Virgin Envy The Cultural Insignificance Of The Hymen Jonathan A Allan Cristina Santos Adriana Spahr by Jonathan A. Allan; Cristina Santos; Adriana Spahr 9781786990365, 1786990369 instant download after payment.

Virginity is of concern here, that is its utter messiness. At once valuable and detrimental, normative and deviant, undesirable and enviable. Virginity and its loss hold tremendous cultural significance. For many female virginity is still a universally accepted condition: something that is somehow bound to the hymen, whereas male virginity is almost as elusive as the G-spot: we know it is there, its just we have a harder time finding it. Of course boys are virgins, queers are virgins, some people reclaim their virginities, and others reject virginity from the get go. So what if we agree to forget the hymen all together? Might we start to see the instability of terms like untouched, pure or innocent? Might we question the act of sex, the very notion of relational sexuality, after all, for many people it is the sexual acts they dont do, or dont want to do, that carry the most abundant emotional clout. Virgin Envy is a collection of essays that look past the vestal virgins and beyond Joan of Arc. From medieval to present day literature, the output of HBO, Bollywood and the films of Abdellah Taia or Derek Jarman to the virginity testing of politically active women in Tahrir Square, the writers here explore the concept of virginity in todays world to show that ultimately virginity is a site around which our most basic beliefs about sexuality are confronted. A site from which we can come to understand some of our most basic anxieties, paranoias, fears and desires.