Recreating Virginity in Iran: Hymenoplasty as a Form of Resistance

Medical Anthropology Quarterly
Azal Ahmadi

Abstract

Hymenoplasty is a controversial surgery in Iran, where a woman's failure to present herself as virginal for marriage may result in severe social repercussions. Critical literature surrounding this clandestine surgery is sparse. During ethnographic fieldwork in Tehran, I interviewed women who have and have not undergone hymenoplasty and physicians who perform it. Using a Foucauldian framework, I argue that the medicalization of virginity is a form of female social control in Iran. The resulting narratives and discourses suggest that hymenoplasty is a covert form of resistance against socioculturally prescribed sexual inegalitarianism that restricts women to the social sphere of premarital chastity. By manipulating the medicalization of virginity, women inadvertently resist dichotomous gendered classifications that constrain them as either the deviant woman who has premarital sex or the normal woman who remains virginal until marriage. These women deviate from a fixed notion of gender embodiment, eroding socioculturally constituted categorical boundary markers regarding femininity.

References

Nov 11, 1998·Medicine, Science, and the Law·F A Goodyear-Smith, T M Laidlaw
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Citations

Nov 7, 2015·Social Science & Medicine·Verina WildNikola Biller-Andorno
Aug 13, 2015·Culture, Health & Sexuality·Marzieh Kaivanara
Jan 17, 2019·Culture, Health & Sexuality·Sarah AbboudMarilyn S Sommers
Jun 17, 2020·Journal of Sex Research·Farideh Khalajabadi Farahani
Jun 15, 2018·Aesthetic Surgery Journal·Miliana VojvodicJamil Ahmad
May 21, 2020·BMC Public Health·Mohammad Hossein MehrolhassaniNadia Oroomiei
Dec 7, 2021·Plastic Surgical Nursing : Official Journal of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgical Nurses·Katarzyna Wiśniewska-ŚlepaczukArtur Wdowiak

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