Once, Twice, Three Times A Virgin

William Saletan on virginity restoration:

"Attaching so much importance to the hymen is regression, submission to the intolerance of the past," protests the head of the French College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians. But fetishism makes intolerance easier to outwit. A technical requirementan intact hymeninvites a technical solution. Fool the fundamentalists. Make hymen restoration safe, cheap, convincing, and confidential.

Doctors are already on the case. The Journal reports that Dr. Bernard Paniel, a Paris gynecologist, has modified the original Tunisian procedure to reduce invasiveness and coital pain and bleeding. In fact, the blood reduction is so effective that it threatens to expose the fraud. That's why he "provides his patients with vials of blood that can be spilled on wedding-night bed sheets."

The whole thing is a grotesque testament to many Muslims' acquiescence to male tyranny and sexual dysfunction. Here's a quote to make you grieve:

“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”

If we really want to plumb the depths of some Muslim pathologies, and the roots of Islamist rage and nihilism in modernity, this attitude is one place to start. The sexual freedom of women - one of the West's greatest and rarest accomplishments - is what they fear and despise.