Virgin: The Untouched History

by Hanne Blank

Hanne Blank's revolutionary, rich, and entertaining survey of an astonishing untouched history reveals why humans have been fixated on an indefinable state of being since the dawn of time. As the butt of innumerable jokes, center of spiritual mysteries, locus of teenage angst, popular genre for pornography, and nucleus around which the world's most powerful government has created an unprecedented abstinence policy, Virgin also shows how utterly important to contemporary times the topic is.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism, Sexuality, Gender Studies, Gender, Sociology

306 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 20, 2007

About the author

Hanne Blank is a writer and historian.
Periodicals which have featured her work include Penthouse, In These Times, Southwest Art, Lilith, Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, the Baltimore CityPaper, the Boston Phoenix, Santa Fean Magazine, and others. Her short fiction and essays are frequently anthologized.

Ms. Blank's work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, NYLON, Entertainment Weekly , and many other periodicals, and she has been widely interviewed on radio and television in Australia, the US, UK, and Canada, including being featured on National Public Radio, BBC 4, and on the acclaimed Canadian program SexTV. As a public speaker and educator, Ms. Blank has appeared on the campuses of many universities and colleges, as well as at national and regional conferences of various types and centers for adult learning. She has been the Scholar of the Institute at the Institute for Teaching and Research on Women, Towson University, Maryland, and has taught at the university level at institutions including Brandeis University, Tufts University, and Whitworth College. Formally trained as a classical musician,as well as an historian, she has been a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, and was the 1991 recipient of the George Whitfield Chadwick medal.

Although Ms. Blank is a dyed-in-the-wool Midwesterner, she currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland, where she shares a 170-year-old stone house on a dirt road in the middle of the city with her spouse, two cats, and the world’s cutest Japanese Akita.

Reviews

[Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

2020 Best Books of the Year [#08 of 11]

Did not expect this to be so engrossing. One fascinating tidbit after another. Cannot recommend this one highly enough. ❤️

[Pia G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

blank, bizi yüzyıllar boyunca toplumsal normları, dini doktrinleri ve kişisel kimlikleri şekillendiren bir konunun keşfinde gezdiriyor. blank’in kalemi hem akademik hem de karmaşık fikirleri anlamayı kolaylaştırırken öneminden ödün vermemiş, bekâretin antik çağlardan modern döneme kadar olan evrimini titizlikle izlemiş. kitabın en çarpıcı yönlerinden biri, disiplinler arası yaklaşımı; blank, bekâret üzerine bütüncül bir perspektif sunmak için tarih, antropoloji, tıp ve sosyolojiden yararlanmış ve tıp biliminin bekâret anlayışımızı nasıl etkilediğini inceleyerek, yüzyıllardır süregelen mit ve yanlış anlamaları çürütmüş.

ister bir akademisyen, ister bir öğrenci, isterse insan cinselliğinin karmaşıklıklarını anlamakla ilgilenen biri olun, bu kitap mutlaka okunması gereken bir eser diye düşünüyorum. şiddetle tavsiye edilir.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I simply adore this book. The author handles the subject matter with surprising delicacy. It is the first book about this subject that I've seen that doesn't get mired in the religious dogma surrounding Virginity. I found it very informative and well-researched. Ms. Blank has a wonderful sense of humor, and the ability to make a very intimate subject comfortable. This book was a wonderfully interesting read, and I would highly recommend it to any woman curious about what it is that "Virgin" actually means, where the concept originated from historically, or the precise anatomy involved. I found the section on "virginity testing" through the ages to be amusing and terrifying all at once. Where did our society get this strange idea? Why do the myths about Virginity still persist in this otherwise relatively enlightened era? Ms. Blank answers all these and more.

I'd recommend this book to any woman who has ever had doubts about her self-worth because of her sexual status (virgin or not). Mothers and young women may also find the material contained within enlightening.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book was quite interesting, the research was lacking a scholarly feel. There were no footnotes or even works cited at all, just a list of "recommended reading" at the end of the book that correlated with each chapter. Made me slightly wary of anything the author was saying because lord knows where she got her "facts" from. But it was a fascinating read and hopefully more scholarly works like it will follow.

