Cosmetic Surgery & Virgins

Somehow I keep reverting to that most ambiguous and mysterious places on the planet- the Middle East.

While the tumultuous newsflashes are as much to blame for my constant visits, it is also the plastic surgery trends in this region that draw me. There is a wave of change going about in the Arab countries no doubt, but certain aspects look like they are still soaking and dripping with hardcore tradition.

I’m talking about the Islamic conception of virginity which is insisted on being followed by unmarried women. A woman who is believed to have a ruptured hymen is not ‘respectable’ and has no status in Islamic society.

Driven by this need for hymen-preservation, women studying and living abroad and no longer ‘virgins’ have a cosmetic surgery procedure in the vaginal area called hymenoplasty.

This plastic surgery procedure is of a reconstructive nature and rebuilds the hymen, the membrane known to rupture when a woman undergoes intense physical disturbance or in this case, intercourse. While medical science no longer accepts the hymen as an indicator of virginity, some parts of the world are less inclined to think so.

A hymenoplasty, like most other plastic surgery procedures generally requested by women of Arabic descent or living in the Middle East, is usually hushed up. Lack of solid figures is the main reason why this trend cannot be studied in detail.

Change is inevitable and thankfully remains one thing that can be trusted to endure. Hopefully, it should remove the need for women to prove their virginity to society, not only in the Middle East but also in other similar societies.

Do you have a story to tell us and the world? Post it in at the Plastic Surgery Institute of California, one of the most trusted and acclaimed cosmetic surgery practices in the U.S.