By David Futrelle
Ordinary science-believing idiot: The hymen doesn’t seem to perform any biological function and it’s not altogether clear why humans and some other mammals have it.
Incel genius: The hymen is a human “freshness seal” designed by evolution to reassure new husbands that their brides are virgins.
Once again, it’s time for a DUDE SCIENCE MOMENT, this one starring some guy in the Braincels subreddit who has some very strong feelings about the hymen — backed up by what he jokingly claims is a PhD in gynecology (there is no such thing).
According to incel Redditor CANNOT__BE__STOPPED,
The foid [female] hymen exists for one purpose only – to ensure the future husband that he is the first to fuck her and therefore she is likely disease free and any children are his biological children. …
The simple fact is that the hymen evolved specifically because men who married women with intact hymens were more likely to care for the children and thus they were more successful.
I’m going to have to bring out the “that’s not how any of this works” lady once again.
The hymen predates the institution of marriage, and that’s not how evolution works anyway. Also, there are other mammals with hymens, including elephants, llamas and whales, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a llama marriage ceremony. (Although that would admittedly be pretty cute.)
The one who cannot be stopped, naturally, continued:
Deep down the soy brain knows no hymen = whore. This cannot be debated.
But, alas, CANNOT_BE_STOPPED complained,
Unfortunately there seems to be a push these days from foids to try to dispel this truth. And the soy brain seems to be falling for it. I’ve seen all sorts of nonsense excuses from foids trying to claim why they don’t have a hymen. Horse riding, skateboarding accidents, sneezing too hard and gymnastics are just some of the stupid excuses foids claim.
Incel dudes, the hymen isn’t some magic penis-detecting organ that only pops when a real penis touches it. Sometimes it tears for some other reason, including some of the ones he himself listed — especially if the hymen-haver in question is doing them all at once, practicing gymnastics on the back of a skateboarding horse during hay fever season.
Conversely, the hymen doesn’t always tear when it does encounter a penis for the first time; sometimes it just stretches. Making things even more complicated, some future brides are born without a hymen at all.
Nonetheless, numerous commenter agreed wholeheartedly with the OP’s, er, analysis. One fellow called WasteApplication9 added some more “analysis” of his own, taking a potshot at “soy boy” critics in the process.
Why would the hymen exist if it didn’t serve some sort of purpose? It would’ve been evolved out as the pain disincentivizes women to have sex.
The purpose of the hymen is essentially proof that the women has not had sex before. Women who had a hymen had an advantage of those who weren’t born with one, as she could be a virgin but you’d never know.
Imagine refusing to drink soylent when the safety seal has been tampered with or removed while having sex with women without a seal.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A SEAL.
Still, there were more than a few skeptical voices in the comments; incels believe many terrible things, but they’re not all complete idiots. One pointed out, as I did above, that other animals have hymens — which another commenter “rebutted” by claiming that
It is the same thing. Biology works the same. There are incel animals too.
Bro, that doesn’t even make the slightest bit of sense.
And then there was a commenter who pointed out that hymens can be easily broken during masturbation. Another incel replied with a sarcastic comment that seemed to suggest that a virgin who used a dildo was just as much a slut as any non-virgin woman penetrated with a real penis.
So apparently these guys don’t only want virgins; they want dildo virgins too.
And they wonder why no woman wants to give them the time of day.
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This site hasn’t lately accepted my comments if they have links, but Dr. Jennifer Gunter’s blog has a new post that’s sort of related to the topic.
PSA:
…IS LIKE A FISH WITHOUT A BICYCLE
Apparently this is how women work:
https://pbfcomics.com/comics/preserves/
@Crip Dyke
Been skimming the latest articles on your blog. You’re an awesome writer! I’m adding it to my daily morning blogroll.
re: “another fine myth (actually the same one)…”
We do have to deal with the same myths regenerating every generation… mostly myths about sex, patriarchy and science. All of these myths serve the power structure, so we will likely have them for many generations hence.
I’m not surprised the geocentric model of the universe died, as it wasn’t really “close enough to home” to be worth defending after Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton. Flat-Earth, on the other hand is just an extension of the grade-school-level fantasy that everything is really a lie and only “I” understand (well, me and trump)…
Unfortunately, this grade-school-level fantasy has become the world view for a hundred million Americans.. who’s children will be dismayed to learn that the climate IS CHANGING no matter HOW HARD THEY “BELIEVE”…. 🙁
So, what do these PhDs in Anatomy think of foreskins? Nah, don’t really want to know.
@Moggie:
Thank you for the Adam Ruins segment as that was what I immediately thought of when I read this…uninformed…drivel. A friend had shown me that episode (along with others), but I couldn’t remember Adam’s name.
