Virginity Redux: Chinese Women Try Hymen Reconstruction

(Aug. 17) -- In an attempt to present themselves to new husbands as virgins, sexually active Chinese women are getting hymen reconstruction surgery. The Washington Post offers anecdotal evidence that the procedure is becoming more popular in China. (But if offers the big caveat, often implicit in such trend stories, that "there are no statistics available in China on how often the surgery is performed.")

While it's women who are seeking the surgery, it's conservative men, and their desire to marry virgins, that's driving the trend. In China, it costs as "little as 5,000 renminbi, or about $737, for a 20- to 30-minute procedure," the Post reports. In the simplest form of the procedure, a surgeon uses "catgut sutures to approximate hymen remnants (with or without incorporation of a gelatin capsule containing a blood-like substance which bursts on intercourse)," according to the British Medical Journal.

The procedure is not particular to China. It's most popular in Muslim lands, where the cultural pressure for brides to be virgins is high. But it's also widely available in the U.S. Near my home in New York City, the Manhattan Center for Vaginal Surgery charges $5,900 for the procedure.

In China, some seek a less expensive route than surgery. A "cheaper, faster path to 'revirgination' is available in most sex novelty shops: a Chinese-made artificial hymen that purports to create a physical sensation for the man and emit fake blood when ruptured," reports the Post.

The newspaper found a few men to interview, one of whom offers up an absurdly chauvinistic analogy:

"I really care about virginity," said Xia Yang, product manager for a technology company. "If you go to buy a cellphone, of course you'd want to buy a new cellphone. Who would spend the same amount of money to buy an old cellphone that's been used for two years?"

Read more at The Washington Post.