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Not
Exactly Like A Virgin
By Su Ciampa I love my gynecologist. These are words I never thought I would utter. But I can’t help it. She finally did what no man could. She took my virginity. As you may know, medical science has advanced, or regressed, to the point of being able to restore one’s virginity by reconstructing the hymen. But what I sought was the exact opposite—to have this much-praised bit of female anatomy deleted. While you might find it strange to willfully lose your virginity via medical science, this seems entirely appropriate in the comedy of errors that is my attempted sex life. Not so long ago, I was a twenty-three year old virgin, not because of religious righteousness or childhood abuse or romantic idealism or because I am abjectly displeasing to the opposite sex, but because I was straight-up terrified of penetration. This can be broken down into a subset of the classic fears, including fear of intimacy, fear of pregnancy, and fear of being a bad lay, but essentially it’s an issue of physical pain. Hymens vary greatly with each individual. Some are wispy, ethereal half-moons, the tearing of which is a mere formality. I recently discovered during a consultation with my gynecologist that mine is akin to a horse’s hoof, which accounts for the failure of amateur attempts to penetrate it. It’s not simply a matter of needing to be in the right relationship, coddled by trust so nature can take its course. I spent three years with one very patient and devoted man, but Tab A didn’t fit into Slot B no matter what we tried. (Believe me, we tried.) The fact that our attempts caused severe physical pain baffled us both. Fed up with virginity when that relationship ended, I constructed a full-on campaign to lose it. I started taking the pill and carrying condoms. I developed plans that hinged on improbable circumstances and a lot of Jack Daniels. Plan A: Make inebriated pact with male friend with whom secret would be safe, dually taking care of business and giving us something to laugh about in our forties. Plan B: Drink self under table and have it off with complete stranger, ESL preferred, never to be seen again, thus releasing me from possible long-term embarrassment. Plan C: Sleep with man I am actually attracted to without revealing my great white secret. Plan abandoned; depended too heavily upon proper lighting and ability to morph expressions of agony into something akin to primal desire. The problem was that even on a full tank of whiskey backed by Marvin Gaye, I fell apart. I knew that I would knock over the whiskey, the record would skip, and all I would be able to do would be to try to make a break for it in the confusion, leaving one more confused and frustrated boy in a cloud of blue smoke. This left me to do—what? Waylay all possible lovers with the back story? A preface, young swain, before you make free with my narrow loins! Embrace a life of celibacy? Place a personal ad in search of a man with a small penis? I tried therapy, yoga, somatic breathing, sex toys, herbal remedies, drugs. I finally figured out that I couldn’t do it alone. Having waited this long, I decided to leave it up to a professional. When that Tuesday arrived, I was catatonic on the car ride to the day-surgery center. Visions of female circumcision danced in my head. “Now, what are we calling this?” the RN lilted, perusing my chart. She looked like Judi Dench in scrubs, but had the temperament of a giddy schoolgirl. “A hymenotomy,” I said clinically. All week leading up to the surgery, I’d mistakenly called it a hymenectomy, as if I might be able to take my maidenhead home in a jar for nostalgia’s sake after the surgery, like so many gallstones. But it’s not a procedure of removal. Instead, it’s a series of minor incisions that leave the hymen much like a windsock, allowing it to yield to the, eh, forces of nature. You’d hope that a registered nurse would at least be familiar with the proper nomenclature for the procedure. Then again, it’s not terribly common, as procedures go. It’s never been the subject of a very special episode of any network dramedy. Perhaps I was her first. I find that amusing—to think that we invented it just for me. The anesthesiologist hooked me up to the IV and asked how I was feeling. I exchanged glances with tittering nurse, Judi Dench. Maybe this is a routine question, but even without a vagina of his own in which someone might make incisions, I expected an anesthesiologist to be more empathic. The point of the procedure is to alleviate pain and stress which, by the way, also happens to be a fundamental part of his job. “Very conscious,” I reported. That’s the last thing I remember before waking up in the recovery room to the murmur of hospital gossip between the nurses. I took stock; everything seemed to be okay. No pain, not even when it came time to get out of the wheelchair and walk to the car. Urination didn’t result in cries of agony as I’d feared. My gauze diaper was barely damp; I’d bled more when I had my wisdom teeth removed. I went back to work after a day of rest and, two weeks later, my post-op exam showed that I was ready to rock, though I was instructed to do a little stretching before making partnered go of it. (How often does your doctor tell you to go home and play with yourself?) So it turned out to be as simple after all, and I didn’t even have to lose my dignity, just a $10 co-pay to my HMO. Not a bad deal. As for the dirty deed, I’ll never tell. Some things are just too personal. Su Ciampa is a New York based free-lance writer. Her work has appeared in Bust and Time Out New York. A truncated version of this piece appeared in Jane Magazine earlier this year. Submit your comments on this commentary to our MoxieTalk discussion group by clicking here! You can also send your comments directly to the author using the form below. You can do both by typing your response below,
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