alan@allegra.UUCP (Alan S. Driscoll) (07/04/84)
> (Side note: The hymen seems to have been one of God's most > sexist ideas; it treats women like aspirin bottles ["Do not purchase if seal > is broken"]. Curiosity: In the non-religious view, why on earth would > something so seemingly useless as the hymen have evolved?) It's my understanding that the hymen often breaks as a result of menstruation or physical activity, so the idea that ~ HYMEN(x) -> ~ VIRGIN(x) is incorrect. At any rate, I, for one, have never seen, or even heard of, a "do not purchase if seal is broken" warning on a woman. Jeff, you must keep very stange company... -- Alan S. Driscoll AT&T Bell Laboratories
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (07/06/84)
The ``do not open if seal is broken'' label is applied by a lot of people, Alan. If people around where you are don't apply it, then perhaps I should move there. A lot of people apply it to themselves (I am going to be a virgin because being a virgin is a good thing - and I am not going to even think about why it is) and a lot of mothers apply it to their daughters (I don't care what ever else you do -- just don't sleep around) and some people apply it to their lovers (this one is fine but I want the one I *marry* to be a virgin). I know of at least 5 marriages that were annulled around here because the bride wasn't a virgin. If you read histories you will find that this is a good reason for political marriages to fail. So all the princesses went to their marriage beds with a little vial full of chicken's blood, just in case... There is a rumor thsat somebody made into a book that the reason that Joan of Arc got it was that she was tested to have no hymen, and therefore was lying in sayign that she was a virgin -- and therefore she was lying about all the other things as well. I don't think that the theory is any good, but I can tell you that anybody who has been riding a horse hard over rough countryside (not sidesaddle) is very unlikely to have any hymen. I suspect that the English Inquisitors would have known that. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) (07/07/84)
Greetings:
I was given to understand that the primary function of the hymen had to
do with protection of the internal reproductive organs during the woman's first
10 to 20 years of life (i.e. before use) in an aquatic environment, which some
people believe was an evolutionary stage which our ancestors frequented. Sea
water being full of things besides H20 and NaCl, particularly at a seashore
where waves stir up everything into the water, it would certainly have been
a favorable natural selection criteria to not become infected thereby.
{ucbvax|decvax|ihnp4}!sun!sunny (Sunny Kirsten of Sun Microsystems)julian@deepthot.UUCP (Julian Davies) (07/09/84)
>From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) >The ``do not open if seal is broken'' label is applied by a lot of people, >I know of at least 5 marriages that were annulled around here because the >bride wasn't a virgin. If you read histories you will find that this is >a good reason for political marriages to fail. So all the princesses >went to their marriage beds with a little vial full of chicken's blood, >just in case... I suspect that if we are talking about WASP subcultures that annulments for non-virginity are *really* due to marriage breakdown and the non-virginity is just the pretext. Cynically, I can just about imagine somebody managing to arrange themselves a serious of 'marriages' and getting out of each on this pretext in series. Julian Davies {deepthot|uwo}!julian