Pakistani girls reclaiming virginity

LAHORE: Hymenoplasty or the restoration of hymen in a female body has now turned out to be the latest fad in the booming medicinal sciences of Pakistan; a country where marital bliss on the wedding night amongst other factors deeply depends upon the ‘cherry popping’ of the bride. Howsoever fleeting one’s imagination can go about the concepts of modernity; a man will always want to be the first one. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen many a times.

Hymenoplasty ruptured hymen was one medical secret most Pakistanis knew was practised clandestinely. They would whisper the addresses of doctors performing the surgery to harried girls keen to reclaim their virginity weeks before their nupital night. Call it the irony or hypocrisy of our times, but even as Islamists seek to impose their moral values on a schizophrenic society, hymenoplasty is witnessing a veritable boom time. Pakistani doctors now advertise in English newspapers, on the internet and walls of shops located on busy streets.

All this is good news for girls who have had pre-marital sex but didn’t, for one reason or another, marry their partners, as it is for those who tore their hymen accidentally. They dread marriage, and those persuaded or compelled into betrothal live in extreme fear of the wedding night. In a society where premarital sex is considered a social crime, and where family honour is popularly perceived to rest between the daughter’s thighs, many a women have paid with their lives for not bleeding on the wedding night, strangulated, stabbed or divorced for not being virgins.

For girls daring or liberal, restoration of hymen enables them to throw a cloak around their past acts that the orthodox considers inexcusable. Hymenoplasty was exported here from the United Kingdom, where the surgery became popular among Pakistani girls who experimented with sex but found, to their horror, parents marrying them to boys back home. Re-virgination began in Karachi, came to Islamabad and has become quite a rage in Lahore. Performed at $500, or Pakistani Rs 40,000, hymenoplasty is usually restored to sexually-liberated upper class girls for whom the price of the operation is too small for a lifetime of marital tranquility.

Nor is the hymenoplasty procedure cumbersome. Usually performed under local anesthesia, the surgery could last anywhere between 30 minutes to two hours — and requires the person undergoing it to abstain from sex for three months. Developed first by Toronto-based plastic surgeon Dr Robert Stubbs, the procedure requires suturing of a tear in the hymen or using tissue from the vaginal wall to restore the ruptured hymen. Once the person with a mended hymen has sex, she experiences pain and, more significantly, bleeds, hoodwinking those Pakistani men who see in the stained bed sheet proof of their family honour.

But the sharp spurt in hymenoplasty is a story more about Pakistan’s sexual liberation than doctors coming out in the open — and the society accepting it. This is what I realised as I sought to gather details about hymenoplasty. My first port of call was Dr Farooq Nasim, who owns the Nasim Fertility Clinic in the middle class locality of Johar Town in Lahore. As my photographer-friend turned his camera on Dr Nasim, he became apoplectic: he curtly told us that he hadn’t even heard of hymenoplasty. Next, I talked to him over the phone, posing as a worried partner of a girl whose hymen required restoration. Dr Nasim’s refrain was the same: “I haven’t heard of hymenoplasty.”

I, consequently, requested a journalist friend, Nida, to breach Dr Nasim’s wall of caution. She dialed the mobile number advertised in newspapers; it was of Dr Nasim’s assistant, from whom she sought an appointment for hymenoplasty. She was provided a token number that she was to spell out to the guard at the gate. And the gate promptly opened on D-day. Nida was ushered into Dr Nasim’s chamber. At the sight of a prospective customer, the doctor’s reticence evanesced. “We charge only Rs 40,000; abroad, the operation costs $ 2,000 or more,” he told Nida. “Since ours is a conservative society, we don’t ask girls to register their names.” Such benevolence helps pull in customers: Dr Nasim says he has restored 300 hymens in the last two years alone.

Perhaps surprised to see Nida alone, the doctor said, “In most cases, girls come with a female friend or their partner. Since the procedure doesn’t take more than a couple of hours, it’s easy for customers to conceal the procedure from their family.” He then switched to playing pop sociologist: “Today’s youth have gone beyond their parents’ expectations.” And so have the doctors, Nida had wanted to say.

Next, I turned my attention to the internet. www.hopepk.com, for instance, offers hymenoplasty, provides a mobile number (0092-323-4195732) and an electronic appointment form. Once the customer has been given the date for meeting the surgeon, the address where the operation is to be performed is divulged. The website belongs to a Lahore-based couple, Dr Sarfaraz Ahmed and Dr. Yasmin Sarfaraz. Gynecologist by training, it is Dr Yasmin who performs hymenoplasty.

During her telephonic conversation, Dr Yasmin offered to perform both hymenoplasty and labiaplasty, which involved a procedure to tighten vaginal muscles and surrounding soft tissues, by reducing excess vaginal lining. “The result,” the couple’s website says, “is an immediate decrease in the size of vaginal muscles, resulting in more friction during sexual experiences.”

Occasionally, doctors performing hymenoplasty often resort to fake identities. For instance, Dr Syed Rizwanul Haq runs www.noorclinic.com, which, among other things, offers e-books on sex authored by one Dr Javed Ashraf. Ask Dr Haq for Dr Ashraf’s contacts and you draw a blank. The reason: Dr Haq and Dr Ashraf are the same person.

Dr Ashraf asked Nida to meet him at Bio-Test Clinic, situated at 681-Shadman I, Lahore. After undergoing stringent security and identity checks, Nida was ushered into Dr Ashraf’s office. He was candid, “We can’t talk about it openly because this is a conservative society. I don’t think the maulvis have yet any inkling about this phenomenon otherwise they would have kicked up a ruckus!” To allay Nida’s suspicions about his intentions, the doctor gratutiously clarified, “The girls coming to me include those who had injured themselves during sports activities. I am helping them only. Around 100 girls have come to me in the last two years.”

That’s smaller a score as compared to that of Dr. Nasim. The reason probably being the mode of advertisement – Nasim Clinic flaunts in the classified ads of newspapers while Noor clinic keeps itself quite hidden on the web. Nevertheless, Dr. Ashraf doesn’t forget to remind Nida, “I am not doing anything illegal.” The Pakistan Medical Association was mnot willing to speak on hymenoplasty. But its senior member, on the condition of anonymity, said, “We know this practice is going on in secrecy. Whatever the legal position, I won’t condemn it as it is for someone’s good.” And, obviously, good for the sexually liberated who feel stifled in a restrictive society. And their numbers, as the flourishing hymenoplasty business shows, is high — and growing.

amir.mir1969@gmail.com