Recently, I participated, in a willing, great hook-up. The week before I participated in a willing make-out session. I just moved to a new town. I don’t know anyone around here that well, and the unfortunate thing about that is that I don’t know who knows who — for instance how close hook-up A is to hook-up B. This is where my story really starts.

Let’s call the two guys I’ve hooked up with Boy A and Boy B. Boy A had a crush on me. Since I had only known him for about a week, I assumed it was casual. I was wrong. At some point during our short time together, he decided we were in a relationship. Now, we’re talking about a guy that I’ve probably seen four times in my life and who I never told I was interested in being in a relationship. This is where Boy B steps in.

I had met Boy B the week before and found him attractive. The next week I saw him at a party and we began talking about Lord of The Rings, Zombies and Star Wars. Clearly, I was interested. One thing led to another and we hooked up. The next day I texted Boy A and he responded by saying (and I quote): “I heard Boy B jack-hammered your crotch last night…yikes.”

Despite his triggering, offensive, misogynistic language, I responded. I told him that it was unfair of him to assume that there was something solid between us. I told him not to deny my sexuality and not to hold me to double standards. What he said back was this: “Stop bothering me you dumb whore.” I decided to just say nothing, to not give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much his texts had gotten to me. But I was so upset and angry. I felt disgusting, like a pile of trash, and I know that’s what he wanted me to feel like.

I have my theories why I felt this way. It has been a little over a year since I was pinned down and raped in my own bed. The “Jack-hammered your crotch” comment just sounded so violent, so rapey, that every time I think about it I am disgusted. My stomach literally clenches and I feel sick. The term whore made me feel low, like maybe I’m wrong for liking sex as much as men, maybe I am worthless, maybe I should be used for sex, maybe that’s all I’m good for. For the first time, I understood how much it hurts to be called a whore or a slut or a skank – whatever the term may be – or to have you sexuality questioned. Even after attending Slut Walks, being an active feminist, knowing about rape culture and understanding the effects of slut-shaming, I lost myself in the idea that maybe being a slut was a bad thing, that maybe I had been wrong all along. My entire belief structure had come into question because of one jerk.

Then I remembered the day I lost my virginity. The day I had sex for the first time, it was not to a guy who was my boyfriend. Some of you may call that slutty, but I knew that I wanted to have sex. At that moment, there was nothing more that I wanted, and when it happened, I regretted nothing. But I also remember thinking that no one would understand, that if I told, I’d be called a whore and a liar. And there was that word again: whore. The word that people use to control our sexuality, to dismiss us from sexual pleasure, to dismiss our claims of sexual assault, to dismiss our humanity.

We live in a country where tens of thousands of sexual assault cases are reported every year. And who really knows how many go unreported. I think this all goes back to the word “whore,” to the idea that women do not have sex for ourselves but for male attention, because we have low self esteem, because we have daddy issues, because we want to be popular, or because we’re just plain crazy.

It starts in our first health class. We learn that boys masturbate more than girls (or is it just that boys talk about it more because it is considered more socially acceptable for them to pleasure themselves?) In our high school health classes, we are told that the only way to be safe is to remain abstinent, that if we wait until marriage, sex will be so much better. We are taught about blow jobs, but the blessing that is cunnilingus is never mentioned. We learn about male ejaculation, not about female. Every day we are shown how cool Robert Downey Jr. is for remaining a swinger throughout his career, and on the same channel told that Miley Cyrus looks like a slut in her video.

As a gender we have been dismissed. Slut is not our word. It is the word of our oppressors. It is a word they use because the idea of female sexuality does not fit their conservative view points. But I’m going to fight that now. I’m going to say:

Dear Guy A, I love sex. I choose to love sex. I choose to have sex with whomever I want. I am great in bed and I am proud of that. I look amazing naked and yeah that makes me feel really confident and sexy. Sex is my choice. So if liking sex, and liking frequent sex, and liking experimenting with new partners makes me a slut in your mind, then so be it. I am a huge slut. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes Dreamboys aren't so dreamy...

