10-07-2009, 11:12 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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Junkie
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Sick and sad products
Well, in certain parts of the world there is apparently an unmet need that some enterprising business people are seeking to fill:
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If you're a woman in a conservative Muslim country, you had better bleed on your wedding night. If you don't, your husband or his family will know you aren't a virgin. For that, you could be beaten or killed.
If you're a man, on the other hand, all you have to do on your wedding night is ejaculate. Nobody expects you to bleed or produce any other proof of virginity.
Some day, this barbaric and hypocritical tradition will end. Until then, the best we can do is fool it. You want blood on your wedding night? We'll give you blood. Fake blood.
For many years, doctors have quietly offered hymenoplasty, a procedure that restores your hymen so you can fake virginity on your wedding night. And now you don't even need a doctor. Joseph Freeman of the Associated Press reports:
The Artificial Virginity Hymen kit, distributed by the Chinese company Gigimo, costs about $30. It is intended to help newly married women fool their husbands into believing they are virgins—culturally important in a conservative Middle East where sex before marriage is considered by many to be illicit. The product leaks a blood-like substance when inserted and broken. Gigimo advertises shipping to every Arab country.
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And because such a product really is a form of fraud (of course), " Egyptian lawmakers want to ban fake hymen:"
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Conservative Egyptian lawmakers have called for a ban on imports of a Chinese-made kit meant to help women fake their virginity and one scholar has even called for the "exile" of anyone who imports or uses it.
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The fracas started when a reporter from Radio Netherlands broadcast an Arabic translation of the Chinese advertisement of the product. That set off fears of conservative parliament members that Egyptian women might start ordering the kits.
Sheik Sayed Askar, a member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood who is on the parliamentary committee on religious affairs, said the kit will make it easier for Egyptian women to give in to temptation. He demanded the government take responsibility for fighting the product to uphold Egyptian and Arab values.
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Prominent Egyptian religious scholar Abdel Moati Bayoumi said anyone who imports the artificial hymen should be punished.
"This product encourages illicit sexual relations. Islamic culture forbids these relations except within the confines of marriage," Bayoumi said. "I think this should absolutely not be allowed to be exported because it brings more harm than benefits. Whoever does it (imports it) should be punished."
In a country and a region where pre-marital sex is so taboo it can even lead to a woman's murder, the debate over the virginity-faking kit has revived Egypt's constant struggle to reconcile modern mores with more traditional beliefs — namely, that a woman is not a virgin unless she bleeds after the first time.
"Bleeding is not the only signal that yes, she's a virgin," said Heba Kotb, an observant Muslim woman who hosts a sex talk show on TV in which she fields calls from all over the Middle East.
Kotb noted that a medical procedure that reattaches a broken hymen by stitching is illegal in Egypt and can cost hundreds of dollars — prohibitively expensive for the poor. But many women still secretly seek it out in fear of punishment for pre-marital sex.
Such punishment could include slayings at the hands of relatives, a practice more commonly referred to as honor killings and common in the more conservative tribal areas of the Middle East.
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Egypt is a sinkhole of poverty and illiberal politics. But for stuff like this they have energy to spare. There's no explaining culture, I guess.
But I'd also like to know what led the Chinese to come up with this product. Is China still such a patriarchal country that people even think of stuff like this?
---------- Post added at 07:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:44 PM ----------
Oh, I almost forgot. You can order the product online here - the page has pictures of the product and a description. |
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