Constructing Virgins: How Technologies De-construct and Re-construct Gendered Notions of Virginity

             After reading the New York Times article, “In Europe, Debate over Islam and Virginity,” I became interested in the concept of virginity, something I always took for granted as a solid fact of sexuality and sexual activity. What exactly does it mean to be a virgin? Why is it different for men and women? What does it mean to “lose” one’s virginity, or to “take” some else’s? Once it’s gone, can you get it back? If you can regain it, why is its loss so profound? I came to realize that a lot of the norms in our society, like those around gender, are based on a concept which is hard to quantify and even harder to define. In her dissertation, “Virgin Territories: The Social Construction of Virginity Loss in the Contemporary Unites States,” Laura M. Carpenter states that “Sexuality is shaped (constructed) by social processes at the cultural and individual levels; thus virginity is socially constructed” (Carpenter VI). As evidenced by the practice of hymenoplasty, surgical technologies can be used to physically reconstruct hymens and thus to perform a so-called restoration of virginal status. But by using technology to construct virginity, do we solidify societal norms or, conversely, do we contribute to the breakdown of the traditional gendered construction of virginity?

            Recently, a 22 year-old woman named Natalie Dylan garnered media attention by auctioning her virginity through the Moonlight Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada. Dylan, who identifies as a feminist, is working on a master’s thesis with her sister on “the dichotomous nature between virginity and prostitution” a nature upon which she does not elaborate in her interview with Tyra Banks on Banks’ talk show. The interview itself revealed several facets of the conception of virginity in the contemporary United States. Banks simultaneously expressed disbelief that Dylan was still, at 22, a virgin saying that she didn’t “look like” one, and disgust that she might be willing to give up such a thing to someone she had never met, and who Tyra suggested might be unattractive. The idea that there is such a thing as looking like a virgin is a construction of society’s use of performative technological tools such as makeup and fashion. Because Dylan wore a low-cut top, high heels, and make up, she was not a virgin. The bids on her auction, which were reported as up to 3.8 million dollars, reveal the fetishization of virginity. Reinforced by television and filmic technologies, pop culture in the United States defines the loss of virginity as the first act of heterosexual, penetrative sex. And the force of consequence is generally placed on heterosexual, cissexual women, for whom this act is considered generally momentous and often traumatic.

            Surgical technologies, like the hymenoplasty described in the New York Times article, characterize virginity as anatomical, the breakage of the hymen during the first act of intercourse. But this is not a foolproof test, as shown by the woman in the article who has never had penetrative sex but who had “an accident on a horse when she was 10.” The tension between the anatomical and the pop cultural definitions, constructed by differing technologies, reveals the fundamental cracks in the basis of the argument for virginity as a sacred or even solid state of being. Furthermore, the ability of LGBTQ people to reinterpret virginity to fit their own sexual orientation further destroys the concept. Lesbians and gay men who never engage in penetrative heterosexual sex do not remain virgins for life because their personal conception of virginity deviates from that created by dominant social technologies. And transgender people (to work, for a second, within the confines of the admittedly problematic idea that all transgender people switch from one gender to another) who surgically alter their bodies- do they then become re-virginized, as some evangelical Christians claim you can become through spiritual belief? It seems that technologies such as hymenoplasty and the “Artificial Virginity Hymen” kit marketed by Gigimo only de-construct the idea of virginity by making it harder to define exactly what it means to be a virgin, and making it physically harder to tell who is and who isn’t. In effect, to use terminology employed in class discussion surrounding transgender issues and gender in general, it allows people to “pass” as virgins. And the ability to “pass” implies the malleability of labels to start with.

            And yet, virginity remains a gendered issue. Laura Carpenter states that women are most likely to view virginity as a “gift,” and men as a “stigma.” These differing views have been changed slightly more recently, with women who remain virgins longer than the norm (whatever that may be) receiving the same treatment as being slightly abnormal, or having something wrong with them. But the dominant idea remains that for women, virginity is something to be protected, and for men it is something to get rid of as soon as possible to prove a kind of masculine sexual virility. Furthermore, a man could easily pretend to be a virgin in the dominant heterosexual definition of the term without the aid of any technologies. And the Muslim women getting hymenoplasties in the New York Times article are doing so to fulfill a gendered role, that of the bride who is virginal until marriage. Yet, they are also allowed, through such technologies, to deconstruct such a traditional role and yet still adhere to it. Yet, they are also allowed, through such technologies, to deconstruct such a traditional role and yet still adhere to it, in a sense they can have it both ways. They challenge, as transgender and genderqueer people do the established categories of gender, the established categories of the anatomical and emotional nature of sexual acts, the idea that there is a proper or normal way in which to be a sexual being. They, and the American women disparagingly referred to in the article who get hymenoplasty “as a Valentine’s present to their husbands” are widening the label. Thusly, technology has been used to both to deconstruct and reconstruct the idea of feminine virginity and the loss and seizure thereof. It remains to be seen what further technologies, surgical and societal, will be developed surround virginity. Will they make such a category obsolete? Or will they further engender the idea of the sacred first act and cast it as something to be protected?

 

 

Works Cited

 

Carpenter, Laura M. Virgin Territories: The Social Construction of Virginity Loss in the Contemporary United States. Diss. University of Pennsylvania, 1999. Abstract.

 

Hortense. “Like an Artifical Virgin.” Weblog post. Jezebel. 10 Jan. 2009. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://jezebel.com/5128276/like-an-artificial-virgin>.

 

Sciolino, Elaine, and Souad Mekhnnet. “In Europe, Debate over Islam and Virginity.” The New York Times 11 June 2008.

 

Tracie. “Tyra: Woman Auctioning Off Her Virginity Says It Is A Feminist Act.” Weblog post. Jezebel. 3 Nov. 2008. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://jezebel.com/5075432/tyra-woman-auctioning-off-her-virginity-says-it-is-a-feminist-act>.