In my eyes, he was perfect in every way. Dreamboy was smart, interesting, had beautiful brown eyes, a charming smile. He was genuinely more interested in girls’ personality than their breasts or butts. I thought Dreamboy was a perfect gentleman, and I loved him more than I’d loved anyone.

Dreamboy had, in his words, “exponentially more” experience than I did. He was a ladykiller, but was friends with many of the girls he’d had relations with. I respected that; he didn’t just “bump and dump” but rather actually took the time to get to know the girls and to keep knowing them after they’d hooked up. Dreamboy was different than any of the other guys I’d known in high school.

Then I told him that I’d hooked up (just kissing!) with a boy I’d known for four days the summer before. Suddenly, then, I was a slut. What?! Dreamboy was the only guy I’d known sexually, and he’d slept with many girls. I asked him what made him not “slutty” and he said that sleeping around wasn’t ladylike. And kissing a guy you’d known for four days wasn’t either. Dreamboy said that he knew it was a double standard, but that didn’t matter because guys are different from girls. Dreamboy said that if I’d had the sexual experience he had, he wouldn’t have dated me.

I was crushed.

How could Dreamboy be saying these things?! He was supposed to be the exception to the rule, the guy who didn’t believe that having sex made a girl slutty, the guy who was more sexually enlightened than the majority of high school guys! What was happening?

Dreamboy’s statement that he wouldn’t have dated me if I’d slept with as many guys as he had girls was the worst part. Does sleeping around somehow make a girl dirty or worthless? Or less valuable than a girl who is a virgin? The value of a person should have nothing to do with the state of their virginity.

So I dumped Dreamboy. Er, the boy-who-I-thought-was-Dreamboy.

Next time, I won’t be fooled by a sparkling smile or smooth talk. Next time, I’ll know better.

Hey Girl. Wait for me. *puppy dog eyes*

Celebrities frequently make a quick buck on the side through endorsements of high-end scents, or even expand their own brand through eponymous perfume lines. Now Justin Bieber, of all people, is trying his hand at making the world a sweeter-smelling place. Bieber’s recently released perfume, however, is a complete reversal in the brand-development of feminine scents.

So let’s take a look at the usual perfume branding model. One notable example is the treacly, melodramatic endorsement of Chanel No. 5 by Nicole Kidman:

The advertisement opens with a salty, masculine Latino intoning his most solemn paean for the mysterious and beautiful Nicole Kidman, who quickly succumbs to her savior’s rugged good-looks and recklessly abandons her fame (if only for a short while, o cruel fate!) in order to hole up in the pigeonniere of a non-descript, appropriately ramshackle dwelling with only a bed and stained sheets. The message is: “Spray yourself with Chanel, and you will have a life-altering romance and a good romp in the sack – with a Latin man, to boot!”

Perfume advertisements are highly sexualized, and colognes are not free from this trend either:

The brutality and shear strength of the waves mirror the hardened abs and finely scalloped back muscles of this Italian gent. Use “Acqua di Gio,” and you will be sexy, and you will dominate.

Britney Spear’s “Curious,” one of the best-selling perfumes of all time uses a similar, overtly sexualized message in its advertisement:

“Curious” will make its user more confident in pursuing a cute boy by asking: “Do you dare?”

All of these scents have one thing in common: their potency will inspire romance, and, more importantly, sex. Whether through renewed courage, self-confidence, or pure weak-female sex appeal, each brand offers their own love potion using similar imagery.

That is why it’s so strange that Justin Bieber’s advertisement for “Someday” does not fall in line with the rest:

The smut is practically nonexistent, and instead of offering sex, Justin Bieber offers this young girl what appears to be a purity amulet. After poking around the official website, I gleaned that one of these necklaces comes with every bottle of perfume. This combined with the very title of the perfume evokes a reverse message: “Someday” you will be able to have me. Whether or not this “me” refers to Justin Bieber, or the blonde girl in the commercial remains rather ambiguous and alters the meaning depending on your standpoint.

