The myth of the hymen

Molly is in love with her boyfriend. He’s hot and sexy, Molly thinks. They have already snogged, done a bit of foreplay, got very turned on. Molly feels it’s time to sleep together. Have intercourse...

I want to screw! Molly wants to screw. She wants it, her whole body wants it. But she has heard that it might hurt, that there is a membrane across the entrance to the vagina. It’s something they call a ‘maidenhead’, and it’s supposed to break when you have sex the first time.

Molly is nervous. Everyone probably feels nervous the first time, but one thing you can be completely sure of is this: There is nothing to break, because there is no such thing as a ‘maidenhead’. Vaginas vary in appearance, and can look something like this. About one centimetre in there are some folds and flaps. There is a crown around the passageway.

The vaginal corona. An ‘obstruction’ across the vaginal passageway doesn’t exist. How could that be possible? Body fluids and menstrual blood would not be able to flow out. No, the ‘maidenhead’ is a story.

A fabrication. A myth. Neither is it true that all girls experience bleeding the first time they have sex. Most do not experience that. If it hurts and bleeds, that’s usually because the girl is feeling tense, or she’s not sufficiently aroused.

However, if she is aroused, the vagina widens and becomes naturally lubricated, so then it does not usually hurt nor bleed. This is true whether it's the first, the second, or the hundredth time she has sex. But if the ‘maidenhead’ doesn’t exist, how come so many people think it does? Why do we talk about it at all? There are still some who assert that a woman who has had sex before she gets married is a ‘spoiled’ woman.

She must prove that she has never had sex. The difficulty with that, though, is that this can not be proved: the reproductive organs are not changed by masturbation or by having any kind of sex. Even a doctor can not tell if someone has had sex or not. But those who believe that there is a maidenhead, they also think that the bleeding is the evidence of the first sexual intercourse. And they want to see this evidence.

They want to see a bloodstained sheet. That, in turn, makes many other girls nervous. Their husbands, their families, and sometimes their whole community can turn against them if they don’t bleed. A young woman can even be punished by those who even suspect that she has had sex before marriage. It can be life threatening not to bleed.

Maybe it’s not so strange then, if the woman gets tense and doesn’t feel very aroused. It’s not only the wedding night that worries these girls. Some choose to avoid masturbation, cycling, and sports for fear that their ‘maidenhead’ will break. So even though the ‘maidenhead’ doesn’t exist, the myth about the maidenhead prevents young women from exploring their sexuality, and from doing many everyday activities. Molly can relax.

Nothing is going to break. The important thing is that she and Paul are both aroused, and both really do want to screw. And that is what matters.