#hymen

[radmyalgic]

The Hymen Myth and Why It's a Total Lie

Let's talk about the whole "hymen as a freshness seal" myth. You wanna know how much of a lie the "you’re supposed to bleed your first time" or "the hymen is proof of virginity" is?

I had something called an imperforated hymen. Yup, it's a real condition. Look it up. Mine wasn’t completely sealed (i can't believe some people still think this is the norm like, how would we even menstruate. Anyway), it was "microperforated," but it still made my periods super painful and sex unbelievably worse. I bled, like, a lot the first times i had penetration, until I finally went to a gynecologist and learnt what was actually going on :') I had to get surgery. Yeah, SURGERY. General anesthesia, an incision, sutures, antibiotics—the whole deal. Apparently, it’s not even that uncommon of a procedure (nowadays obvs), they told me it's totally routine.

What’s actually supposed to happen is that as you grow older, your hymen becomes more elastic as you reach FULL —focus on COMPLETE– sexual maturity. And once you body is ready, you should be able to have pain-free sex. Easy peasy.

Here’s the thing: the hymen is elastic. Its purpose is NOT to be "broken" (seriously, how impractical would that be?), but to prevent infections during infancy. This means that, in my case, it could even 1 stretch every time, which was what originated the pain or 2 yeah, be torn by force. During history, as you can probably guess, option number 2 was the most common one, with its consequential bleeding.

So, if it is obviously not the norm, where does the idea of "bleeding during your first time" come from? Well, mostly rape. Women were routinely raped their first time, which lead to tearing and, thus, bleeding. (https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2214.2007.00818_7.x thanks @deadfish-inabarrel for the link, super interesting article)

So, if something hurts during penetration, INCLUDING YOUR FIRST TIME, stop immediately. Something’s wrong!!! You don’t have to endure it. Even if it were natural (spoiler: it’s not), you don’t have to go through it if you don’t want to.

And the most important part—get this ingrained in your brain, and make you all the younger girls you know understand: Pain. During. Sex. Is. Not. Normal.

[thewhisperofzagreus]

"On high the roof — Hymen (Hymenaeus)! — rise up, you carpenters! — the bridegroom is coming."

— Sappho, Fragment 111

[allegorypaintings]

Omnia Vincit Amor, or The Power of Love in the Three Elements

Artist: Benjamin West (American, 1738–1820)

Date: 1809

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, United States

Description

"Omnia vincit Amor," (Love triumphs over Everything) is a quotation from Virgil’s Eclogues. Venus, the goddess of love, is shown at the left with her attributes the doves and with her small son, Amor, armed with bow and arrows, clinging to her draperies. A young deity, presumably Hymen, god of marriage, brandishes a flaming torch with his right hand and grasps in his left cords that leash an eagle. The eagle symbolizes all the creatures living in the element Air, a hippocampus stands for those of the Water, and a lion for those on Earth. The fourth element, Fire, is implicit in the goddess herself, in the winged Amores, or little Loves, and most particularly in Hymen’s flaming torch.

[starstruckclownart]

What y'all know about the Erotes?? 🗣🩷

(Potentially more than me coz i just got into them lol)

[skykiuwu]

Completely unrelated fellas

[rjalker]

also, uh here's this

Medical illustration of an intersex vulva below the cut, from 1896.

So, you know what a lot of people are calling "sleeve" hymens?

Um.....yeah. Might be that. Might also mean you have a doubled vagina, at least as far as this gynecology textbook from 1986 was concerned. (It has a lot of problems, including pretty blatant white supremacist / antiblack racial phrenology, but it's one of the only things I've found mentioning "female" hypo- and epi- spadias aside from random posts by other intersex people.)

[ID: A scan of a book page showing a detailed pencil illustration of an intersex vulva, with the labia minora spread by two fingers, showing a sleeve-like protuberance emerging from the vaginal canal, with a circilar entrence inside it, and another, crescent shaped entrance next to it. Above this, in the middle of the vulva, is the urethra, surrounded by a triangle-shaped hood of tissue. At the top, the clitoris is hidden inside its own hood. End ID.]

[eirene]

Hymen, 1884 -1886 (Alternate Title: Wood Nymph) Thomas Wilmer Dewing & Marie Oakey Dewing

[dhddmods]

is it "normal" for the hymen to only be on one side of the vaginal opening?

Depends on what you mean. often people will only have a hymen at the top or bottom of the vagina.

You can see this post [link] and this post [link] for more on that.