Perhaps the “me” is Justin Bieber himself, which means that Justin Bieber (and this is a 17 year old close to the zenith of his sexual potency) will one day deign to pair with you, and all of the others who purchase his product, and until that time, you are to save yourself for him. If the “me” is the girl, than the implication is that the girl will someday have relations with a man, but not just yet; the scent is an investment in the girl’s romantic future and thus, her purity.

The one thing that all of these commercials have in common is the promise of companionship. The type of companionship varies, and the methods of promising it are manifold. What’s interesting is that Bieber’s commercial tells the story of some contemporary courtship adapted from the medieval commonwealth of Elinor of Aquitaine. It is highly romantic and has a diminutive sexual element in comparison to the other brands.

It is clear that Justin Bieber is pushing his own rather conservative beliefs through his marketing: his infamous ill-reviewed interview in Rolling Stone made surface a number of his stances including his distaste for abortion of any kind, his belief that homosexuality is merely a lifestyle choice, and that one should wait until you find someone you love in order to have sex, which implies that one should probably wait for marriage. Therefore I’m more prone to believe that Justin Bieber is promising himself to the girl who purchases a bottle of his scent, and that girl will prove her adoration of him by waiting until they meet.

It’s clever marketing: it takes advantage of the preteen demographic’s inchoate knowledge of sex and fills their young pitter-pattering hearts with sugar-coated promises of eternal love through moral righteousness. Justin Bieber is God, and, more importantly, parents will buy this perfume for their young daughters because they don’t think it’s slutty like Britney Spears. Buying Britney is taking the apple; Bieber is the garden itself.

The downside is that Bieber is manipulating an all too widely shared belief that abstinence is the answer. Though that is certainly one point of view, I don’t think for a second that trying to avoid the question of sex – and the responsibilities to your partner and to yourself – is particularly wise.

“Someday,” though a seemingly innocuous extension of the Bieber empire, throws years of trying to expand sex education, and modern feminism into the fire. To proselytize the belief that a woman must wait for her deified husband to deflower her (and perhaps just by removing the ugly flower cap of the bottle, the girl derives some small hint of febrile pleasures to come), is anti-feminist and anti-individualist. Though Bieber lacks blatant sex-appeal, he tries to defraud women whereas our most famous buxom blondes at least try to give women power using their femininity that needed a little ancillary push.

Alec also writes his own blog, the BAM blog.

not quite.

I am almost 18 years old and I am a virgin.

When I tell people this, they kind of just stare at me. They automatically become suspicious because, to look at me, there’s nothing obviously “wrong” with me. And apparently there would have to be if I’m still a virgin. I might as well go buy a couple dozen cats and move into a log cabin on the edge of modern society, though, because if I haven’t lost it yet then I’m destined to be forever alone, in their opinion.

Let me be clear. I’ve been dating since I was about fifteen. I am a healthy, social person who has had opportunities to have sex. And I chose not to. It’s not because I proudly wear a purity ring or am “pure” for religious reasons. It’s not because I’m deathly afraid of getting pregnant or an STI or am ignorant about the topic (I’m well informed about safe sex and take my reproductive rights seriously). In fact, I’m not entirely sure why I haven’t. I haven’t sat down and analyzed the state of my hymen, but I know that it just hasn’t happened yet. And I’m okay with it. I’m just not sure why everybody else is so offended.

Okay, I do kind of understand why in an overly sexual society, where girls can either be prudes or sluts (and not a whole lot else) people my age at school and elsewhere don’t really get or accept the virgin thing – as wrong as I think that whole paradigm is. But I’m looking at you, too, feminist community.

In feminism, when we talk about sex and sexuality the discussion always seems to come back to slut-shaming and the right for a woman to chose what she wants to do with her body. We want the right to express ourselves sexually without being called sluts and we certainly don’t want the double standard that allows men to be worshipped for promiscuity and women to be condemned for the same actions to exist anymore. We want to control our bodies, from a health standpoint, but also so that we’re not tied down by children we’re not ready for. And for many other valid reasons.

For the record, I totally, 100% support this and rally for it.