A lot of good information in that series.
Fingerprints are actually gripping patterns, like tire and shoe treads. The way they form seems to fold in entropy from the environment, making them random, presumably as a heuristic shortcut to be able to specify a grip-like pattern without a lot of persnickety “code”, rather than to make them uniquely identifiable.
Surplus: In other words, there’s DNA fingerprint but no fingerprint DNA.
I would actually pay money to see that.
It seems odd to me (as a man) to expect that most women would retain their hymen into adulthood, even in absence of penetrative sex, if it were true that the hymen breaks from first penetration. After all, don’t most teen girls at least try out tampons? Not to mention penetrative masturbation, or just sticking something in once for curiosity?
OK. That one guy might be serious, but generally one gets the impression that incels are just underestimating women’s own agency and activity with their vaginas. Or maybe outright refusing to consider it, because it disturbs their neat conceptual division of women into virgins and whores.
@lumpinua
Literally it depends on the thickness of an individual hymen. Ever one body is different which means everyone that has a hymen is different. You got a thin one it can break by like sitting to hard. You got a thick one you can feel it snap with penetrating sex like a rubber band (for the hymen haver mind you. No idea if the penis haver can feel it). I felt mine snap, but i also didn’t wear tampons as a teenager (and still don’t) and didn’t start experimenting with penetrating masturbation until after my assault.
The only thing this proves is that incels are really incapable of seeing women as individuals with individual bodies.
I must’ve had a damn thick hymen. I rode my bike all the time and could do the splits, and did so frequently. Yet, it didn’t tear or stretch at all. I couldn’t wear tampons until after I had PIV sex and I did bleed the first time. I tried to put in tampons, but they were a no go.
@Ohlmann:
Lainy – I’m sorry for your experience. Also, I think incels are dismissing (at least) both women’s individuality and bodily agency.
Thanks for Lainy and WWTH for information. I’ve sometimes seen sex ed materials advising girls/women on how to “stretch” before first intercourse, but I’ve actually never seen any discussion on how to insert tampon if you have an intact hymen. I’ve only heard, as someone noted on first comment page, that in some conservative cultures both tampon use and vaginal examination (by self of by doctor) are discouraged for “good girls”.
I think if I had a vagina and it came with an obstructive hymen, I’d be too scared to have PIV sex unless the hymen was first carefully manually broken, and some stretching practice performed. Plus I’d have done that out of curiosity anyway.
I remember hearing somewhere that there’s actually a type of disorder where a woman’s hymen forms a complete seal. It usually leads to infections very quickly because urine and menstrual blood can’t get out.
Urine should be able to get out anyway, though? But once you begin menstruating…
Now I totally want to see pictures of a llama wedding!
@Tara
Look no further than the previous page of comments. I posted a picture here.
Not everything in an organism has a purpose. The hymen is like vestigial nipples in non-natal humans: it’s a piece that serves a purpose in a penis, and evolution is too “lazy” to get rid of it in vaginas. The fact that this is not widely known speaks to how much we’re in denial of the fact that sexual dimorphism is a loosey goosey configuration of the same parts in different places, not a strict, essentialist binary.
@LG
Nipples aren’t fully vestigial in males. Men can lactate, and it’s likely that this serves the purpose of providing milk when the mother cannot produce it. In some cultures, male lactation is relatively common. As well, in a number of non-human species it’s the norm.
@Talonknife:
I remember hearing somewhere that there’s actually a type of disorder where a woman’s hymen forms a complete seal. It usually leads to infections very quickly because urine and menstrual blood can’t get out.
It’s called imperforate hymen, and medical intervention is required to open the hymen to release menstrual blood (the urethra is far enough above the vaginal opening that urine flow shouldn’t be impeded at all by the hymen.
No-one has explained why the hymen existed in the first place. If it is vestigial then at one point it served a function. We might need to conclude that God designed it
Dan, not so fast my dude!
There actually is a potential* explanation for why hymens were evolutionarily advantageous. You see, in infants, the human hymen is a LOT more rigid, which is useful for helping prevent the little tyke from getting a ton of bacterial infections when they aren’t as capable of keeping clean. Post toddlerhood (in humans) they (probably) cease to have much of a purpose.
As can be expected, not dying as a baby is evolutionarily advantageous, and a system to not die as a baby from infections would be expected to stick around.
Since the hymen doesn’t do much to prevent/reduce infection once we’re capable of maintaining our own hygiene, there wouldn’t actually be much selective pressure one way or another on maintaining the structure.
*note: potential solution. No one’s done a study where they purposefully mess with little babies to see if they are more susceptible to infection, to the best of my knowledge. Like, SO MANY ethical problems there.