Gadget to help women feign virginity angers many in Egypt
Conservatives
condemn the Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit as technology that will promote
promiscuity. Others say the furor over the device
raises disturbing questions about double standards.
Whether it's seen as a clever little gadget to help a woman keep
a secret or a devilish deception that threatens Islam, the Artificial Virginity
Hymen Kit is not welcome in Egypt.
The kit allows a bride who is not a virgin to pretend that she is. A pouch
inserted into the vagina on her wedding night ruptures and leaks a
blood-like liquid designed to trick a new husband into believing
that his wife is chaste. It's a wink of ingenuity to soothe a man's ego and
keep the dowry intact.
Egyptian conservatives condemn the device as technology that will promote
promiscuity in a culture that forbids premarital sex. Their
protests are arising in a nation that over the last 40 years has
gone from miniskirts and secularism to hijabs and religious devotion. But
seldom have conservatives faced such brazen advertising.
"No more worry about losing your virginity. With this product, you can
have your first night back any time," states the website of Gigimo, a
Chinese mail-order company that sells the kit and other sexual
products, including sex dolls and bondage toys, worldwide. "Add in a few
moans and groans, you will pass through
undetectable."
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls 20% of the seats in
Egypt's parliament, have called for banning the kit and arresting
anyone selling it on the black market. Cleric Abdul Moeti
Bayoumi has issued a fatwa urging that peddlers of the $29.90 device be charged
with banditry and punished for spreading immorality and
sin.
"Egyptian girls are normally afraid to lose their virginity before
marriage," Sayed Askar, a lawmaker and member of the Muslim
Brotherhood, recently told parliament. "A product like that can make it
easier and tempting for girls who don't have strong wills to commit
such a sin. It will be a crying shame and a blot on the government
if they allow the selling of this product in our markets."
Lina Samaan, an accountant, said the furor raises disturbing questions
about her country and the double standards that often apply to
women:
"I think it's a shame that we are discussing a product like this. If most
girls don't have sex prior to marriage only because they want to keep
virginity, then there is something wrong with the way we think,"
she said. "Sex is a right for every woman but unfortunately we started
turning to products like these because men -- even
non-religious ones who have sex before marriage -- wouldn't marry
a girl if she's not
virgin."
The emotion over the kit speaks to a traditional society that is
increasingly pious, whether it's rich professionals seeking moderate Islam on
websites of progressive imams or poor and middle-class families
adopting strict religion as a buttress to the influence of Western media and
a loss of confidence in a state that has failed to
provide prosperity.
The government of President Hosni Mubarak is troubled by ultraconservative
Islam imported from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf.
Egypt's leading Muslim cleric, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, is
considering forbidding the niqab, or face veil, at the university and schools run
by Al Azhar, Sunni Islam's top educational institution. A
similar edict barring nurses from wearing niqabs has been loosely enforced.
The Egyptian media quoted Tantawi telling a student that the "niqab
has nothing to do with Islam. . . . I know about religion better than you
and your parents."
Many parents, however, did not grow up with the economic and social
problems that their children face. Single women have traditionally
lived with their families until they found a husband. But
today's inflation, joblessness and poverty are forcing many couples to delay marriage
until money is saved and dowries are
accumulated. With men and women single longer, dating, breakups and natural impulses challenge
religion and tradition.
"Having something like the virginity kit can cause complete mayhem within
the Egyptian social life," said Farid Ismael, a member of
parliament's health committee. "It can lead to the spreading of vice and
the loss of all the good morals and values we had and that totally
contradicts with our Islamic beliefs."
The kit -- like surgical repairs to the hymen that Middle Eastern women
have relied upon for years -- is marketed to offer a sleight of hand.
Such secrets keep prospective brides in the graces of their
families and avoid what in rare cases are honor killings of women accused of
promiscuity.
Choosing to have "sex or not is something every girl and woman should
decide regardless of the society's perspective toward her," said
Samaan, the accountant. "Even if she is religious then she shouldn't
do it because of her religious belief and not in fear of other people or
fear that she will not get married if she's not a virgin."
"If a girl decided to have sex before marriage," she added, "then God
already knows it and she shouldn't hide it from anyone else."
Courtsey of
http://www.latimes.com
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