MYTH: If you use a tampon, you’re no longer a virgin

FACT: Virginity is a social construct

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A common myth about using inserted menstrual products is that it ‘takes your virginity’. Concerns about ‘breaking your hymen’ have led to the avoidance of using tampons and menstrual cups. To understand this, we need to answer two questions – what the hymen is and what virginity is defined as.

What is a hymen?

The hymen is a thin tissue that surrounds, or in rare cases partially covers, the vaginal opening.

It is a popular misconception that a tear or break in the hymen is a physical sign of loss of virginity. Newsflash – like the majority of your skin, the hymen stretches. It doesn’t ordinarily cover the entire vaginal opening, so would not need to be “broken” to allow for penetration. If it did this would affect other bodily functions like menstrual blood and discharge exiting the body and would need surgical intervention. Because it is a stretchy membrane, the hymen wouldn’t be affected by a tampon or other menstrual product, if properly inserted.

Why is virginity so interlinked with the hymen?

First up - virginity is a social construct.

When a person has sex for the first time, there is no biological change to the body. The idea of virginity has been made by society, not science.

The myth that vaginal sex for the first time results in pain and bleeding is not intrinsically linked with the hymen. These symptoms mostly occur because a person is not sexually aroused or is anxious, therefore their vagina is not self-lubricating or prepared for penetrative sex.

In some cultures, the hymen is construed as the only marker of a woman’s virginity. Sometimes women are made to undergo ‘virginity testing’ in which they are examined to see if they have an ‘intact’ hymen and are deemed ‘worthy of marriage’ and have certain status within their community. In 2018, UN called for virginity testing to end and deemed it “...a humiliating and traumatic practice, constituting it as violence against women.”

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Image: Charlotte Willcox, 2019