Value Of Virginity
Fake virgins. A growing number of Chinese women … are opting for a surgical procedure called “hymen restoration,” which returns the hymen to its condition before it was ruptured. … Many men, including white-collar professionals, say they want to marry a virgin. And increasingly liberated Chinese women have found a way to oblige them. …
Zhou, 44, said most of her patients are sexually active young women who are about to marry and have told their future husbands they are virgins. … For as little as … about $737, for a 20-to-30-minute procedure. … “It’s just a white lie,” Zhou said. And she blames men for having unrealistic expectations. … “It’s really worthless for couples to break up over this small issue,” said the woman, who asked not to be quoted by name. …
Some sociologists and others have criticized the virginity obsession as emblematic of a male-dominated society in which women are viewed as sex objects. … “Women demand men have houses and cars, why can’t men demand women be virgins?” asked one man. (more)
It seems to me many men really do have a strong preference for virginity, and are willing to pay a high price for it in a marriage bargain. This male preference for virgins seems as legitimate as the female preference for high status husbands. So it can do husbands a great harm to deceive them about virginity.
Imagine a woman married a man in part because of his great job and income, and as soon as she has his first kid he reveals that it was a fake; his parents had paid for a temporary high-status job and big house/car/etc. so she could give them a high quality grandkid. Now that the kid has arrived, husband goes back to being a janitor with a bike and one-room apartment. What if the man said, “It’s really worthless for couples to break up over this small issue.”
Added 10p: Wow, I go away for ten hours and 50 comments appear. I didn’t claim male status is exactly like female virginity in all its effects, nor did I claim such preferences are independent of culture. The relevant issues seem to me to be the strength of preference, which it seems to be are often similar, and whether a preference is for some exceptional reason illegitimate. I accept most preferences as legitimate, and haven’t heard a good reason why male preference for virgins is illegitimate. Surely the fact that a preference is influenced by culture is not a reason by itself to consider that preference illegitimate.
What a finely worded load of hogwash that only serves to teach that misogynism is clearly still rampant in contemporary society.
Let me attempt to clarify what you've stated, Veritas... You believe that "women" (please note Veritas broadly generalized to ALL women) are less valuable with sexual experience, because to explore that "perfectly natural " (<- my words) aspect of herself would make her a "hedonist," of lower moral "character," unable to "bond" with her future husband, potentially causing him to seek pornography or other younger "specimens" to bed.
Also, note that the broad category of "men" in Veritas diatribe are allowed these excesses without any judgment whatsoever because even a female "feels like its good because other women found him desirable." Curiously too, note the ultimate power Veritas confers upon women with these implications. Curiouser and curiouser...
I wouldnt waste my time on a clearly, close-minded individual like this self-proclaimed "truth" teller (who I'm sensing is either male or heavily indoctrinated into the patriarchy, though Veritas happened to be a female goddess of truth in antiquity. The irony is certainly not lost on me.), exvept that others read your rhetoric and risk believing it because it 'almost' sounds well thought-out. Frankly, your prosaic logical falacies don't deserve a considerate response, except to PREVENT indoctrination (which you paradoxically accuse of making women think they deserve equal treatment in the world).
In making sweeping generalizations of the entire human population, Veritas, you have proven your lack of true consideration for this (and I suspect many other) topics. Worse yet is how, in your narrow egocentric view, you clearly envision half the population as merely reflections of their testosterone-dominated counterparts, with the sole purpose of pleasing men. If you are a male, then I either pity your wife, or know you don't have one. I am not sure who indoctrinated you with this drivel, but I truly hope you can step out of your opaque little ego-bubble at some point and realize -
ITS NOT ABOUT YOU. WOMEN ARE NOT HERE FOR MEN. NOT ONE IOTA. Regardless of what some heavily edited piece of 2000 year old literature implies with allegories about ribs and apple and snakes, women are independent creatures, who men have been trying to suppress since the days of our switch from hunter-gatherer to an agricultural society, because of our ultimate VALUE to society.
The drive for purity in women has less to do (at least initially) with preference and more to do with men wanting to be sure their offspring were their own. A woman ultimately has all the power, by the nature of her physical ability to bear children. Men can certainly go around sewing their proverbial wild oats, but the only way men knew that baby-daddy was themeselves, was thru sequestering his females somewhere that other men couldn't potentially 'ruin' her and then guarding her with the sword. Then subsequently increasingly objectifying, devaluing and demeaning her in society with the threat of astracism should she not obey him. Its a clever scheme and was historically quite successful (and men project all manipulative behavior on women. Ha!). It's been utterly abusive since the we realized that a woman's life was worth at least that of her potential offspring, so she shouldn't be allowed on battlefields (otherwise where would we get the next generation of soldiers?), whereas a male was expendable. You implied it yourself; he can seed a thousand females. She can only bear one, maybe two offspring a year, but she can be impregnated by any male. Thus, for the sake of certain men's frail egos, women became objects to them, and by virtue of women's physical constraiints and her inability to protect herself well from the highly militant masculine half of the population, she acquiesced.
Mind you, I don't pretend to think this is absolute truth, only the culmination of carefully researched scholarly theses from archeological data, ancient texts, etc. The fact is that men and women are increasingly able to sidestep the constraints of early civilization through education equality and availability in this "zeitgeist," and technologies which allow us to prevent birth or confirm patronage. Women's sexual liberation has little to do with "what men want", but what SHE wants and is safely able to CHOOSE FOR HERSELF, and frankly that is exactly as it should be.
As Mark Twain (whom i see you equate yourself with Mr. Veritas) said, "The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in woman's construction, is this: There shall be no limit put upon your intercourse with the other sex sexually, at any time of life.
"The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in man's construction, is this: During your entire life you shall be under inflexible limits and restrictions, sexually."
"...That is the law of God, as revealed in her make. What becomes of this high privilege? Does she live in the free enjoyment of it? No. Nowhere in the whole world. She is robbed of it everywhere.
"Who does this? Man. Man's statutes-if the Bible IS the Word of God.
"Now you have a sample of man's "reasoning powers," as he calls them. He observes certain facts. For instance, that in all his life he never sees the day that he can satisfy one woman; also, that no woman ever sees the day that she can't overwork, and defeat, and put out of commission any ten masculine plants that can be put to bed to her..."--From "Letters from the Earth," 'Letter VIII, ' by Mark Twain, 1941, Harper & Row, Publishers, pg 40-1
And THAT is the reason men are so determined to constrain women, in my humble opinion. I think men are just jealous. ;-p
where did he get the power to have a preference for his own mate? do you even hear yourself? and spoken like a true cuckold.