But I think feminists need to realize that not having sex can be a choice (remember, feminists, we like choice!) that doesn’t necessarily represent patriarchal oppression. Sexual liberation is great, but maybe I’m just not ready to sexually liberate myself, yet. I don’t like feeling like a bad feminist because of this.

There’s definitely a stigma around sexually active girls, but there’s ALSO a stigma around virgins – in society at large, but also in feminism. And that’s something that deserves a little more attention in feminist discussions of sex.

Save Title X

First the Hyde Amendment, then the reduction in women’s services under the new health care bill, and then the attempt to redefine rape – this is really getting under my hackles. Here comes the GOP men in Shining Armor to clarify to us what rape is…how wonderful. As if as women are just wandering around not knowing what violation feels like or aren’t sure if we really were “asking for it.”

I’m a patron of Planned Parenthood. I walk myself down to the clinic, past the typical protesters, and sit myself in some of their lovely waiting room chairs and I fill out that nice sheet that says I’m a student that lives off loans and work study allotments. I go back and have my pap smear and breast exam, allow them to analyze my pee, and then wait. Later, I answer their question about my income – no, it hasn’t changed (I hope it will eventually). I take my “goodie bag” and skip on out to continue being the studious student I am. I’ve never used any other Planned Parenthood resources. I consider myself lucky, but also responsible.

Now we’ve got a bill called “Title X” that funds my right to have all that free appointment stuff and, most importantly, the pills that allow me to live a normal live without having to stock up on coat hangers or invest in a chastity belt. Now, the GOP wants to get rid of it. Instead of bombing clinics, the extreme right in this country had the brilliant idea of pulling the rug out from under women’s services completely. You bet I’m pissed.

To be clear – P. P. doesn’t pay for abortion services unless it’s a case of incest, rape, or a threat to the mother’s life. Even then, legislature wants to undermine women on that front as well. As soon as women are able to put out one political fire, another one crops up. It’s not the extreme right as much as it is personal apathy to the issue. The majority of people I see in those waiting rooms are women who already have 1 – 3 kids and want to keep it that way.

It’s a human rights issue as much as it is a women’s issue because Planned Parenthood also provides HIV, STD, and pregnancy testing – this is dangerously skirting a world epidemic issue. We have HIV testing in place so that we don’t instigate the plague of it from decades past. Should we experience that again because some uptight Neo-Victorian conservatives frown upon people having a good time? Wow.

The fastest way to domesticate women is to take away their sexual license. To redefine “rape” – is anybody out there listening to the horrendous possibilities that could happen if women are stripped of their ability to defend themselves in that sense? To remove access to birth control and pap smears/breast exam is to limit the awareness and control a woman has over her body, her “self.”

I wrote to my representatives in Congress. Both of them are white men, and although they are also Democrats I still don’t understand why I can’t represent myself. Why do women have to keep “asking” someone else’s permission to have their own freedom? Aren’t they entitled to just as much as anyone else on this godforsaken planet? It’s as if we’re perpetually five years old and wondering when we can cross the street by ourselves.

Men as well as women are going to be sent back to the “Dark Ages” if this funding is cut. How many women are going to be able to provide for themselves? It’s like instituting a cut on food stamps. Do you think the hungry are just going to smile and say to themselves, “I could use a cutback on my calories anyway.” Everyone is hungry, and the human bodily hunger for sex isn’t going to cease just because funding was pulled from Planned Parenthood. Pregnancies will go up along with STDs, and HIV. And if certain people do decide to “redefine” rape for us, oh the possibilities.

The 1950’s called. They want their mindset back.

You can take action against these cuts here – via Amplify

purity ring

I’d be surprised if this is your first time hearing about

Purity Balls. The issue has been beaten to death – both by Christian conservatives who think they’re the keenest thing since toilet paper, and liberals like myself who think they’re a huge infringement on the rights of young girls – but if this truly is your first time hearing the (slightly suggestive) term, let me explain:

Purity Balls are pretty much like weddings. They’re held in big, fancy hotels with elegant finger foods, butlers with bad comb-overs, and the occasional violinist in the corner. But instead of a bride and groom coming together to pronounce their love to the world, the fathers and daughters attending these things make vows of their own. In well-rehearsed, cult-like chanting, the daughters promise to stay “pure” (i.e. abstinent) until marriage, and their fathers promise to help protect said purity. As an added bonus, sometimes the fathers give their daughters purity rings, or more disturbingly, keys (to their virginity) that can be stashed away until their future husbands come along.

