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Charlotte McClain
Joined: 04 Oct 2008
Posts: 392
Location: Abu Dhabi, UAE
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 Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 2:40 pm Post subject: Slightly off topic |
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This is slightly off topic, but I remember when I was researching this whole thing years ago reading about the reason nobles were allowed to have sex with a bride before her husband. It wasn't just nobles taking advantage of things originally, but because men were so scared of what was "down there." The gentry was supposed to be so much braver and stronger that they could handle it. *snort*
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Angsty romance with scattered humor.
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Natalie
Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 1566
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| Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:21 pm Post subject: |
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I read a lot of romance novels in my teens and so expected the first time to be bloody and painful... but although it was uncomfortable there was not a single drop of blood involved! Talk about disappointment 
The hymen is fragile and can be destroyed by tampons or exercise (that's probably what happened to me). |
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Natalie
Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 1566
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| Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:24 pm Post subject: Re: So I'm not a total weirdo |
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| Charlotte McClain wrote: | | veasleyd1 wrote: |
With all due respect to the author of the above blog, although it didn't hurt much, I bled like a stuck pig, all the way through the sheet and mattress pad, a puddle the size of a dinner plate. |
Okay, I'm not a deformed weirdo. I also had pain and it wasn't right at the point of entry. When I wrote the one virgin sex scene I have written, I based it on my own experience. |
It's fine as long as you don't write it from the POV of man who feels some "barrier" (I'm pretty sure the men usually don't feel any barrier and are probably more concerned with the vagina being very tight  ) |
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Schola
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 1867
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:32 am Post subject: Re: Romance and the virginity myth |
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| Sterling_95 wrote: | | I'm not referring to the number of untouched women in romance, or even the number of multi-orgasmic virgins, I'm talking about the misconception of what virginity actually is. Evey biology textbook says that the hyman is a thin membrane that stretches across the opening of the vagina. Yet every romance - and I am saying EVERY romance - operates under the assumption that the hymen is some sort of bubble that's halfway up the vagina. Read a deflowering scene and the author is sure to talk about the hero "easing in until he felt the thin barrier/shield of her virginity". This is medically impossible, but even the more realistic romances operate under this myth. I'm frankly baffled as to the popularity of this myth and where it got started. |
+IHS+
Well, now I feel like the total weirdo, because I hadn't known that about the hymen until I read it here. 
My own experience has been limited to using tampons. I mean, if that membrane a few inches in that keeps the tampon from going all the way in isn't the hymen, then what is it? 
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"To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance." (G.K. Chesterton) |
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veasleyd1
Joined: 02 Dec 2007
Posts: 2064
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 6:21 am Post subject: Re: Romance and the virginity myth |
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| Schola wrote: |
My own experience has been limited to using tampons. I mean, if that membrane a few inches in that keeps the tampon from going all the way in isn't the hymen, then what is it? |
It's that funny little bump, whatever it may be called, in those black-and-white drawings I referred to. It's not a membrane that tears. Im told that it's more like the palate in the back of your throat -- it's floppy and will allow itself to be pushed around.
Virginia |
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Gail K.
Joined: 19 May 2007
Posts: 1292
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 8:42 am Post subject: |
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Anatomically, the hymenal tags encircle the vaginal opening. Externally. Remnant of embryonic development.
So it is probably men with certain, um, girth, rather than length, that make the most impact.  |
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dick
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 2246
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:46 am Post subject: |
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| Speaking for this male only, it did feel llike a barrier and breaking through it had an emotional impact of considerable power. Romance authors get that right, as far as I'm concerned, regardless of its location. |
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Natalie
Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 1566
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:14 am Post subject: |
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| dick wrote: | | Speaking for this male only, it did feel llike a barrier and breaking through it had an emotional impact of considerable power. Romance authors get that right, as far as I'm concerned, regardless of its location. |
That's not what I've been told (I mean the barrier, not the emotional impact). But it's good if it's true at least for some men. |
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willaful
Joined: 02 Jan 2008
Posts: 1468
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| Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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I ponder this question a lot. Okay, I have waaaaay too much time on my hands. But here we have an entire much-loved genre full of themes and cliches and tropes and what have you that are largely based on a fallacy. How many scenes are there in which the hero discovering the membrane/absence of membrane is a huge climactic plot-defining moment? More than we could count. You pretty much just have to let them flow over you, if you're going to enjoy reading romance at all.
