Like a virgin
- Source: Global Times
- [22:16 June 17 2010]
- Comments
By Lin Meilian
Let's start with the good stuff.
"Your virginity back in 20 minutes!"
"No surgery, no shots, no medicine, no side-effects. For a cool 100 yuan ($14.60) you can have your 'first time' back anytime!"
The ads for artificial hymens caught Ms Xie's attention outside a Chongqing sex store. She lowered her head, put on sun glasses, went inside and purchased a box of "Virtuous Girl Red" hymens for her big day: her first physical union with her husband-to-be.
The 100-yuan hymen kit contained a small dark-red semitransparent plastic insert. Xie tore off its cover, inserted it and waited 20 minutes until it "melted", and then carefully climbed into bed where her husband-to-be was waiting, with a voice running through her head saying, "remember to act like you are in pain."
After a few ups and downs, moans and groans, they relaxed, turned on the light and excitedly spotted a liquid that looks like blood on the bed sheet. He smiled and held her tightly in his arms. She felt like she was standing at the door of heaven until his question drew her quickly back to earth.
"Honey, what is that smell?"
It turned out that the "user friendly guidelines" written on the Virtuous Girl package neglected to mention a significant drawback: the "blood" smells.
They broke up eventually.
Too much pressure
Xie, 27, from Chongqing and who had had one previous partner prior to her "second virginity," told the Global Times that the reason she faked her virginity was because of pressure from her ex-boyfriend's family.
"I wanted to tell him the truth before our wedding because I thought he is open enough to accept me, " Xie said. "But one day I overheard the conversation between him and his mother, asking if he was my first man."
"Then I realized if virginity means so much to his family, then I have to do something," she added.
The worse was yet to come. The artificial virginal hymen ruined her would-be marriage, left her heartbroken and with pain whenever she urinated. After consulting doctors, Xie found she had contracted vaginitis as a result of the failed cover-up operation.
"I don't regret using a fake hymen, but I don't recommend others use one," Xie said after 800 yuan in medical bills hadn't rid her of vaginitis after eight months.
Medical studies have shown that bleeding is not the only signal of a broken virginity. Some women are born without hymens; while others might accidentally rupture theirs long before any sexual activities, either by accident or through sporting activities. Still this common sense fails to reach some Chinese men or their future mother-in-laws.
Many women in China are dumped or divorced after men deflowered them and found no bleeding, which causes many desperate women like Xie to fake their virginities.