[Cemre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hep duyarız bekâreti; ama pek kullanmayız, konuşmayız ulu orta; çünkü "ayıptır". Peki bekâret ne anlama gelir hiç düşündük mü? Bekâreti nasıl tanımlarız? Bir kadın ya da erkeği bakire olmaktan çıkaran şey nedir? Heteroseksüel cinsel ilişki ile bağ kurmadan bu kelimeyi tanımlamak mümkün müdür? Ortak bir bekâret tanımı yapılabilir mi yoksa kültürden kültüre değişkenlik mi gösterir? Peki önemli midir bakire olup olmamak? Önemliyse nereden gelir önemi? Bekâreti ne kadar tartışsak da konuşsak da bunları çok düşündüğümüzü zannetmiyorum. İşte bu kitap genel olarak bu sorulara eğilmiş. 375 sayfalık bir kitap yeterli değil belki; ama bence iyi sayılabilecek bir araştırma.

İki bölümden oluşuyor: Bekâretbilim ve Bakire Kültürü. İlk bölümde tıbbi açıklamalar biraz daha fazla yer kaplıyor. İkinci bölümde ise adından da anlaşılabileceği gibi bekâretin tarih sahnesinde oynadığı yere yer veriliyor. Özellikle ikinci bölümde eksiklik hissetsem de dediğim gibi kanaatimce başarılı bir çalışma. İkinci bölümdeki eksiklerden en önemlisi benim için tamamen Batı odaklı hususlara yer verilmesi. Yalnızca Batı'da bekâretin anlamı ve bakirelerin durumuna yer verilmiş. Oysa Doğu kültüründe de ciddi bir yer kaplayan bu konuya hiç değinilmemesi bence kitabın en eksik yanı. Benzer durum dinî açıdan da söz konusu. Sıklıkla Hristiyan bakış açısına yer verilirken Yahudilik'teki öneminden birkaç yerde bahsedilmiş. İslamiyet'e ilişkin ise bir şeyler bulmak mümkün değil. Çok tanrılı dinlerin bakış açısı için de benzer durum söz konusu. Benim için kitabın en büyük eksikliği bu.

Ekleme: Çeviriden bahsetmeyi unutmuşum. Çeviri Emek Ergün'e ait. Bu tür kitapları çevirmek kolay değil, okuyucu için anlaşılabilir olması lazım. Bu sebeple bu tür kitaplara başlarken hep bir korku içinde oluyorum. Emek Ergün bence çok başarılı bir iş çıkarmış ortaya. Ayrıca keyifle okuduğum bir önsöz de yazmış. Emeğine sağlık!

[divayorgun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tek kelime ile BAYILDIM!!
Asırlardır süregelen bakirelik ve bekaret kültürü hakkında yazılan en iyi kitaplardan biri olabilir. Çok geciktirdiğim için kendime kızsam da uzun uzun yaya yaya okudum her satırını ve hayran oldum.

Tıp,aile,gelenek,görenek,din,sağlık,ilişkiler üzerinden kadın bedeni ve bekaret kültürü hakkındaki en kapsamlı araştırmalardan biri bana kalırsa. Herkes işin din ve cinsellik yönüne vurgu yaparken işin sağlık,tıp,yasa gibi yönlerine de dikkat çekerek benzersiz bir anlatımla okuyucuya sunmuş Hanne Blank..

Hali Meidhad'ın da dediği gibi " Bekaret bir defa koparıldığında bir daha asla büyümeyecek bir çiçektir ama bazen edepsiz düşüncelerle solabilse de yine de tekrardan yeşerebilir."

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like how this book explores the concept of virginity (with an emphasis on female virginity) in western history and culture by first dealing with the biology and the cultural construction and importance of virginity throughout history. The writing is great and I can recommend this book even to people with no knowledge of history.

