Why Is A Woman’s Virginity So Important? Let’s Put That Tissue In Its Place

Why is a woman’s virginity so important? How does a mere piece of tissue makes a woman pure or otherwise? This post questions!

After I wrote this poem, The Backstabber, I got flooded with questions – oh, who am I kidding! – the two or three people who read it, asked me about my thoughts on pre-marital sex. I write fifty posts about love and relationships and no one bats an eye. I write one post which, with a lot of subtlety, alludes to a so-called ‘sensitive issue’ and everyone two-three people get really curious!

 Why is this (only this) being blown out of proportion? Is a (really thin) tissue really worth so much discussion? Why should what someone does in their own time become a subject of tea-time gossip or a weapon of mass-future-blackmail (I know what you did last summer. Play your cards right or I’ll tell your mother)?

Oh! The matter does not end here, here are some truly bizarre instances that I have come across:

1. Boy meets girl – falls truly, madly, deeply in love with her (apparently) – comes to know girl had a boyfriend in the past – rushes girl to hospital to find out the status of her hymen (yo’ love as thin as a tissue eh, bro? Literally).

2. The well-known Khushboo controversy – crazy fans build temple for mere mortal because she looks ‘hot’ on screen – mortal says “No educated man should expect his wife to be a virgin” – crazy fans turn deranged and destroy aforementioned temple. (Idiots, she made more sense when she made that statement than when the lot of you built that temple).

3. Random Indian dude claims to have slept with multiple women – but will marry only a virgin from his gaon selected by mummy dearest, because he cannot be with a “used piece” (in such instances, “Dude, what the f***!” sounds like a gross understatement).

Why does it become a viable character-assassination chapter when a girl gives into her instincts?

Why does it become a viable character-assassination chapter when a girl gives into her instincts? Why isn’t a guy even questioned in these matters? There are situations in which you can’t be right or wrong. You just be. If you want to be goody-two-shoes about it, it’s fine. If you want to give in, what is wrong, I ask you! And why is it that the majority of Indian men think that the presence of the hymen is the ultimate test of your wife/girlfriend’s “purity”? I hate to be the one breaking it to you – but a hymen can not break when you’re ill or active in sports. Also, if she wanted to deceive you or something, it is easily replaceable. How ignorant of these facts are you?

That’s another thing that annoys me. What’s with all the purity/impurity nonsense? What, are you buying groceries from a store? Checking if daal has something kaala in it?

I once received a forwarded sms, which had pink undertones of “Aww, so sugary sweet”; but like all things too sugary and sweet, it simply made me nauseated. It went like this, “Every guy wishes he is his girlfriend’s first love and every girl wishes she is her boyfriend’s last love.” This line was followed by a bunch of “less-than-3″s and blushing smileys. Yes, definitely I would wish to be my man’s last (that’s stating the obvious), but what sort of a narrow-minded, insecure guy would beg to be a girl’s first and only?

Are you afraid that she would keep comparing you with someone else, and someone else would get more marks?

Are you afraid that she would keep comparing you with someone else, and someone else would get more marks? You think she might dominate you (explain this to me, how is a woman with a “past” more dominating? I have heard this statement from some guys, but sounded senseless)? Or is the thought too scary that she might teach you a thing or two (in life, in bed, whatever)? Your male ego can’t stand being taught things “by a girl”? Is that why you behave as though you were illiterate despite being educated, because most of your teachers were women and you refused to be taught anything?

As an IT professional working with clients from abroad, I often get included on congratulatory mail chains when my counterparts deliver babies or celebrate other happy occasions. Once, one of my counterparts happily announced that his girlfriend had recently delivered their second child. Congratulations followed. A bunch of scandalized Indians sat and stared at the emails wondering “Girlfriend? Haaye haaye! Not married and bachcha paida kar diya?!” We are talking about a bunch of educated (and yet, scandalized) IT professionals here.

In my opinion, a man who loves his girlfriend and has a child with her is any day much better than a man who followed “customs” and “traditions” and married a “pure” ghee girl of his parents’ choice and gave them grandchildren before the first year was out. In all possibility, he has not even properly seen the face of the girl he married; if mummy-dearest said, “Son, I want to hear the sound of tiny feet,” then sonny dear probably got down to business, and the face of his wife is probably not what he was looking at!

I should probably end this rant, though I have so much more to say on this subject. But the whole bunch of Indian men who call women derogatory things like “used pieces” should know – dears, you’re entitled to your deranged, perverted, narrow-minded, sick opinions, but if you can flaunt a past with fifteen girlfriends (real or imagined), just to be called a stud in your social circle, then you have no right to judge a girl who has loved (but, possibly and sadly lost) a guy or two in her past. You may be a stud (good for you, man!), but she is NOT a slut!

Brickbats welcomed! 

Man woman holding hands image via Shutterstock

First published at author’s blog

Sreesha Divakaran

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