by Hanne Blank
Having led this tour throughout the ages of virginity, in the end I find that I can only return to what I stated in the opening chapter. Virginity is an abstract, but an abstract so meaningful to the way we have organized our Western cultures that we have arranged lives around it, built it into our religions, our laws, our definitions of marriage, and our ways of organizing families, and woven it into our very concepts of identity and self. If nothing else, I feel I can say with certainty that no matter where our changing culture takes us, and no matter how our notions of virginity change, as long as sex is important in the slightest, virginity and virgins will continue to matter profoundly to us all.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
i: Like a Virgin?
The language of ancient Greek virginity is one of the topics discussed in Giulia Sissa, Greek Virginity, Arthur Goldhammer, trans. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).
Medieval scholars' approaches to virginity and chastity are discussed in many sources; two of the most approachable are Pierre Payer's Sex and the Penitentials: The Development of a Sexual Code, 550—115o (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984) and The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993).
The sexuality of children, rarely discussed in even the sexological literature, is more frequently taken up by anthropologists. The massive four-volume encylopedia of known research on children's sexuality globally, Diederik F. Janssen, Corpus "Growing Up Sexually" (Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology, 2002-2005), is constantly updated at http://www2.rz.huberlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUS/GUS_MAIN_ INDEX.HTM.
On prenatal genital self-stimulation, Catherine Blackledge, The Story of V: A Natural History of Female Sexuality (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004), provides a discussion.
On the Jungian concept of the presexual, see C. G. Jung, "The Transformation of Libido," in Collected Works of C. G. Jung, vol. 5, Read, Herbert, et al., eds. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953).
Statistics in regard to age at marriage were derived from the following reports: U.S. Bureau of the Census, "U.S. Adults Postponing Marriage 2001," prepared by the United States Department of Commerce, Office of the Census and Office of National Statistics, United Kingdom's "Report 2001: Population Trends III : Marriages: Age at Marriage by Sex and Previous Marital Status." Subsequent reports from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries in the developed West have indicated that later marriage as a trend is well established and continuing.
For detailed information on Roman Catholic consecrated virgins consult the United States Association of Consecrated Virgins. See the United States Association of Consecrated Virgins Web site, http://www.consecratedvirgins.org.
The effectiveness of virginity pledges is the subject of Peter Bearman and Hanna Bruckner, "Promising the Future: Virginity Pledges as They Affect Transition to First Intercourse," The American Journal of Sociology 106 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, January 2001).
A growing number of anecdotal and scientific studies examine the discrepancies between definitions of sexual abstinence, in regard to what counts as sexual activity, what kinds of sexual activities are definitive of the end of virginity, etc., including: Patricia Goodson, Sandy Suther, et al. "Defining Abstinence," Journal of School Health 73 no. 3 (March 2003); Kaiser Family Foundation and Seventeen magazine, Sex Smarts: National Survey of Teens Virginity and the First Time, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, publication no. 3368 (October 2003); Stephanie A. Sanders and June Machover Reinisch, "Would You Say You 'Had Sex' If?," Journal of the American Medical Association 281 no. 3 (January 20, 1999): 275—277; M. A. Schuster, R. M. Bell, and D. E. Kanouse, "The Sexual Practices of Adolescent Virgins: Genital Sexual Activities of High School Students Who Have Never Had Vaginal Intercourse," American Journal of Public Health 86 no. 11 (1996): 1570-1576; and Israel M. Schwartz, "Sexual Activity Prior to Coital Initiation: A Comparison Between Males and Females," Archives of Sexual Behavior 28 no. 1 (1999): 63-69.
2: The Importance of Being Virgin
Information on the comparative sexual biology and sociology of a wide variety of animal species is presented in, among other sources: Blackledge, The Story of V: Opening Pandora's Box (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003); Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mother Nature: Natural Selection & the Female of the Species (London: Chatto & Windus, 1999); William G. Eberhard, Sexual Selection and Animal Genitalia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985); and Bettyann Kevles, Females of the Species: Sex and Survival in the Animal Kingdom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).
