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Egyptian conservatives have condemned a gadget called the Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit as something that will surely promote promiscuity. The intention of this gadget is to allow a bride who is not a virgin, to pretend that she is.
It works like this: a pouch is inserted into the vagina, which upon rupturing, leaks a blood-like liquid. The purpose, according to Jeffrey Fleishman and Amro Hassan, whose report on this device appeared in the Los Angeles Times, is to “trick a new husband into believing that his wife is chaste. It’s a wink of ingenuity to soothe a man’s ego and keep the dowry intact.”
Premarital sex is something that is forbidden in Egyptian culture. During the last 40 years Egypt has gone from being a secular society to one that is basically fundamentalist.
The website of Gigimo, a Chinese mail-order company that markets this kit has the following as its marketing pitch, “No more worry about losing your virginity. With this product, you can have your first night back any time. Add in a few moans and groans, you will pass through undetectable.”
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood have demanded that the product be banned, and that anyone who sells it on the black market should be arrested. Cleric Abdul Moeti Bayoumi has issued a fatwa stating that merchants of the gadget should be charged with banditry and punished for spreading sin and immorality. The gadget costs $29.90.
Sayed Askar, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and member of parliament, said that this product can tempt weak-willed girls to commit a sin.
Lina Samaan, an accountant said that all the uproar over this device points to the double standards that apply to women. She said that if most girls don’t have sex before marriage because they want to keep their virginity then there is something wrong with the way her fellow Egyptians think. Samaan said that sex is a right for every woman, and that devices like the virginity one are only being used because men do not want to marry women unless they are virgins.
Ultraconservative Islam is being imported into Egypt from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. The marketing of the virginity kit is undoubtedly an outcome in a society that has taken a sharp turn in the road towards this ultraconservatism. Fleishman and Hassan describe the kit as a “sleight of hand” in assisting prospective brides, and keeping them in the good graces of their families.
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