I think wanting to save yourself for marriage is extremely commendable – and smart on some levels – but I just can’t get past how Purity Balls take notions of celibacy to the extreme. Here’s my beef:

1) I don’t like that in the Christian view “sex” is seen as the antithesis of “purity” and “righteousness.” That makes it sound like all girls (yes, only girls ) who have pre-marital relations are dirty, unwholesome, and unjust – sinful people who should be punished. Whether parents like to admit it or not, this is a new era and kids are “gettin’ jiggy with it” much earlier in life. Do I think that’s okay? No. But having a hateful you’re-going-to-Hell-if-you-do-this attitude isn’t going to help anything. We should teach kids the truth about sex and its consequences, not automatically slap “I’m Abstinent” stickers on their foreheads.

2) It kind of freaks me out that girls as young as ten (and in some cases, way younger) are attending these things. Girls that young haven’t even experienced puberty – or any of the sexual urges that go along with it – so how could they fully understand the concept of abstinence (or sex, for that matter)? Their parents are making decisions for them before they’ve lived long enough to understand their situation.

3) These dads aren’t giving their “little darlings” enough credit. If you watch a lot of the videos and documentaries on this subject, you’ll see that most of the fathers have very skewed ideas of what it means to be a “little girl.” They basically think that all young women are self-conscious until their fathers step in and tell them how beautiful they are – one man was even quoted saying “females were created to feel accepted by men,” and “even though we want to think we’re the same, we are different . . . A woman needs to feel loved and accepted by her father. She was created by God to feel that.” Heck, fathers should compliment their daughters (and sons). Not because we’re delicate little things that need constant reassurance, but because that’s what familydoes. (And another thing, what’s with all the emphasis on “beauty”? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be praised for my smarts or kick-butt nunchuck skills . . . )

4) Last time I checked, I’m not carrying a club or wearing a leopard-skin loin cloth. So that must mean we’re past the age where “fathers own their daughters until they can be passed onto a husband.” But that’s exactly what’s going on here! These fathers are assuming their daughters are too “emotional” and “irrational” to make their own decisions, so they have to “take control” until another man comes along. Is that a huge insult or what?

5) Purity Balls exclusively promote “heteronormativity.” I can’t imagine a bi- or homosexual girl walking in with confidence to one of those things, and that is discrimination.

6) Purity Balls are sexist and promote a ridiculous double-standard. They’re meant for fathers and theirdaughters – because it’s crucial that we protect girls’ virginities at all costs. But what about young boys? Why aren’t people spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure their sons stay pure until marriage? Well, this is going to blow your mind, but there are balls for sons and their mothers. But instead of promoting purity for themselves, the boys are told to “refrain from soiling girls’ virginities.”

Here’s a barf-bag. You might need it.

I guess I just don’t understand why our virginity has to be anybody’s business but our own, or why (as women) it’s completely tied to our worth as people. It’s a horrible double-standard that’s almost completely irrelevant in this day and age.

Danielle blogs about this and other teen feminist issues at her own blog, Experimentations of a Teenage Feminist.

the white dress...the red ribbon. SYMBOLISM I DONT LIKE.

After reading Dodai at Jezebel’s minute-by-minute blog of Eclipse, I thought that I could finally pass on an opportunity to fund Twilight mania. Alas, I was wrong: the dark cyclone of doom that is Stephanie Meyer’s brainchild  sucked me in with the masses…in the form of trying to bond with my 15 year old cousin who I see once a year.

I read Twilight, I was grossed out, and I moved on. I’m not going to go on about the sexist and abusive messages being portrayed in this series, and I’m not going to insult the quality of the movies or the books because frankly I just don’t give a shit anymore; it’s been done (here, for example). No, I don’t want to focus on the messages the franchise sends. I want to focus on why we (teen girls) are buying it.