An entry-level discussion of the property/patriarchy theory of the-origins of human awareness of virginity can be found in Timothy Taylor, The Prehistory of Sex: Four Million Years of Human Sexual Culture (New York: Bantam Books, 1996). Other discussions may be found in sources including: Shirley Ardener, "Defining Females: The Nature of Women in Society," Cross-cultural Perspectives on Women 4 (Providence, RI: Berg, 1993); Ottokar Nemecek, Virginity: Pre-Nuptial Rites and Rituals (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958); and Elisa Janine Sobo and Sandra Bell, eds., Celibacy, Culture, and Society: The Anthropology of Sexual Abstinence (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001).
Aline Rousselle comments at length on exposure and infanticide in the ancient world, among other topics, in Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity, Felicia Pheasant, trans. (London: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1988).
The translation of Deuteronomy 22:13—21 featured in this chapter is my own. Thanks are due to Danya Ruttenberg for her assistance.
3: Hymenology
In C. Jenny, M. L. Kuhns and F. Arakawa, "Hymens in Newborn Female Infants," Pediatrics 80 (1987), the estimated frequency of congenital (i.e., from birth) absence of the hymen is given at less than 0.03 percent.
Speculations on the evolutionary purpose of the hymen may be found in, among other sources, Blackledge, The Story of V: Opening Pandoras Box (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003), and Elaine Morgan, The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (New York: Stein and Day, 1982).
The variability of hymenal shape, size, and dimension is discussed in numerous reports, including: Abby Berenson, "A Longitudinal Study of Hymenal Morphology in the First 3 Years of Life," Pediatrics 95 no. 4 (April 1995): 490-6; Berenson, "Appearance of the Hymen at Birth and One Year of Age: A Longitudinal Study," Pediatrics 91 no. 4 (April 1993): 820-5; Berenson, and James J. Grady, "A Longitudinal Study of Hymenal Development from 3 to 9 Years of Age," The Journal of Pediatrics 140 no. 5 (May 2002): 600-607; Berenson, et al., "Appearance of the Hymen in Prepubertal Girls," Pediatrics 89 no. 3 (March 1992): 387-94; and Astrid H. Heger, et al., "Appearance of the Genitalia in Girls Selected for Nonabuse: Review of Hymenal Morphology and Nonspecific Findings," Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology 15 (2002): 27-35.
A relevant case study detailing the matrilineal genetic transmission of imperforate hymen is: J. R. Stelling, et al., "Dominant Transmission of Imperforate Hymen," Fertility and Sterility 74 no. 6 (2000): 1241-44.
Two articles discussing the possible sexual abuse etiology implicated in some cases of what may be diagnosed as imperforate hymen are C. D. Berkowitz, S. L. Elvik, and M. Logan, "A Simulated Acquired Imperforate Hymen Following the Genital Trauma of Sexual Abuse," Clinical Pediatrics 26 (1987): 307-9, and Anne S. Botash and Florence Jean-Louis, "Imperforate Hymen: Congenital or Acquired from Sexual Abuse?" Pediatrics 108 no. 3 (September 2001): 53 ff.
The most useful comparative study of published hymenal research to date is Heger, et al., "Appearance of the Genitalia in Girls Selected for Nonabuse." The relative frequencies of different hymenal presentations discussed in this chapter are derived from the tables presented throughout this article.
The criteria used to determine the different configurations and presentations is taken from the American Academy of Pediatrics, "Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect: Guidelines for the Evaluation of Sexual Abuse of Children," Pediatrics 103 vol. 1 (1999): 186-191.
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bsp; The case report on the remarkable imperforate-hymen trifecta described in this chapter is from the medical literature Chao-Hsi Lee and Ching-Chung Liang, "Hymen Re-Formation after Hymenotomy Associated with Pregnancy," Australia and New Zealand Journal of Gynecology 42 no. 5 (November 2002): 559-560.
4: A Desperate and Conflicted Search
Among the recent sources that deal in detail with the history of virginity in the ancient and medieval medical literature are: Joan Cadden, The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Monica Green, "Obstetrical and Gynecological Texts in Middle English," Studies in the Age of Chaucer 14 (1992): 53—88, and her book The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women s Medicine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2061); Ann E. Hanson, "The Medical Writers' Woman," in Before Sexuality, David Halperin, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Helen King, "Bound to Bleed: Artemis and Greek Women," in Images of Women in Antiquity, Averil Cameron and Amelie Kuhrt, eds. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1983): 109—27, and her "Producing Woman: Hippocratic Gynecology," in Women in Ancient Societies: An Illusion of the Night, L. J. Archer, et al., eds. (London: Macmillan, 1994): 102-14; Esther Lastique and Helen Lemay, "A Medieval Physician's Guide to Virginity," in Sex in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, Joyce E. Salisbury, ed. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1991); Marie H. Loughlin, Hymeneutics: Interpreting Virginity on the Early Modern Stage (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1997); Rousselle, Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity, Felicia Pheasant, trans. (London: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1988); and Sissa, Greek Virginity, Arthur Goldhammer, trans. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). Last but by far not least, the spectacular overview given in Kathleen Coyne Kelly's Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in the Middle Ages, Routledge Research in Medieval Studies Series (New York: Routledge, 2000), should be singled out for applause.
