Female Virginity

[Enec]

I don't quite know how to put this. It's sort of about the technical details of virginity (intact hymen).

My memories of childhood sexual abuse are quite fragmented. There are memories that suggest rape when viewed through an adults mind.

But my therapist asked about losing virginity today, and my first sexual experience that I remember as a sexual experience was being raped at 15. And she asked something about pain and blood, but there was no pain or blood. I think perhaps my confusion showed about this, and she moved off the subject, saying lets leave virginity for now and talk about this incident.

It's only later I realise she was talking about the loss of virginity physically - the hymen being broken. There is meant to be blood associated with that, right? And in that sense, i don't know when my virginity was lost. But I have a stark memory of my sister hurting herself, riding a little bike and bumping herself and there being blood coming from her vagina. I remember the feeling that it was something very serious and running to get my mum.

So the hymen can be broken by lots of things can't it? I don't know how common it is for young women to still be intact? I don't know what is normal, and I wanted to ask advice about what happens normally to physical virginity>

 

[Fumet]

I don't know a lot about this, however, I don't think it is something to spend too much time worrying about.

My understanding is that not all hymens are the same, and that they thin as we age. They also gradually wear away, and therefore can be pretty much non-existant by teenage years. If the hymen was fully intact how would virgins menstruate? They can also be torn by exercise or even something as simple a stretching or washing.

I believe that it's a myth that there is pain and bleeding from first sexual encounter.

Personally, I was not aware of my hymen ever 'breaking'. I certainly didn't bleed the first time I had sex. I did bleed when I was raped, but I wasn't a virgin, but that was due to rough penetration damaging delicate tissue, not because I was a virgin.

I think your therapist is wrong to believe and even suggest to you that you should have had pain and blood just because you were a virgin.

 

[Enec]

Thank you. That's what I needed to hear.

I wrote that not long after therapy, and I think it was more a panicked reaction and may be reading too much into my therapists line of enquiry.

 

[Sacuf]

Hymens are broken early and often. Sometimes there is pain and blood, not always.

I'm sorry your therapist put pressure on you. I think of "losing my virginity" as the first time I said out loud "I want to have sex with you." Things that happened without my consent don't count.

 

[Ozij]

Things that happened without my consent don't count.

Well said. I think that is the right attitude.