Seriously. LOOK at this relationship. It’s one thing for people to want to sell us these gender stereotypes wrapped so nicely as a present of “romance” – feminism (and strong, independent women in general) can be threatening to the patriarchy and what not. But what is it presenting as romance? Old-fashioned gender stereotypes, like Edward’s desire to “court” Bella, and her instance that he protect her at every turn? Are we so brainwashed that we look at this guy (who, yes, has a pretty face but whaaateverrrr) who wants Bella to be this idealized little doll-girl and truly say “I want that.” Does any girl ACTUALLY want to be some completely dependent 2D version of a person?

I want to have an actual conversation with a guy. All Edward and Bella do is talk about how much they love each other (seriously you guyz. so much. sosososooooososo much. nobody understands their love. he’s been waiting a CENTURY. A CENTURY. OMFGZ!) or the state of her morality and soul. Edward seems like a ridiculously boring guy, but he loves her. And his love is what makes her special.

We all want to be special. But why do we think the only way to achieve that is to have some guy try to isolate us and protect our chastity – oh wait, I’m sorry, I mean love us and ONLY us so much he would die for us. Or better yet have two guys FIGHT over us, two really hot guys who want only us. Maybe we want that because that singular attention (such an unhealthy thing to wish on any guy, BY THE BY) makes us feel special.

But maybe we want that because, really, it’s about what other people see: and that type of romance is a show. It’s not about if we’d be bored to tears talking about what London was like a century ago – it’s about what other people would see. About how they’d be jealous one guy loved us *so* much. We buy it not because we want that relationship; we buy it because we ideally want other people to see us having that relationship.

we are so in love that the only place suited for our conversations is a field of flowers. Oh did I say conversation? I meant me trying to get in your pants and you trying to control me!

Newsflash, ladies: you can never feel truly special if none of that belief is coming from yourself. You can have every guy in school telling you how utterly delicious your blood is (…I mean…how beautiful you are), and have every girl be jealous (more important) but if you still look at your reflection in the mirror and go “wow, I hate myself” that love – that special, special love – will mean nothing. It is a radical notion, but it’s is actually okay to like ourselves, and feel special on our own. That can happen. And it should.

Also, we really need to go over what a healthy relationship is. A healthy relationship includes each partner having their own lives and genuinely wanting the other one to be happy on their own terms – not their “this is how I’m going to protect  you from evil vampire” terms. Being isolated and told what to do may seem romantic when set to violins and lit professionally, but in real life it sucks.

On the upside of the Twilight franchise – did anybody else notice how amongst the vampires, they are pretty much an equal society? At least in Eclipse, the girl vamps and boy vamps were doing equal fighting and their powers were all equally appreciated (Alice’s maybe even more). They even use neutral language to describe each other (mates). Let’s not say the WHOLE thing is sexist: the vamps got it right, at least. It’s just us humans who have a shit ton to figure out.

Also…Taylor Lautner will never top his performance in Sharkboy and Lavagirl. That was his peak, and he must accept it:

Our new trailer! “How To Lose Your Virginity” from Trixie Films on Vimeo.

If this film is anything like Jessica Valenti’s awesome book The Purity Myth, I’m so there it’s insane. Having to watch the news cover this new phenomenon of “Purity Balls” and celebrities like Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus pledge purity has left me seriously uneasy. Not because staying a virgin is a bad thing, but rather because those who pledge not to have intercourse until marriage are less likely to use a condom when they do have sex (and their rates of having oral and anal sex are higher) – in fact their rates of STDs are about the same as non-pledging teens.

And then there’s that whole virgin/whore dichotomy that’s just oh so wonderful to experience as a teen (and beyond, I’m sure). It’s like the girl in the Breakfast Club said (and I’m paraphrasing badly) “You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

However, Therese still needs help getting this movie out there. Being a woman in the film industry is pretty rough from what I understand, and I’m sure being a woman trying to promote a feminist film is even harder.

To support this film, please visit this site to back the project.