Discussions of the value of various hymenal attributes can be found in several sources, including: Berenson, et al., "A Case-Control Study of Anatomic Changes Resulting from Sexual Abuse," American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 182 (2000): 1043—45; Berenson, et al., "Use of Hymenal Measurements in the Diagnosis of Previous Penetration," Pediatrics 109 no. 2 (February 2002): 228—35; K. Edgardh and K. Ormstad, "The Adolescent Hymen," Journal of Reproductive Medicine 47 no. 9 (September 2002): 710—14; and D. M. Ingram, et al., "The Relationship between the Transverse Hymenal Orifice Diameter by the Separation Technique and Other Possible Markers of Sexual Abuse," Child Abuse & Neglect 25 (2001): 1090—120.
5: The Virgin and the Doctor
Sources that speak to the issue of speculum examination in historical context include: Susan Edwards, Female Sexuality and the Law: A Study of Constructs of Female Sexuality as They Inform Statute and Legal Procedure (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1981); Toby Gelfand, Pro-fessionaliiing Modern Medicine: Paris Surgeons and Medical Science and Institutions (West-port, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980); Ornella Moscucci, The Science of Woman: Gynaecology and Gender in England, 1800—1929, Series: Cambridge History of Medicine, Charles Webster and Charles Rosenberg, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); James V. Ricci, The Geneaology of Gynaecology (Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1943); and Peter Skegg, Law, Ethics, and Medicine: Studies in Medical Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1984).
A particularly thoughtful and instructive analysis of the virgin-cure myth in an industrialized, Western twentieth-century context is Roger Davidson, " 'This Pernicious Delusion': Law, Medicine, and Child Sexual Abuse in Early Twentieth-Century Scotland," Journal of the History of Sexuality 10/1 (January 2001): 62-77.
On the problems of venereal disease generally and venereal disease in children specifically, see Wayland Debs Hand, Magical Medicine: The Folkloric Component of Medicine in Folk Belief, Custom, and Ritual of the Peoples of Europe and America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), and Timothy Taylor, "Venereal Disease in Nineteenth-Century Children," Journal of Psychohistory 12/4 (Spring 1985): 431-63.
Among the many valuable sources on the current problems in regard to the virgin-cure myth in South Africa is Eileen Meier, "Child Rape in South Africa," Pediatric Nursing 28/5 (2002): 532-35. News coverage on the issue can also be illuminating, although it does not offer clinical perspective.
Helen King's monograph The Disease of Virgins: Green Sickness, Chlorosis, and the Problems of Puberty (New York: Routledge, 2004) is a gem in the history of the intersection of medicine and culture. For a shorter but still useful assessment, see Robert P. Hudson, "The Biography of Disease: Lessons from Chlorosis," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 51 (1977): 448-463.
The doggerel quoted at the end of this section is of anonymous authorship. It can be found as "A Cure for ye Greene Sicknesse," Bodleian Ms. Rawlinson poet. 172, fol. 2v.
Data on average hymenal dimensions can be found in many sources, including Berenson and Grady, "A Longitudinal Study of Hymenal Development from 3 to 9 Years of Age," Journal of Pediatrics 140 (2002): 600-607, and Susan Pokorny, "Configuration of the Prepubertal Hymen," American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 157/4 part 1 (October 1987): 950-56.
