Virginity

When in school, I did a play on the birth of Christ. It started with my dialogue about Mary, “How can she do this to me? How can she ‘abandon’ me?”. Years later, I understood that by ‘abandon’ I was referring to Mary’s adultery or crudely, “VIRGINITY”... Now that’s a big issue. Recently, an Australian website auctioned a virgin girl and a boy. The girl fetched $780,000 in 15 bids... (The third highest bidder was an Indian named Rudra Chatterjee, btw). Private clinics in Dubai are abetting unmarried girls to restore virginity by illegally performing hymen restoration or reconstruction surgeries... When Lady Diana was engaged to marry Prince Charles, British royals and advisers expected her to be a virgin which prompted her uncle Lord Fermoy to publicly announce she was a “bonafide” virgin. Societal double standards never demanded Prince Charles to be a virgin. Lord Shiva granted a boon to Queen Draupadi that she would be born a virgin every year and was thus considered an eternal Kanya (virgin)... In western mythology, vestal virgin Rhea Silvia, raped by the God Mars, gave birth to Remus and Romulus, founders of Rome. The city’s fate was linked to virginity. If any virgin broke her virginity vows, wars or natural disasters would befall Rome. So transgressors were punished by death, the last recorded was buried alive in 150 AD... Obsession with virginity is another blown-out-of-proportion factor that demeans women. Our age-old culture has conditioned young girls to prize their virginity without realising they are buttressing male egos by doing so... The presence or absence of a small mucus membrane is no insinuation to what a woman is or can be!!! Give it a thought...