24/7

Artificiality in the Age of Surgical Hymen Reparation

“For women who don't want to undergo a surgical procedure, a cheaper, faster path to "revirgination" is available in most sex novelty shops: a Chinese-made artificial hymen that, when inserted, purports to create a lifelike sensation for the man and emits fake blood when ruptured.”

- Keith B. Richburg in The Washington Post, August 16th, 2010.

Revirginization? Superb! Superb, that is, until some upstart entrepreneur decides that their day-spa-cum-hymenoplasty clinic ought to do a full on Bloomie’s display for the tourists spread double-breast along fifth avenue.

The Washington Post dishes about the spreading popularity of the procedure in China, where the pressures of saving the thinnest of membranes for that special guy demand the radically cosmetic procedure, a procedure that smacks of Africa’s clitoridectomy problem.

The barbarity ends there, however, in that this surgery relates to the inner bits of womanhood while the axing of a clitoris leaves visible wounds on the victim. It is as much a scar as results from the machete’s, whose reach which has left generations with a visible reminders of trauma to match the lasting psychological skeins of war. The currents of violence are slick, and the joke of artificial hymens, available over-the-counter at a number of novelty asian retailers, (along with any number of dildos and protruding objects to take one of these blood pouches out for a joyful ride) is that they’re cheap, safe, and provide the “lifelike sensation” that some betrothed asshole requires. In short, they’re the obverse symbol of the West’s morning after pill: a prophylactic against shame.

Surgical hymen rejuvenation does not a Nobel Laureate make; but it does extend the front on which women fight for our shit-eating approval. Knowing our own society’s Mickey Rourkian obsession with plastic surgery, is it any wonder that these extremes export well? The cost of surgical revirginization runs to the low-low price of 757 USD$, a significant amount of Yuan even for the rising middle class, so if a woman is to independently afford the stitch they most likely are the daughters of The Party or Industry/Commerce. The prosperity of China’s leaders allows for their girls to experience western standards of sucking and fucking, but the ivory dictates of purity drive these same daughters into the arms of loving femme-doctors who receive breathless adoration via text the morning after, of course.