Mainini Beatrice: Virginity, A big deal over a little blood

LOVE and BEAUTY with Mainini Beatrice

Virginity is still regarded as a precious commodity on the Zimbabwean marriage market, although there are some who are no longer taking it as seriously as before.

In my interactions with men, I have heard some bragging about “deflowering” a girl or two.

Others take a girl out and when they come to work the following day, they let everyone who cares to listen know that the girl they spent the night with was a virgin.

Some of those who find the girl is not a virgin sometimes badmouth her.

The truth is that many young men out there desire to marry a girl who is a virgin.

As a woman, I always wonder why men are also not held accountable for their virginity.

There are many ways through which a girl can lose her virginity without having had sexual intercourse.

But for a man, there is only one way to lose their virginity — and that is through having sex.

I think the pressure upon girls to prove to their men that they are virgins is just too much in our society and this can be attributed to their socialisation and cultural demands.

This has, as a result, made many a girl want to fake her status in various ways just to please a man and ensure their relationship leads to a successful marriage.

Although I do not support it, faking virginity is increasingly becoming necessary for many women.

I have discovered that there are so many ways a girl can fool even the most experienced man when it comes to faking virginity.

Before I delve into these methods, let me make it clear that letting the man know your true status from the start can prevent many troubles in the future.

The fact is that many men are conditioned on the expected behaviour of a girl who is a virgin and so many girls who no longer have their things intact just play into the minds of such men.

Girls who fake virginity know that acting shy and expressing fear due to “inexperience” is one of the things men who are after virgins expect to see in a girl.

The girl tries to express as much ignorance as possible on sexual issues, but without leaving themselves open to suspicion.

Such girls do not want the man to go too far when it comes to touching and can even threaten to stop the relationship altogether while expressing their fears, although they would have many years of experience in the game.

The girl who wants to pretend to be a virgin ensures that when her male partner attempts to run his hand up and down her body, they act as uncomfortable as possible.

They ensure that they set a distance between themselves and their partners and pretend to want to stop him from his moves, especially when fingers stray towards the waistline.

And when it comes to the actual act, such girls scream wildly and say how much the process hurts.

Some go to the extreme ends of inserting a bloodied sponge down there to ensure that at least there are some signs of a broken hymen as proof that everything was intact.

Others have been told how to go about the act so that the male partner gets the impression that she is “tight”.

The more devious wait for their menstrual period before allowing the man to have sex.

In some countries, people have come up with devices designed to help a woman fake her virginity.

The artificial hymen was made in China and can be ordered online.

Egypt once attempted to ban the device after it flooded the market because men were complaining that the artificial hymen was making a mockery of their supposed masculinity.

But what do you expect if society makes virginity a prerequisite to marriage and unnecessarily puts women under the spotlight?

It really is a cruel crazy world in which unmarried guys want to “test” if a girl is a virgin, yet come their wedding day, they want to take a virgin down the aisle.

My question is: where will a virgin be found after every man goes for girls who are virgins whom they do not want to marry?

It is time it also dawned on men that girls do not necessarily lose their virginity through sexual penetration.

There are many ways in which the hymen can be broken.

Research shows that some females are actually born without the hymen, while others break it through different activities later in life.

The hymen can be broken by riding a bike, by exercise or by tampons and this means the presence or absence of the hymen cannot be used as reliable evidence of virginity.

But men always whine that it is impossible to know that the girl is a virgin without the evidence of blood.

In some societies, if there was no blood on the first night of marriage, the girl is taken outside and publicly shamed — or even stoned.

Here in Zimbabwe, we all know that society used to take a bride’s virginity seriously. If there was no blood on the wedding night, the man would make a hole in a piece of cloth and show it to the girl’s aunties.

And the marriage would be reversed and the man refunded his lobola!

Such practices are no longer prevalent, but this has not stopped men from searching for virgins, a move that is promoting multiple sex partners and the spread of HIV.

My view on this matter is that men should not emphasise on virginity, but on love because there is no absolute way to be sure if a woman is a virgin or not.

Men’s love for their partners must not be influenced by virginity, but must be genuine for a long-lasting relationship.

I have witnessed many marriages that have irretrievably broken down because a man made a decision to marry just because the woman was a virgin.

There was never true love!