Can the hymen grow back?

[Duncan]

I got into a discussion the other day with a female friend of mine regarding virginity. Now as everyone knows, at least the ones not in some backward ass country, the hymen can break without ever having intercourse, so absence of a hymen doesn't necessarily correlate to not being a virgin. That's a given. But she also claimed that even if the hymen is detected, that one should not automatically assume one is a virgin because the hymen can grow back. I laughed my ass off at this and told her that was one of the stupidest things I've ever heard her say. But she was quite adamant on her stance, swearing that there have been cases where this has happened. She was also a biology teacher, and so, not wanting to argue anymore, I simply said, "Hey, you might be right. I'm going to check into this though." After all, I'm no expert on hymens, and this is not the first time I've heard a woman make such a claim.

So I did some digging, and can't seem to find anything to confirm nor deny this claim. I still thinks it's absurd, but I need something to show to her, since she was so positive about it being fact. The only thing I found was that the hymen can indeed grow back in llamas, but I don't give a rat's ass about llamas. Does anyone know if there's any validity to this? Can someone confirm or deny it. I don't mind being wrong if I am. Hell, I've been wrong before, and will most assuredly be wrong again. Thanks.

[American]

Stop talking to mom.

[shanek]

It's amazing what Google will find for you:

http://elysa.uqam.ca/dsexo/english/9901e/qa0240-1318m.htm

You are asking if the hymen can grow back. To answer your question Elysa would first like to tell you that the hymen comes in different shapes. This is important for you to know since it is possible that a woman's hymen will never break but will only stretch during penetration. Surprisingly, there are also women who have never had a hymen. If the hymen was whole and was broken once, it will not grow back.

Okay, so the hymen cannot grow back if it's torn, but it's also possible to have sex without breaking the hymen, so an intact hymen is not a 100% indication that she's a virgin.

[Dr. Imago]

Yes, a torn hymen will not "grow back". Some hymen's will not break, as was pointed out, even if intercourse occurs. However, a torn hymen is also not an absolute indication that sexual intercourse has occurred either. Some girls will rupture their hymens accidentally will playing or stretching (etc.) at a young age, and when they present to the gynecologist for their first exam the will not have had intercourse despite their being a torn hymen on exam.

Lastly, I have heard anecdotally that, in some middle eastern cultures, women have their hymen's surgically repaired prior to marriage in order that they may appear "clean" to an overly concerned husband.

-TT

[zakur]

Like a Virgin (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/Living/2020_hymenrestoration030620.html) (article about hymen restoration surgery)

Vaginoplasty (http://www.drmatlock.com/) (Plastic surgeon offering a whole line of "vaginal rejuvenation" procedures)

Virgin Again kit (http://www.welds.com/virginAgain.htm) (Humor/Satire)

[Dancing David]

My favorite hymen story involes a middle eastern clkients who told me that men have a hymen in thier anuses and that if it is broken during thier childhood through anal penetration then they will be homosexuals.

[arcticpenguin]

Originally posted by Dancing David
My favorite hymen story involes a middle eastern clkients who told me that men have a hymen in thier anuses and that if it is broken during thier childhood through anal penetration then they will be homosexuals.
Amazing. I hope you told him that if his anal hymen is still intact he must be full of s**t.

[American]

STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS!

[Sundog]

Originally posted by American
STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS!

Man, do you ever have issues. :D

[Glory]

Originally posted by American
STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS!

Stop Reading this thread.:rolleyes:

Glory

[Soapy Sam]

-"Man, do you ever have issues. "...

...presumably he has issues, because his anal hymen is ruptured...:D

[shecky]

Hmmm... Can a foreskin grow back after circumcision?

Maybe I should start spreading that one around.

[Deetee]

Originally posted by shecky
Hmmm... Can a foreskin grow back after circumcision?



There is also a vogue for "regrowing" foreskins. Some people think that this resensitises your glans to make stimuli more pleasurable .

I recall you can get a series of weighted ball bearings to tape to your foreskin remnants that gradually cause stretching and regrowth as it were until the glans is largely covered over again.

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by arcticpenguin

Amazing. I hope you told him that if his anal hymen is still intact he must be full of s**t.
LMAO!

Anyway, a girl can have her period no problem with an intact hymen. The blood can still get out...so maybe s**t can too:roll:

I hear some female circumcision can preven menstrual blood from getting out. Ewww. And what about circumcised females with broken hymens? Are they burned at the stake for witchery?

[kedo1981]

Ok you bunch of sexual Neanderthals.
An experienced OBGYN will not judge virginity by a torn hymen, but will be able to detect the subtle reshaping of the vagina known as “marital os” that is a result of intercourse.

[Eos of the Eons]

Meh, I think that's crap too, unless you can provide more info on it. The muscles don't permanently stretch just because of intercourse.

this is all I could find on "os"

Excision os also performed to make women want to get married. According to one myth that is shared by several different ethnic groups in Africa, women have a clitoris so they can enjoy sex before marriage and still remain virgins. But when the clitoris is removed at puberty their sexual desires become concentrated in the vagina, so they get married to satisfy this desire (Hosken, 1976).


http://csf.colorado.edu/gimenez/betsy/moen.html

[American]

There is no "hymen" in the anatomy. It was made up by preverted New York medical students to impress their law student reletives over Thanksgiving Break. Shame on Long Island.

"Foreskin" is what God made to punish Jewish men who must have it cut in order to please Him, and because Jewish women are obsessive clean-freaks.




These facts are known by everyone, and your mother should have taught them to you when you turned 20, but apparently you are all naive.

[Duncan]

If we're talkig about circumcision, personally, I find the practice to be barbaric, even more so when it comes to female circumcision. Regardless of sex though, I see no reason for it other than the inconsequential arguement that it creates a "prettier" penis.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Duncan
Regardless of sex though, I see no reason for it other than the inconsequential arguement that it creates a "prettier" penis.

