The virgin bride fantasy? ~ HEALTH BLOG

The epithet ‘India-the land of Kamasutra’ brings to many a westerner’s mind the image of a highly-sexed country with its people being preoccupied in mind-boggling orgies, involving exotic women, discovering fantastic new sex positions. The reality of the situation is not half as fun. In a country where marriages are predominantly decided and arranged by families, virginity is a sought-after ‘virtue’ in the prospective wife andmissionary is the most preferred position.

Times are changing and the Weltanschauung of the Indian people has also changed, but in a more spotty manner. The number of youth engaging in premarital sex has steadily risen over the years. People have greater access to world news, foreign cultures, fashion trends and western outlook primarily through television and now through the internet. Teenagers and college-goers enjoy more freedom, than they did a decade ago, to interact with the opposite sex. They naturally indulge their raging hormones through experimentation with their sexuality. But for all this new-found sexual liberation, there are darker truths lurking in the ‘Indian culture’, a phrase that has pejorative connotations since it is often used as a shield to cover-up burning issues such as patriarchy, sexual repression, misogyny and several more. Indian society being a cloistered one, it is unsurprising that sex education remains a controversial topic since it is “embarrassing” and has no place in the “Indian ethos”. There is no uniform method to disseminate this valuable tool and most people rely on television and other media for any knowledge about sex.

However, sexual curiosity does not wait for policies to be framed or important knowledge to be gleaned from classroom interactions. A large majority of unmarried men engages in premarital sex either with their girlfriends or with prostitutes (a significant number continues to engage in sex with prostitutes after marriage). Women are not significantly lagging in numbers, though most women claim that the existence of a love relationship is important for premarital sex. Notwithstanding this progression, arranged marriages are a dominating trend even in recent times. And when it comes to arranged marriages, men, despite their own previous sexual exploits, prefer their wives to be virgins. This incongruity in men’s past actions and their future desires is a widely known form of double standard and it does not depart from the ‘Indian culture’.

To make better sense out of this hypocrisy, it becomes crucial to know how virginity is perceived by both men and women. So what is the deal with virginity anyway? At the bottom of it all, lies the notion that a virgin is ‘pure’ and ‘chaste’. She is unfamiliar with intimacy and men, in general. It is important for her to protect her purity and she does not give her virginity away easily. The implication follows that an unmarried woman who is not a virgin is ‘corrupt’; like a disposable object she is ‘defiled’ after her first sexual intercourse. The gift wrapper called hymen has been discarded and the gift of her virginity has been given to her first lover. The man is the ‘taker’ of her chastity and this first right lies with the husband. Hence, the tissue called hymen, which once lost becomes irreclaimable, is considered extremely precious in patriarchal ideology. Wives belong to their husbands as their rightful property. Unlike western countries that have long since adopted the practice of both the husband and the wife wearing wedding rings, the Indian wife alone is marked by her husband through the sindoor and the mangalsutra, indicating absolute ownership.

Unlike the west that is mostly sexually liberated, sex is a closeted activity in India and it is rarely discussed seriously; even academic studies are sparse on the subject. The lack of a proper understanding of sex and one’s own sexuality has consequences on the sexual relationships of the people. The manifestations of this absence of awareness are manifold.

Following traditional ideas, men opting for an arranged marriage emphasize on choosing ‘pure’ women. Most of these men are sexually inexperienced and some even virgins. They naturally seek virgin wives through arranged marriages. There is no easy way to ensure that the wife is a virgin and families cannot openly demand for one; they imply it using euphemisms such as ‘a girl with traditional Indian morals’, when searching for a suitable bride. The very thought that his wife could have had premarital sex fills a man with revulsion. Though the wife’s past sexual experiences have no real bearing on her being a good wife or a mother, she is denounced by her husband till she is adequately repentant. It can get excruciatingly stressful for both the husband and the wife, so general wisdom dictates that the topic of the wife’s virginity should never be broached. This disingenuous attitude helps the smooth functioning of the relationship.

There is another section of the Indian society that has progressed enough to allow its men and women to choose love marriages, a discrete term distinguishing it from ‘arranged marriages’. Love marriages are not an uncommon phenomenon and the numbers are steadily on the rise. Men and women, departing from tradition, make their individual choices more freely and sex is not a taboo topic for these people. The issue of virginity is topmost on people’s minds even then. But how openly is it discussed or does it need to be discussed at all? There are men who do not expect their wives to be virgins. However, this acceptance usually comes with a threshold. Perhaps, if the wife has had one lover in the past, it does not trouble the husband. Two lovers can be a little more disturbing. Three and she is a slut! Also, she must not have had one-night stands. That is indicative of a loose character. And then there are the educated, middle-class men who pay lip service to the progressive idea that virginity is not an issue. The same men, without batting an eyelid, carefully emphasize on choosing ‘a traditional girl’ (read: hymen must be intact). This is the infamous Indian double standard at work.

Once again, men who are aware that their wives are not virgins, prefer to bury their heads in oblivion when it comes to the number of past lovers. Jealousy and insecurity follow; jealous, because she might have enjoyed the sexual encounter and insecure because he wonders if he is being compared to the wife’s past lover(s). However, these anxieties get resolved in the due course of the marriage when the husband is convinced of the wife’s loyalty to him.

So why does a woman’s sexual experience often distress a man? A sexually inexperienced wife allows the man to dominate her and ‘show’ her how things are done and also gives him sanction to explore his sexual deviancies unchecked by her inexperience. It threatens the fragile masculine ego if the wife knows what she wants from sex and perhaps it may happen that he cannot meet them. It is a perfect occasion for his ineptitude to surface and the consequences are disastrous to the man’s ego. It also means that he has to go that extra mile to sexually satisfy her. At the surface of this male desire to dominate, is the idea of ‘purity’. The negative associations of an ‘impure’ woman may not be easily identified, but nonetheless play an huge role in how the ideal wife ought to be.

It does not then come as a surprise that hymenoplasty has a growing market in India. A society in which women alone are increasing becoming progressive, experimenting with pre-marital sex, men who are yet to break-free from sexual conventionality are left behind, impeding the healthy growth of the society by having unattainable moral standards that only women are expected to meet. Women then adopt deceitful techniques like hymenoplasty to hoodwink husbands into thinking that they are virgins. How can a marriage possibly be a success, in the event of this colossal deceit? Such procedures only serve to reinforce the male dominance over women.

A person’s past, irrespective of the gender, has no active role to play in the person’s married life. There should be no room for petty jealousies, suspicions and secrets in a marriage and this is easily achieved through mutual respect and trust. Is it hard to love and respect a person for his/her personal choices? It is important to remember that sex predates ‘Indian culture’ and it is perfectly natural for women to want it and enjoy it too.

http://madperiodwoman.wordpress.com

SOURCE: