Hymen Surgery: A New Booming Business

Savior from Social Disgrace For her 17th wedding anniversary, Jeanette Yarborough wanted to do something special for her husband. In addition to planning a hotel getaway for the weekend, Ms. Yarborough paid a surgeon $5,000 to reattach her hymen, making her appear to be a virgin again. Hymenoplasty, a controversial medical procedure known mostly for its prevalence in the Middle East and Latin America, is becoming popular in the U.S. Gynecologists are marketing hymenoplasty in magazines, local newspapers and online. They report business is booming. Once reserved for problems such as injuries related to childbirth, vaginal surgery is now being used for cosmetic purposes, as well as to avoid social disgrace. Women can even redesign the look of their private parts.

Named after Hymen, the Greek god of marriage, the vaginal membrane has since primitive times been a marker of virginity, even though it can be ruptured by nonsexual activity, such as athletics. Ridgewood Health and Beauty Center owner, Esmeralda Vanegas, says many of her patients risk disgracing their families if they’re not virgins on their wedding night. Many are Latin American immigrants. “Losing your virginity is like losing a member of your family,” Ms. Vanegas says. “We can make it seem like nothing ever happened.” Deception? Living a Lie?

A pretty expensive thing to do for one night!

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 15th, 2005 at 2:18 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.