"No more worry about losing your virginity. With this product, you can have your first night back anytime. Insert this artificial hymen into your vagina carefully. It will expand a little and make you feel tight. When your lover penetrate, it will ooze out a liquid that look like blood not too much but just the right amount. Add in a few moans and groans, you will pass through undetectable. Its easy to use, clinically proven non-toxic to human and has no side effects, no pain to use and no allergic reaction."
Ahem. The product, which sells for $29.99 (discount applied if you buy in bulk!), has been on the international sex toy market for a while now, mocked universally by feminists and bloggers, and yet quietly selling away.
But last week, Egyptian politicians called for a ban on the device, condemning it as a product that promotes promiscuity. The Muslim Brotherhood, which controls 20 percent of the seats in Egypt's parliament, called the re-virginizing kit a "mark of shame" and expressed plans to arrest anyone who hawks it on the black market--peddlers could be charged with "banditry and punished for spreading immorality and sin," according to the LA Times.
It's hard to wrap one's head around the fact that a jokey, kind-of-gross novelty item like the Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit could stir this kind of outrage, but to Egyptians, virginity is no laughing matter. Egypt's Islamic culture strictly forbids premarital sex and any type of deflowering before a woman's wedding night can lead to her violent punishment or even death. Though Egypt is considered more liberal than many Middle Eastern countries, it still reports "honor" killings each year. These murders can involve everything from stoning and beating to hanging and beheading. They are conducted in cold blood, usually by male family members, when a victim is thought to have brought dishonor upon her family or community. Having sex before marriage would be considered one such dishonorable behavior.
Because of these severe conditions, for years, young Egyptian women have sought out a plastic surgery technique that reattaches and stitches up broken hymens. Reminiscent of back alley abortions, the procedure is illegal and costs hundreds of dollars, making it dangerous and prohibitively pricey for the poor. As ridiculous as the Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit may seem to us (and honestly, even more ridiculous is what dumbass man with no experience of a vagina would be fooled by it), it could possibly be, quite literally, a lifesaver for less fortunate women living under oppressive, unthinkable conditions all over the world.
Sources: LA Times, Telegraph