[sase · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5'tan 4 vermiştim ama sonradan dayanamayıp 3 yaptım. :D bu kitap ile bir kez daha goodreads'te buçuklu puan veremediğimiz için biraz üzüldüm. her ne kadar çok iyi çalışılmış ve hazırlanmış bir kitap olsa da kendimce fark ettiğim bazı eksikler hem okuma kalitemi düşürdü hem de kitaptaki araştırmaların akıcılığına bence biraz ket vurdu.

kitabın içeriği hakkında yorum yapmadan önce çevirmene ve çevirmenin önsözüne ayrı bir parantez açmak istiyorum. kitabı okunabilir hale getirdiği için teşekkürü bir borç bilmenin yanı sıra, sadece amerika ve avrupa tarihinde bekaretin yerini inceleyen ve irdeleyen bu kitaba bir de yakın türkiye tarihiyle önsözde katkıda bulunmak kesinlikle azımsanabilecek bir başarı değil. öyle ki, eğer önsözde verilen bilgilerin çoğu olmasaydı türkiye'deki bekaret kavramıyla ilgili başka ek bir kitaba -ki muhtemelen böyle bir kitap bulamayacaktım- ihtiyaç duyardım. ama emek ergün çok başarılı bir önsözle benim okuma hazzımı çok yükseltti.

kitabın içeriğine gelince:
ilk olarak negatif yanlarını sayabilirim. bir tarih öğrencisi olarak araştırma kitaplarında dikkatimi çeken şeylerden biri yazarın kronolojik ilerlemeye dikkat edip etmemesi ve ne yazık ki bu kitapta yazar kafamı çok karıştırdı. araştırmaları biraz dağınık ve çokça kronolojiden mahrumdu. kafasında kategorize ettiği bekaret kavramlarını ve çeşitlerini değerlendirmede her ne kadar başarılı olsa ve özellikle orta çağ avrupa'sındaki bekaret kavramının günümüze kadar nasıl korunduğunu -veyahut korunamadığını- çok bilgilendirici bir şekilde okura sunsa da sayfalar arasındaki kopukluk okuma zevkime çok etki etti.

ancak kitabın temelde tıbbi: bekaret bilimi ve kültürel: bakire kültürü isimli iki bölüme ayrılmış olması beni çok mutlu etti. çünkü özellikle ilk bölümde hem tıbbi gelişmeleri görmek ve tıp biliminin de aslında toplumsal normlardan kurtulamadığını fark etmek bekaret kavramını incelemek adına çok önemli bence. yine de sadece himenin yapısına kitabın 4'te 1'inin ayrılması bir araştırma kitabı için tercih edilebilir bir konu dağılımı mıydı? emin değilim. ikinci bölüm ise benim adıma hem daha keyifli ve akıcı hem de biraz eksikti. daha keyifli ve akıcı olması günümüzden örneklerle anlayabildiğim seviyede kavramlar kullanılmasından kaynaklanıyor. fakat eksik olması elbette ki kitap adına eksi bir puan olabilir. başta da belirttiğim gibi, yalnızca batılı kaynakların ve örneklerin kullanımı tam olarak bekaret kavramının kültünü anlamak için bence yeterli olmuyor.

yine de çok yoğun bir çalışma gerektiren bir kitabı bu kadar özveriyle yazmak bence büyük bir teşekkürü hak eder. okuduğum için kendi adıma çok mutluyum ve yakın arkadaşlarımı da bir müddet "hadi sen de oku da tartışalım" diye darlamaya devam ederim gibi duruyor. :)

[elif kalafat · Rating 5 out of 5]

kitaba dair yorumum sase ile neredeyse aynı, o yüzden buyrun: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

ekstra olarak, önsöz'ü okumak bana şunu hissettirdi: türkiye'de bu konular ne zaman gündeme gelecek gerçekten?

teşekkürler kızlarım, iyi ki beraber okuduk.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I first saw this book pop up on my feed as a recommended read, I was super excited to delve in and read about the history of virginity; as while it's a topic often mentioned in media, it's not really one that is often discussed to a large degree beyond whether someone has "done it" or not, and having recently read a few books on feminism (such as The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women), I was intrigued to see how this book might handle the topic and what the history of this often glanced over topic would be like.