The mainstream press is peppered with articles about hymen restoration surgeries and the medical ethics surrounding them. A representative pair consulted in the preparation of this book are Sue Yeon Choi, "Restoring Virginity: Hymen Repair Surgery Saves Lives at the Expense of Deception," Issues: Berkeley Medical Journal (Fall 1998), viewed at (http://www.0cf.berkeley.edu/~issues/fall98/hymenrep.html), and Susan Oh, "Just Like a Virgin?".0cf.berkeley.edu/~issues/fall98/hymenrep.html), and Susan Oh, "Just Like a Virgin?" Maclean's 113/24 (June 12, 2000): 44—46. A useful overview of the medical profession's own ethical discussion of the issue is A. Logmans, et al., "Should Doctors Reconstruct the Vaginal Introitus of Adolescent Girls to Mimic the Virginal State? Who Wants the Procedure and Why," British Medical Journal 316/'7129 (February 7,1998): 459-60.
6: The Blank Page
Queen's University Belfast anthropologist Paloma Gay-y-Blasco's work on Gitano virginity, Gypsies in Madrid: Sex, Gender and the Performance of Identity (Oxford: Berg, 1999), is exemplary and astonishing. Her two articles, "Gitano Understandings of Female Virginity: Sex and the Construction of Ethnic Difference," Cambridge Anthropology 17 no. 1 (1994), and the 1997 "A 'Different' Body? Desire and Virginity among Gitanos," The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society 3 no. 3, provide more focused discussions of the specific beliefs and practices addressed at the beginning of this chapter.
The remarks made by a young woman who spoke of the assumptions of her peers in regard to her virginity, based on their feelings about the appearance of her buttocks and hips, are from Kristin Haglund, "Sexually Abstinent African American Adolescent Females' Descriptions of Abstinence," Journal of Nursing Scholarship 35 no. 3 (2003): 231-36. There are many other similar "visual diagnosis" issues mentioned throughout the medical and sociological literature on virginity, as well as in sexual folklore. Some of them are addressed from this angle in Mariamne Watley and Elissa Henken, Did You Hear About the Girl Who . . . ?: Contemporary Legends, Folklore, and Human Sexuality (New York: New York University Press, 2000).
Virginity tests can be found in an. enormous number of medical texts written prior to the twentieth century and have been discussed at some length in the historical literature, including: Clarissa W. Atkinson, "Precious Balsam in a Fragile Glass: The Ideology of Virginity in the Later Middle Ages," Journal of Family History (Summer 1983): 131—43; Vern L. Bullough and James Brundage, eds., The Problem of Impotence in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1982): 135-40; Tassie Gwilliam, "Female Fraud: Counterfeit Maidenheads in the Eighteenth Century," Journal of the History of Sexuality 6 no. 4 (1996): 518-48; Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages, Matthew Adamson, trans. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); Kelly, Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in the Middle Ages, Routledge Research in M
edieval Studies Series (New York: Routledge, 2000); King, The Disease of Virgins: Green Sickness, Chlorosis, and the Problems of Puberty (New York: Routledge, 2004); Lastique and Lemay, "A Medieval Physician's Guide to Virginity," in Sex in the Middle Ages, Joyce E. Salisbury, ed. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1991); Lemay, Women's Secrets: A Translation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus'De secretis mulierum with Commentaries, SUNY Series in Medieval Studies, Paul Szarmach, ed. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992); Lemay, "The Stars and Human Sexuality: Some Medieval Scientific Views," Isis 71 (March 1980): 127—37; Hermann Moller, "Voice Change in Human Biological Development," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 16 no. 2 (Autumn 1985): 239—53; Jacqueline Murray, "The Origins and Role of 'Wise Women' in Causes for Annulment on the Grounds of Male Impotence, " Journal of Medieval History 16 (1990): 235—49; Stephen Robertson, "Signs, Marks, and Private Parts: Doctors, Legal Discourses, and Evidence of Rape in the United States, 1823-1930," Journal of the History of Sexuality 9 no. 3 (1998): 345-88; Rousselle, Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity, Felicia Pheasant, trans. (London: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1988); Joyce E. Salisbury, "Fruitful in Singleness," Journal of Medieval History 8 (1982).
Dr. Sara Paterson-Brown's informal research in regard to the percentages of women who report bleeding at the time of virginity loss was given in the context of: "Commentary: Education about the Hymen Is Needed," in the February 7,1998, British Medical Journal, p. 341.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' statement of its expectations of a physician's ability to diagnose a "normal" versus an "altered" hymen was made in the context of a technical bulletin on pediatric gynecology, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Technical Bulletin No. 201: Pediatric Gynecologic Disorders (Washington, D.C.: The College, 1995).