What I often wonder is when this idea got started and whether it's had any real life implications for people. Was a bloody marriage bed really expected and what happened when it probably wasn't delivered? Did men really expect to be able to "tell" and what happened when they probably couldn't?
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"I say, don't read the classics -- try to discover your own classics; every life has its own." -- Rudolf Flesch, _How to Make Sense_ |
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veasleyd1
Joined: 02 Dec 2007
Posts: 2064
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| Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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| willaful wrote: | | Was a bloody marriage bed really expected and what happened when it probably wasn't delivered? |
First half of question. Yes. In some areas of Greece and southern Italy, it was the custom to hang the bloody sheets out the window of the bridal chamber the morning after.
Second half of question. In many rural regions, at least, the bride was provided with the neck of a recently slaughtered and not-yet-entirely-bled-out chicken to shake onto the sheets.
After all, the groom didn't want to be embarrassed by the public announcement that he had acquired a non-virgin bride, either. |
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Lynn M
Joined: 09 Apr 2007
Posts: 60
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| Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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What's rather frightening - in the real world and in romanclandia - are the countless virgins who were thought to be "impure" on their wedding nights when the husband expected a barrier but didn't find one.
And I'll admit, I'm an educated female who honestly didn't know that the hymen was located at the entrance rather than up a bit higher. This entire thread has been very illuminating! |
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willaful
Joined: 02 Jan 2008
Posts: 1468
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| Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Lynn M wrote: | | What's rather frightening - in the real world and in romanclandia - are the countless virgins who were thought to be "impure" on their wedding nights when the husband expected a barrier but didn't find one. |
Yes, that's exactly what I wonder about. Did that really happen and what happened next?
Another misconception I see a lot in romance is the idea that length of pregnancy is counted from conception. I don't know if it's different elsewhere or has changed over time, but in the US for the last 20 years at the very least, it's counted from the last period. I keep seeing plots that hinge on that fallacy, too and have to let them flow over me.
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"I say, don't read the classics -- try to discover your own classics; every life has its own." -- Rudolf Flesch, _How to Make Sense_ |
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Lynda X
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 1247
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| Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:40 am Post subject: |
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| I have read that plastic surgeons, especially in Asia, often "restore" a ruptured hymen, so it's clear that the importance of the hymen is still alive and well. I'm sure we've all read about the terrible honor killings of girls who have premarital sex in the Mid-East. |
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Schola
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 1867
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 10:43 am Post subject: |
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| willaful wrote: | | Lynn M wrote: | | What's rather frightening - in the real world and in romanclandia - are the countless virgins who were thought to be "impure" on their wedding nights when the husband expected a barrier but didn't find one. |
Yes, that's exactly what I wonder about. Did that really happen and what happened next? |
Something which started making sense to me after I this thread was posted was St. Augustine's description of the hymen as a "veil" for the female reproductive organs. Why would a veil be three inches in, I thought. Well, now I see . . .
Anyway, St. Augustine also wrote a bit about virgins who had their hymens torn by midwives, saying that of course they were still virgins, so I'm sure there were a reasonable number of enlightened men in the past.
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"To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance." (G.K. Chesterton) |
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Lynda X
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 1247
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 12:39 pm Post subject: |
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Schola wrote, "Anyway, St. Augustine also wrote a bit about virgins who had their hymens torn by midwives, saying that of course they were still virgins, so I'm sure there were a reasonable number of enlightened men in the past."
I'm not clear here, Schola. Did St. Augustine mean that the midwives tore the hymens of the virgins when they were newborns, or was he saying that when delivering a virgin birth (which, I assume he would believe happened only once), that the midwives tore the hymen? If it is the first, why would midwives be doing anything to a newborn girl like that? Is it part of the delivery of a daughter to make sure that the baby's canal is open? Is this checking standard procedure of having a girl baby, especially in the past in a time without surgery? |
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