While the topic at hand [virginity] is fascinating, I felt that the book was rather scattered and limited in scope, without any overlying theme or opinion tying everything together. Whilst some chapters did have one topic (such as the history of the hymen... not something I ever thought I'd read about), the way in which the book was written seemed to focus more on sounding academic with fancy wording than it did on having a cohesive narrative. So many times the book jumped from one thing to another in barely the space of a page and it just left me... lost.

I wanted to enjoy this book, I really did but I felt that for so much of it I was playing catch-up, trying to find connections that weren't there in order to better understand what the heck the author was going on about it. Whilst the author does admittedly complain within the book about the constraints of space they have, I feel that it just wasn't handled correctly. I would've preferred perhaps a focus on virginity in medieval society, or ancient Greek/Roman times, or even "modern day" virginity. But by trying to cram so many different cultural aspects of virginity from BC all the way to present day, the author just wasn't able to spend the time needed on each topic and it just felt rushed and incoherent at times. And whilst there was the occasional "non European" concept of virginity and its values, it was so quickly glanced over that it would've made more sense not to include it at all.

For something that portrays itself as an academic text, I just found this lacking - both in the way in which is was written, and in the way that citations were used (...which is to say, hardly cited at all and just left as a list of recommended reading at the end). I just wanted something... more... than what I got :/

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was, quite simply, mind-blowing. It's hard to encompass in a single review just how much I learned about so many facets of *so many* things. First off, it's exhaustively researched, which is fantastic. I hadn't really ever thought about virginity, because no one has (this is one of the primary points of the book, that no one thinks about it to closely, and yet it's such a massive cornerstone of Western history). But it really does permeate SO MUCH of our culture and the way we think of ourselves and the way we think of women in particular. It's bonkers.

Goodreads tells me I made 96 highlights in this book, and that sounds about right. Guessing blindly, I would say that two thirds of those are me highlighting something that's completely obvious and totally true that I'd never actually considered before. (Example picked functionally at random: "We usually know what criteria we would employ if asked to determine whether someone else’s virginal status had changed. But the criteria we might apply to someone else are not necessarily identical to the ones we apply to ourselves. Moreover, we do not necessarily know that our next-door neighbors’ criteria, or even those of our partners or parents, would be identical to our own.") A lot of that book is like that.

The book covers everything from pop culture (Rocky Horror!) to a deeeeep dive into the shifting Western perception of virginity with the onset of Christianity, and its evolutions within Christianity itself, to a LOT about hymens you never thought would be relevant to your life, but kind of is! (DID YOU KNOW: we think of a girl "losing her virginity" by her hymen being penetrated and therefore ruptured for the first time, but if you're born with a hymen that actually covers the whole vaginal opening without any perforations, it's literally a birth defect? Spoiler alert: it's hard to menstruate if the blood can't physically leave your body.).

Anyway, it's super good and super interesting and I learned a TON and you should all read this.

[Home Faber]

* Ataerkil toplum yapısının özünü oluşturan etmenlerden biri olan kontrol altında tutma ve hareket alanını kısıtlama ki böylelikle gözetimi sıklaştırma durumuna en fazla özne durumunu oluşturan kadınlardır. Erkek egemen kültür Bourdieu tarifiyle eril tahakküm safları sıklaştırarak kadın dünyasına ait her türlü yapı ve mekanizmayı iktidar nosyonu ile birleştirerek düzeni sağlama adına beden üzerinden obje görevini yürütür.

