold the hair [como os da imagem mais abaixo] or an elastic gum”, explains Brochmann in the video of the TED talk, which has several million views on different platforms.

Generally speaking, its shape is similar to a donut, with a large hole in the middle. It is also a hyperelastic structure, able to accommodate the penis without suffering damage.

“The hymen is usually made up of small pieces of flesh – called hymenal caruncles – with great differences between one woman and another. They can be two or three larger pieces, or four to five smaller pieces, like small tongues or petals, the same color as the mucosa of the vagina”, explains Marta Torrón, a physical therapist of the pelvic floor and specialist in physiosexology, who dedicates a large part of her work to scientific dissemination.

“So because they’re the same color (and because we’re not used to looking at the vulva and vagina), women don’t know that these pieces of flesh are the hymen, which will be there for their entire lives.” That is, “the hymen is not a closed membrane that is broken and disappears (after penetration). In 99% of cases, the hymen is open and this is normal”, according to the Spanish physiotherapist.

And, if it wasn’t open, it would be a case of “hymen without perforation, which is considered a malformation and needs intervention, otherwise the menstrual flow will not be able to come out and, of course, there will be no vaginal intercourse”, explains Torrón. .

The appearance of the hymen can be as varied as that of the clitoris, vulva, or any other part of a woman’s body. Basically, there’s nothing in her appearance that reveals whether or not there was vaginal intercourse, as we’ve come to believe, from so much repeated listening.

Therefore, there is no medical procedure that can determine whether a woman has had vaginal sex or not.

“Over all these years, I’ve seen thousands of women, thousands of vaginas. And in most cases, you can’t tell if they had vaginal sex or not,” says Torrón.

A 1906 study, for example, revealed that the hymen of a sex worker was unchanged and looked similar to that of a young woman who had never had sexual intercourse. A more recent one, conducted in 2004, observed that, of 36 young pregnant women, 34 of them kept their hymen intact.

In summary, the hymen can remain unchanged not only after penetration, but also throughout the entire pregnancy.

Hymen as a seal of virginity

Experts consulted by BBC News Mundo agree that, without scientific basis, virginity presents itself as a social construction, a concept deeply rooted for centuries in many cultures to control women’s pleasure and sexuality.

But it was not until the 16th century that a relationship was established for the first time between the idea of ​​virginity and a specific part of the female body.

The link between the hymen “and virtue has flourished in men’s fantasy throughout time since the 16th century, when the famous Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius discovered remains of flesh around the vaginal opening during the dissection of the corpses of two virgin women.” according to Eugenia Tognotti, professor of the history of medicine at the University of Sassari, in Italy.

“Vesalius wrote in his book on human anatomy (which contains one of the first descriptions of the anatomy of the hymen, almost correct) that not all virgin women have a hymen,” Tognotti told BBC News Mundo. But he later added that “the so-called ‘intact’ hymen could be a ‘proof of virginity'”.

With this last statement, “Vesalius unknowingly gave the hymen the symbolic meaning that would become dominant over the next five centuries, despite advances in the knowledge of female anatomy, which demonstrate that the hymen, like many other parts of the body, shows enormous variations in shape and size”.

blood on the sheet

Another common idea in the popular imagination is that of bleeding.

The sheet with drops of blood – or the cloth stained with red in other cultures, as among the gypsies – on the wedding night is proof of the honor preserved by the woman.

First, “the vast majority of women do not bleed in this situation and many feel guilty or abnormal. They ask themselves ‘why didn’t I bleed?’ I would answer: ‘well, because your body is normal, you know it and understand it when you have sex'”, comments Torrón.

“Without knowing how your body works, vaginal intercourse can damage the mucosa [a pele interna da vagina] which, therefore, bleeds – but not because the hymen was broken”, explains the specialist.

Torrón adds that, with arousal, “the vagina gets bigger and wider”, while Dahl explains that if the hymen – which, by the way, is a tissue with little vascularization – suffers a small tear, “it tends to recover quickly, like any other mucosa in the body”.

So, what’s true about the idea that the hymen can break when a woman rides a bike, plays an intense sport, or inserts a tampon?

“Riding a bike, sure, no, because [o hímen] It is a structure that is inside the vagina. Unless you ride a bike with the seat inside your vagina, it would be very difficult,” jokes Dahl.

“In my opinion, the idea that cycling, dancing or horseback riding can actually change your internal anatomy is absurd,” she adds.

Marta Torrón says the same. “There’s nothing real about it. Nothing. As we have no idea of ​​the reality of the body, we try to explain the bleeding. The real explanation is that the hymen and vagina are elastic.”

bust the myth

For Torrón, it is important to spread this information about the hymen, which is important “not only for religious people”, in order to erase the myths of collective thinking.

But in addition to the possible impact on women’s sexual health and well-being, eliminating these false notions is critical because of their influence in the field of forensic medicine, she said.

“When a woman arrives who says she was abused and there was penetration, people examine the vagina and check if the hymen is intact. And, if they don’t find lesions, they doubt her”, emphasizes the physical therapist.

Ellen Dahl believes that, in addition to information, it is important that we stop worrying about whether a woman is a virgin or not.

“Because the problem is the idea that women need to be a virgin and a biological misunderstanding is being used to build their arguments. So the most important project ahead of us is to stop thinking that women should be virgins.” she concludes.