Just another naked woman on the cover of a widely available magazine

In this nation so full of blatantly sexualized imagery, it’s hard not to feel numb when talking about sex. From the pretty graphic jokes that circulate through my high school (and, of this I’m sure, every other high school in America), to the nearly naked women routinely featured on widely available magazine covers, I haven’t been truly shocked by sex since I was pretty young.

In fact, virginity (or purity…what a truly terrible word) in this country is a burden. It’s something to get rid of. We are amazed when we hear that Tina Fey was still a virgin at the ancient age of 24, and wonder why people would ever in their right minds wait that long.

So, when I read an article describing how women in Turkey are paying as much as $2,000 to have their virginity restored in an operation called “hymenoplasty” I was pretty astounded.

The article reports that in Turkey, virginity is not only a respected quality, but a necessary quality for a woman to have. Losing one’s virginity before marriage (and by one, I mean members of the female gender) can mean “social alienation, forced marriage with an inappropriate match, physical abuse and even death in some cases.”

Yes, there are countries where women are still dying for having pre-marital sex. Y’know, the same thing that the same demographic in our Western nation is being overly encouraged to do. The same thing that American girls are being shamed for not doing, girls in Turkey are being ostracized for doing.

Even more upsetting to me is the fact that men who seem to posses modern views in many other ways, who are educated, still participate in shaming non-virgins. One Turkish psychologist, Dilek Ak?c? Tayanç, stated of male partners of women who had pre-marital sex, “No matter how much he may seem to hold modern views or how unaffected he may seem, in many instances men change their behavior toward their wives due to this (having had pre-marital sex) — they’re more distant, less trusting and display passive-aggressive behaviors.”

However, truly the most disturbing part about this practice to me was the type of response from women who are self-electing to have this surgery. As one patient, Ceyda, 24 years old, stated:

“I’m marrying into a modern family…I’m sure that [my fiancé] would stay with me if he knew I wasn’t a virgin…But my mother says…men will value you more if they think they are the only ones who have had you. A  fresh product is better than a spoiled one. So why not?…My husband should value me, and I don’t mind doing something this easy to make him happy; it takes only half an hour.”

So, even in instances where a woman’s life or well being isn’t in danger, when she is certain that her marriage or relationship isn’t even in danger, she thinks of herself as a “spoiled product” for having had sex, and elects to have surgery to make her “fresh.”

I’m not advocating promiscuity, but can I just say, having sex before you’re married doesn’t ruin you. It doesn’t make you a bad person. As long as you’re safe, as long as you’re smart, as long as you’re doing what’s right for you – sex isn’t an evil overpowering force that will destroy you. But that is my westernized mind speaking. I admit – it’s hard for me to get into any other mindset. The United States is not a patriarchy in the same way that countries like Turkey are, and though I definitely believe that there are cultural messages ingrained into the minds of young American girls, I doubt they are anything like those ingrained in the minds of Turkish girls.

So if my limited, Western perspective is not enough to convince you that hymenoplasty is just not a good idea, maybe the scientific side will get you. Tayanç states that:

“With the surgery an individual cements alienation from their body, and this can lead to increased denial and repression mechanisms; the result can be a decrease of introspection on the part of the individual, value-related issues, desensitization and even dissociation…[the patient] by yielding to the wishes of her spouse and society and viewing her own bodily integrity through someone else’s eyes to satisfy another person, at a result of which she is willing to go under the knife, becomes a psychologically self-destructing individual.”

Of course, it’s undeniable that in extreme situations, this procedure can actually save a woman from being physically, emotionally or socially abused, and even save her life. In that way – this surgery can not only be beneficial, but a blessing.

Bottom line: I really don’t think this procedure, hymenoplasty, as absurd and upsetting as it is to me personally, is the problem.  It’s the cultural beliefs that perpetuate women to want this procedure, that convinces them it’s a good idea – or more seriously the cultural practices that make it necessary, that are the problem.

Until we stop viewing women as useful only for their bodies, and therefore their virginity or purity, procedures like hymenoplasty will continue to exist. Sad, but true.