** Türkiye ve bütün toplumlarda bir tabu adı verilen bekaret kültü aile, din, hukuk gibi kurumlar aracılığıyla kadınların ezme, sindirme, erkekler tarafından bir ceza misyonun özünü oluşturmuştur. Namus fantazisinin sadece kadına ve bekaret mitine indirgendiği, erkek egemen kültürün gücünü kat be kat artırdığı kanla yazılan bir tarihte kanı dökülen ise kadın olmuştur...

*** Eril tahakkümün ve şiddetin kendini en net ortaya koyduğu alanlardan biri olan kadın bedeni ve bekaret kuşaklar ve tarih boyunca güç erkleri tarafından meşruiyet kazandırılarak mistik öğeler bir hakikat yerini almıştır. Ahlaksal norm ve yasalar her zamanki gibi kadınlar aleyhine olan bir süreç etrafında şekillenmiştir.

**** Önyargılı bütün kapıları, kapatan enfes bir araştırma ortaya koyan yazar bütün ezberleri bozan ve mutlaka ama mutlaka okunması gereken bir kitap...

[Natacha Pavlov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who isn’t interested, at least on some level, in the subject of virginity? As the author says, it’s a topic of high interest but which, as reflected in the title, has remained rather unexplored. The history, or what is known of it, spans from ancient Greece and Rome all the way to the present-day Western world, especially the United States. Some of the prominent figures discussed include Aristotle, Hippocrates, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, St. Augustine of Hippo, Queen Elizabeth I and Erzsebeth (Elizabeth) Bathory.

I found the book highly interesting and hard to put down. The author knows her subject and brings up many issues which only make one realize how difficult it may be to define virginity in the first place. She also highlights that virginity means different things to different cultures and that this changes over time. Although the tone is serious and scholarly, I highly enjoyed the spontaneous laugh-out-loud moments:
“Even the globe was changing, as explorers traversed the world and discovered “virgin” continents where the maps had formerly said “here there be dragons.” (p. 178)
This humor was welcomed amidst all the facts and reminders of the ways women have been objectified throughout history. Although the book itself is interesting and may be a page-turner, it’s clear that there are passages that will be hard for (especially female) readers at times.

I did have a slight issue, however, and that of course is also subjective. This entails a brief section of the book that in my view was irrelevant. Blank brings up several animals that have hymens and neither care nor are aware of that ownership, and uses this fact as an argument why human beings should do the same. My issue with that is not concerning my own opinion of the presence/existence of the hymen to ‘validate’ virginity, but by the simple fact that as a Christian, I strongly believe that there is little to no relation between what animals and human beings were created for and are meant to do. In my view that is like comparing apples and human beings. Using an animal example is not going to ‘sell’ me, a human being, an idea, provided I even needed to be convinced in the first place. After all, there are animals who eat their newborns—probably for a variety of reasons—but that doesn’t mean that it’s an example that is OK for us to replicate simply because it’s ‘naturally present in nature.’ Basically, animals are just that, and human beings have souls and free will and I therefore hold them to a higher standard (even though obviously we don’t always measure up to it). It seems Blank was coming from the theory of evolution where ‘we all came from animals,’ but seeing as I do not subscribe to that, I see each as separate entities with highly different purposes and no ancestral connection whatsoever. I understand that she was trying to make a point and downgrade the need to obsess over the meaning/symbolism of the hymen, but in my view that passage was not necessary. The facts, if not common sense, already show me that such obsession can be detrimental to women, and that is all I personally need.

With that said, I loved the book and I highly respect all the research that had to go into creating this unprecedented work. Eye-opening and definitely highly recommended.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of facts that could be improved if the author would lose her overly-academic tone of anthropological BS every once in awhile. I let loose more than a few eye rolls when a truly fascinating fact was followed by a, "Clearly, this indicates [insert wildly unsupported conclusion here]." (This was especially true of statements with a feminist tone.)