If you don't have good access to regular baths or showers (like, say, if you lived in the middle east a few thousand years ago), then male circumcision makes the chances if getting infections much smaller. That's not so consequential today, although rates of transmission for STD's are lower with it. You can decide for yourself, of course, if you think that's worth it. But for male circumcision, it does go beyond simply cosmetics.

[Eos of the Eons]

Yeah, and then I hear having foreskin decreases rates of infection because it has natural fluid and such to prevent it.

The 'increased' cleanliness was a myth, just like with female circumcsion to make people who were not circumcised feel dirty and be ostracized by others.

It actually was a ploy to try decrease pre-marital sex by decreasing sensitivity in those areas.

You have to look into it some more.

[Duncan]

Here's a pretty good article regarding STD's and circumcision.

www.cirp.org/library/disease/STD/

[Eos of the Eons]

The foreskin naturally moisturizes the glans penis, keeping it in optimum healthy condition to resist infection. The subpreputial moisture also contains lyzosyme, an enzyme that attacks and destroys the cell walls of bacteria.1,10


The absence of the foreskin was significantly associated with bacterial STDs among men who have had many sexual partners in their lifetimes. A rate of 25.4/1000 for chlamydia was found in circumcised men compared with a rate of zero in intact men; herpes was 14.9/1000 in circumcised males compared with 8.1/1000 in intact males.9


Recent studies have demonstrated that circumcised men are at increased risk of contracting gonorrhea, syphilis and genital warts. Men are at equal risk for developing human papillomavirus lesions and herpesvirus infections regardless of circumcision status. At least four studies have shown human immunodeficiency virus infection to occur more commonly in circumcised men.8


Of course foreskin won't prevent infection, risky behavior is going to get you in trouble no matter what.

It's just that the point is uncirc'd males aren't less clean, they may be more clean.

[Dancing David]

Those who are faint of heart do not read what follows as it is a discussion of the misnamed 'female circumsicision'




Female circumcision is better called female genital mutalation for a reason, and it does not involve feminist politics!
In male circumcision the fore skin which covers the glans is removed. There are many levels of femal genital mutilation none of them equivalent. First off is the removal of the clitoris, which would be equivalent to chopping the end off of the penis, that way you still have the ueretha but not the glans, equivalent tissue. Frequently the labia minorae are cut and sewed up to close the area between the labia majora, this is the equivalent of removing the scrotum in term of tissue.
The practise is to punish women for being sexual, it has no purpose or meaning, so if you call it circumcision, remember the male equivalent is to remove the glans from the penis and the scrotum from the testicles, Do You Call That Circumcision?

[Eos of the Eons]

I know what you mean. The sad thing is that women are the ones who perform the cutting with a nice rusty razor on the girl with no pain killers. The girl can be anywhere between 4-18.

Then the girl's legs are bound shut with rags to help stop the bleeding.

I also heard there is just the sewing shut of the girl's labia so that the clitoris is inside. When she is married she is cut open.

Any way it's done, it's to prevent sex. The girls are told they are dirty unless it is done though, and noone will marry the ickky girl.

Quite of the first born child dies as a result of the stretchy labia missing. They accept that it is making it possible for the next to survive.

In the severest forms of mutilation it takes a girl 15 painful minutes to pee through a tiny hole and no menstrual blood ever gets out until after being cut open.

This is not clean. It causes bladder and uterine infections.

I can get links and pictures if you want.:(


Most african cultures, including muslims in Africa still do this. I hear egypt is the worst. Other countries (I hear suadi arabia) no longer do it.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by Eos of the Eons

I can get links and pictures if you want.:(


Please don't. I'll take your word for it.

[Eos of the Eons]

Okay, I think most of stuff I found was posted at straight dope and nightly.net a while ago.

[EdipisReks]

i read a CDC article once that stated that circumcised men, while having higher rates of many STD's, have much lower rates of HIV infection than men with foreskins. apparently, there is a mechanism in the foreskin that purposely brings in pathogens for the purpose of exposing the immune system to it for antibodies to be made. of course, HIV damages the immune system, so this backfires with this particular virus. it was a long time ago that i read the article, so i doubt i'll be able to dig it up...

[Duncan]

AIDS and circumcision.

www.cirp.org/library/disease/HIV/

it is possible to conclude that the circumcision status of the researcher(s) may influence the conclusions of their studies.

Yep, just another example of us men thinking with the wrong head.

[shecky]

Any non-cirp.org info out there? Frankly, the site seems to like giving some flaky information.

[neutrino_cannon]

Originally posted by Deetee


There is also a vogue for "regrowing" foreskins. Some people think that this resensitises your glans to make stimuli more pleasurable .

I recall you can get a series of weighted ball bearings to tape to your foreskin remnants that gradually cause stretching and regrowth as it were until the glans is largely covered over again.

I've heard of an operation that can restore a circumcised foreskin (there has to be some remenant) to a more or less un-circumcised appearance. It was used mainly by jews who had good reason not to look jewish, a situation that history seems to provide quite often.

Naturaly I can't remember what it's called right now.

[BillyJoe]

Duncan,

Originally posted by Duncan
But she also claimed that even if the hymen is detected, that one should not automatically assume one is a virgin because the hymen can grow back. Maybe it wasn't the hymen but the labia minora!

It is possible for the labia minora to fuse together in the mid-line either partly or completely. Even when medically or surgically separated they can continue to fuse together again. This can certainly occurs in young girls but I'm unsure about whether it can occur also in older girls and women. If so, this might have provided the false evidence for the idea that the hymen can grow back.

BillyJoe.