The Virgin Makers
by Lois W. Stern
Several weeks ago, the following ad popped into my Google search on cosmetic surgery:"Repair hymen and regain virginity. Lady Doctor. Free consultation."
Last month a court in northern France annulled the marriage of a Muslim couple, simply because the bride had lied about her virginity. When the couple discretely separated from their wedding party long enough to consummate their marriage, the groom learned of his bride's deception. With guests still partying on the dance floor, the bridegroom returned to reveal her secret and publicly humiliate his wife. This annulment sparked such an intense national debate that it now resides within an appeals court, with an expected ruling sometime later this fall.
Hymen repair has become such a topic of conversation that it was even the subject of the film comedy. "Women's Hearts", that opened in Italy last month. When a Moroccan-born woman living in Italy goes to Casablanca for this operation, one character jokes that, “She wants to bring her odometer count back down to zero."
In Vancouver, sex therapist Dr. Faizal Sahukhan has counseled Muslim couples dealing with the fallout of faked virginity: “Some clients have taken fake blood capsules into the nuptial bed. They hold it in their hand upon first intercourse with their husbands. They pop it to try to convince people (of their virginity) on their wedding night," Sahukhan says.
I thought these were isolated cases until I learned that Dr. Robert Stubbs, a now retired Toronto-based plastic surgeon, built his reputation upon ‘revirginiized’ patients. Twenty-five years ago, a young couple visited Dr. Robert Stubbs, with an unusual request. She wanted her virginity back. The pair, born in Iran but raised in Canada, had dated through college. She had become a lawyer, he, a doctor. They had talked often about marriage, but when the young man decided to pursue a medical specialty in the United States, they agreed to part ways – but first he was to pay for her revirginization.
Since that day, Dr. Robert Stubbs performed that same operation on hundreds of other women across Canada. He won international acclaim for refining the hymenoplasty procedure, which involved cutting away the scarred edge of the membrane broken during intercourse and narrowing the entrance of the vagina. In approximately one hour, he was able to transform each patient into a surgical virgin.
Stubbs explained that his patients were hardly restricted to one ethnic group.
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"The women came from all backgrounds. They were Coptic Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim. The majority were educated, from upper-status families. In spite of their exposure to Western ways, they still had this need to follow their family's culture. They said they would not force their daughters to do this but they were caught with one foot in the old world and one foot in the new."
While women around the world have been secretly reclaiming their virginity for decades, the moral and legal implications of this procedure have currently entered the spotlight.
Surgeons who perform these procedures acknowledge that they are helping to perpetuate a fraud, by providing women with a mechanism to deceive their husbands. But in defense of taking part in the deception, they pose the question: “ Just because a woman once made a foolish mistake, why should she be doomed to eternal suffering?”
Now I ask all of you: How do you feel about ‘Virginity restoration?’
Is this just one more example of how women continue to jump hoops to make themselves desirable to men? Is it symbolic of a larger sickness in our society, reflecting male dominance and inequality between the sexes? Or is it simply a means to a peaceful resolution to an age old problem for those caught within the clash of cultural conflict?
First appeared on Fabulously40.com in my column, Eye on Beauty
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Lois W. Stern has written a number of nostalgia articles, including Grab a Pickle, Share a Memory, originally published in the New York Times. She has written feature articles for LI Beauty Guide, numerous articles on health and beauty posted at her website: www.sexliesandcosmeticsurgery.com/ and is the author of: SEX, LIES AND COSMETIC SURGERY. She is now on work on her second book. |
Lois Stern |
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Thanks Lois for the article... John Wolf