Still, it's interesting to learn that while we tend to think that virginity has been one thing since forever, and now that we have the pill, suddenly it is changing wildly, in reality, what we think has been true since forever has actually only be true since a few hundred years after Christ when Christianity finally picked and chose which books should go into the Bible and got its own story straight. (Oh man, the things I learn about my faith now that I'm not longer getting formally educated in it. What's that saying about school and education?) Another fun fact: the word "hymen" probably does not come from the Greek god of marriage, but is likely just a leftover from a time when it referred to any general membrane in the body in ancient medical texts. Truly a weird coincidence of historical linguistics.

Also, there's a whole section on Season 2 of Buffy. It comes right after the section about 90210. From ancient sociology to medieval religious upheaval to 90's television. Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty good overview of the history of a topic.

[CC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I accidentally deleted this review and am so sad to report that I don't have it saved elsewhere. It was a lovely review. This is a lovely book. Forgive me!

[Sarah Shaheen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not just informative and comprehensive, it's fun; the author writes with a great sense of (dark) humor. Nonetheless it bears the perennial problem of being western - centered.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's rare for me to be completely engaged in a history book, even if I find the subject matter interesting. I usually have to put them down and read them in snippets; not so for this one, I had trouble putting it down. It was engaging, interesting, and written in a way that wasn't dry and boring.

There's a lot of hype, uncertainty, confusion, etc. around virginity. What are the origins, why is such importance placed on it by certain cultures, etc. And then there's the plain physical misunderstandings (what is a hymen, and is it definitive proof of virginity?). Blank breaks the book out into two sections, the first focusing on the physical aspects of virginity (with plenty discussed on the hymen), and the second looking at the cultural aspects of virginity (largely from a historical perspective). I will say that the majority of it is Europe/America based for this section and follows the thought patterns primarily in those areas.

As said before, this was not a dry book. Just some of the terminology kept it interesting from a linguistic point of view. The topic, while it could be funny at times, did swing into the serious realm more often (of course it did, the concept of virginity has been a method of control for a very long time). Historical topics included the sex trade of virgins, discussions on famous virgins (i.e. Mary & Queen Elizabeth), and marriage traditions. There was some contemporary information, but it was a briefer part of the book; in fact, it may be my only complaint because I would have really liked to see more info on the chastity balls, etc. in current culture.

While it can be a disturbing topic, I think this is an important area to research a little more into and understand, particularly as it can affect culture even currently. I highly recommend taking a look.

Review by M. Reynard 2021

[a · Rating 4 out of 5]

kitap bekaret kavramının tarihsel kökenlerini, farklı uygarlıklardaki karşılıklarını ve geçmişten günümüze tıbbi yaklaşımları ayrıntılı biçimde ele almış, baya ayrıntılı bir şekilde hem de...bilgi yönünden güçlü bir kaynak ancak ataerkinin oluşum sürecinde üretim araçları ve mülkiyet ilişkilerinin rolüne yalnızca yüzeysel biçimde değinilmiş. oysa patriyarkanın iktidar gücünü besleyen, kadınların toplumsal hayattan dışlanmasına ve bedenlerinin kontrol altına alınmasına zemin hazırlayan temel unsurun mülkiyet ilişkileri olduğu gerçeğini ele alırsak daha kapsamlı bir tartışma lazımdı. okuması keyifli bir kitap ama toplumsal boyuta ilişkin tartışmayı siz kendi kafanızda yürüteceksiniz ya da dümdüz okuyup geçeceksiniz.

nawal el saadawi’nin arap toplumu için söylediği sözler, türkiye için de geçerlidir: “bizim arap toplumumuzda çarpık bir namus kavramı vardır. bir adamın namu­su, ailesinin kadın üyelerinin himenleri sağlam olduğu sürece güvendedir. namus, adamın kendi davranışlarından çok, aile­deki kadınların davranışlarıyla ilişkilidir”

[lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

so the book is divided into 2 parts, the science of virginity and then virginity culture and not sure if it's just me but i could hardly get through the 2nd half...first half i enjoyed a lot maybe i'm just a nerd though

[Ezgi Aydın · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zerre kuramlara boğmadan, hiçbir tartışmaya izin vermeyecek şekilde, yalın bir anlatımla bakireliğe ve buna ilişkin tüm mitlere dair yazılmış en iyi kitap.

