A FATHER'S LETTER TO HER DAUGHTER ABOUT VRGINITY!

Open Letter to My Daughter on Her Birthday

Dear Zip,

On this occasion of your birthday, I wish to discuss with you a very important issue parents (especially fathers) hardly have the courage to discuss with their daughters; the issue of virginity. I know you won't be embarrassed because this is not the first time I discuss issues like this with you. 

Remember in one of my previous letters, I told you that, unlike the boy child, the girl-child has some of her sex organs inside her body. One of these internal sex organs is the vagina. The vagina is the passage leading from the woman’s womb to the outside of her body. Zip, my daughter, it may interest you to know, that from birth, a piece of tissue or membrane called hymen covers the opening of the vagina leaving just a small opening that is typically the size of a finger. It is through this small opening that the menstrual blood and the clear or whitish vaginal secretions are discharged. The Yorùbás of southwest Nigeria call this material element (the hymen) ibale.

1. Hymen and Virginity:

Zip, in the past, the hymen was synonymous to virginity. This was because the hymen was the visible evidence that the young lady is a virgin. Then, virginity tests were conducted for young ladies by checking for the hymen. If the hymen was found intact, the young woman was said to be a virgin but if the hymen had broken the lady is said to have been de-virginized. 

In recent times, however, the old practice of checking for a woman’s hymen to determine if she is a virgin is being thrown out. There are about two reasons for this. One, medical science has established the fact that some women are born without fully intact hymens while some are born with no hymens at all. Two, it has also been discovered that the membrane is so thin that it often breaks by itself with normal physical activity like running, gymnastic or horseback riding. Hence, there is a need for a better understanding of the concept called virginity.

2. Better Understanding of Virginity:

Virginity, better understood, has two elements. The first is the material element which the hymen stands for. The presence of this material element simply suggests that the young lady has not had penile-vaginal intercourse. That is, her vagina has not been penetrated sexually.

The second element of virginity is called the formal element. This formal element involves total abstinence from any form of voluntary, intentional or deliberate sexual pleasure. Thus, to be a virgin does not only mean abstinence from penile-vaginal intercourse but it also mean abstinence from any act that could lead to sexual arousal and pleasure such as sexual kissing, masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, sex chatting, phone sex or any other kinds of sex. Consequently, Zip, my daughter, it is possible for a young lady to have her material virginity (the hymen) intact and still be a sexual-immoral because it is possible to have sexual pleasure without penile-vaginal intercourse. Do you understand that? The moment a young lady experienced sexual pleasure, in whatever form, her virginity is gone. She could no longer claim to be innocent; whereas, virginity means innocence. It means inexperience.

With this understanding, therefore, virginity is not just the presence of the hymen but a “state or condition of being pure, fresh, or unused” as well as a state of sexual innocence and inexperience. Thus, a virgin then, is not just a person who has her hymen intact; rather, she is a person who is sexually untouched, unblemished, uncorrupted, spotless, inexperienced, innocent, and naive.

Zip, keep your innocence till you are married. Happy birthday!

Your Loving Dad,
'Tunde

Written by ‘Tunde Alabi of FHL Family Life Network

 




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