Virginity Will Never Be The Same: Swedes Rename the Hymen

Goodbye, dear virginal membrane: your mythical status has been busted. The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education has renamed the hymen, stating that the misleading term perpetuates myths created to control women's freedom and sexuality. The hymen is now -- wait for it -- the "vaginal corona."

The term in and of itself dissuades the kind of romanticizing and mythologizing surrounding the hymen. "Did you break your vaginal corona? Is your vaginal corona still intact?" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Moreover, it's scientific specificity makes it harder to wield at will as a simple term defining a woman's virginity.

The vaginal corona sounds like what it is: a body part unique to each individual woman, not some sort of romanticized "virginity membrane" (as the original Swedish term for hymen translates). According to the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU), it can be white or pink, a carnation or a rose, a jigsaw piece or a half moon. Sounds like vagina imitating art -- or vagina imitating The Vagina Monologues.

The RFSU is on a regular myth-busting extravaganza. Their information booklet on the vaginal corona clarifies that it's not one membrane broken irreparably and definitively upon penetration. It's composed of layers, "elastic folds of mucous tissue," that can be slightly stretched or ruptured if a woman isn't properly lubricated during sex. (Hmm, THAT's virtually unheard of.)

The booklet also indicates that the "vast majority" of women do not bleed and, if they do, it's not necessarily during their first sexual intercourse, but rather during intercourse in which they are not lubricated. Contrary to popular belief, the vaginal corona can't be ruptured by riding a bike or a horse. And, what's more, penis length and depth of penetration don't determine whether the vaginal corona is ruptured or not. So stop patting yourselves on the back, gentlemen.

Instead, whether a woman bleeds during her first intercourse with a man and whether this intercourse is painful or not are situations that really (shockingly!) depend on the individual woman -- the size and shape of her vaginal corona, the degree of lubrication, and quality of the sex. The RFSU also dispels, both scientifically and philosophically, the heteronormative interpretation of lost virginity as the first time a woman is penetrated by a man who "pops her cherry."

Could this mark the end of defining a woman's sexuality by the virginity membrane and the beginning of defining it by, uh, the woman's individual experience? Radical. Let's hope so.

Photo: brunkfordbraun's Photostream