College Humour, a popular Youtube channel, has launched a video recently regarding hymens, virginity and sex. The video addresses popular misconceptions in a simple and comprehensive way to busts the myth of virginity. As it is mentioned in the video, studies prove that women who are sexually active may have a hymen and there are women who do not have a hymen since their birth. I was surprised… You too?
THE RELEVANCE OF THE VIDEO
Well, we are not alone – The ignorance and misconception is prevalent everywhere. From a middle class Indian society to the New York Times newspaper, from societies practising female genital mutilation to sitcoms, the idea that a healthy hymen means the woman is a virgin everywhere.
Anyone who has read a sexologist column in magazines would have come across the question whether bleeding occurs the first time a woman has sex. The question comes to whether the woman has been ‘deflowered’ by another one before. Sometimes the standards sinks even lower and the questions would be, whether she is some body’s left over food.
Virginity is the most prized possession of women, in most of the cultures and women who have sex prior to marriage are categorised as sluts (Remember ML Sharma saying Indian women can be wither kanyas or matas, anything else is unacceptable?). Thus the rape culture propagates all across the globe.
HOW DOES IT BECOME A MATTER OF CONCERN?
Despite the fact that everyone with a 10th standard pass learns that hymen is not a sign of virginity and women may not bleed the first time they have sex, there are a lot of husbands and boyfriends who get suspicious of their female partners because they did not bleed the first time they had sex. Some might even drag their wives, daughters, sisters and girls friends to a gynaecologist to ensure that they are virgins. This is nothing but sexual assault, and I did not know that before, because it is something mentioned as so common in popular culture.
RED FLAGS
Well, the makers have not got it all right. For instance, there is a portion where a woman says she is an expert and knows everything about a woman’s body because she is a woman. That was lame and it almost destroyed the temperament of the whole episode. You might as well look on the comments posted on Youtube about the video which makes it clear that sex education is the need of the hour, not just in India and other developing countries, but also in affluent states of Europe and America.
Well the 6 minutes video gives us an idea how hymen works and how the idea of virginity becomes a tool of patriarchy. There is no medical way to detect whether a man is having sex the first time, thus man is exempted from the rule of virginity, right? Thanks to the creators of the video who executed the message almost perfectly. Watch the video and share the message with everybody.