[namelessdilara · Rating 5 out of 5]

tamamını bitirmedim, ara verdim ama uzun bir süre daha devam etmeyeceğim için hemen güncelleme yapmak istedim. hem “bekaret” üzerinden hemcinslerini kategorize etmeye bayılan hemcinslerime hem de cehaletini kadınların “namus”una mâl eden erkeklere zorla okutmak istediğim bir kitap. harikulade.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author complains of the limitations of space several times in the book but nevertheless can digress into what feels like too much of the minutiae of medieval politics. There are some interesting insights, such as how the distrust of (women's) sexuality and the body by the Catholic Church made the Protestant Reformation seem more practical. Ultimately the story is really about women and how their virginity was valuable in marriage, which many argue has for most of history been an economic rather than a romantic or religious institution.

I wish that the author had either written an exclusively European cultural history, a modern political cultural analysis of the U.S., or a cross-cultural analysis of virginity around the world. This book felt like it put some of those elements together but in an unsatisfying way. Reading a book like Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers made me realize how an author can cover in a small volume a topic that intersects with both history and science in an engaging way. Virginity is a potentially interesting subject but the book doesn't quite live up to its potential.

[C.S. Malerich · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's worth checking out the chapter on hymens (seriously -- a little understood piece of the female anatomy that I finally kinda sorta understand). There are some interesting observations that are scattered throughout as well. But my biggest problem was just that: the book feels scattered. Like a lot of cultural studies, it pulls from some very diverse sources and media (and that's all fine), but the author needs to find a strong narrative thread or argument to tie it all together, and this book just doesn't have that. It's both disappointingly limited in scope (the author admits that she sticks to the concept of virginity in Western civilization...which...living in Western civilization, there just isn't that much new to tell me) and too broad (each time the book began describing a source or concept I wasn't familiar with, the subject changed in the next paragraph, without the kind of depth that would make the study most interesting). Add that to a couple of suspicious statements of fact (e.g., that white wasn't a popular color for wedding dresses until after Queen Victoria wore one), and I just wasn't that impressed.

[Cyndie Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book I couldn't put down. Makes you think about virginity and sexuality from perspectives you couldn't dream of.

Did you know that some animals spontaneously dissolve and regrow their hymens on a regular basis? That there are 4 different types of hymen? That what we typically think of when we think of the hymen is actually a birth defect? That humans couldn't agree on whether the hymen actually existed or not until the 1500s?

It makes you think about the commoditization of sexuality, what being a virgin actually means in today's society, what makes societies consider being a virgin a good or a bad thing.

On historical notes it talks about the role of Queen Elizabeth's virginity in the marketing of the new world, the decline in the status of virginity with the protestant reformation, and why cultures came up with the concept of virginity in the first place.

It does talk about sexual topics frankly and is not for the faint of heart. However it is an absolutely eye opening and fascinating read.

[Linnea · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Virginity is an abstract, but an abstract so meaningful to the way we have organized our Western cultures that we have arranged lives around it, built it into our religions, our laws, our definitions of marriage, and our ways of organizing families, and woven it into our very concepts of identity and self."

First of all, this book is really funny while still being a thoughtful analysis of virginity and the (female) bodies attached to it. _Virgin_ focuses on virginity within the heterosexual context in the Western world (the reasons for which Blank explains early on), but considers virginity from cultural, socio-economic, political, and religious standpoints from antiquity to the present day. While not an exhaustive work on the subject, the arguments she posits are compelling and convincing, particularly that dispelling the myth of a monolithic virginity. To augment the narrow focus of this book, she includes a perfectly raid-able selective bibliography for each chapter. Altogether, an excellent, insightful, laugh-out-loud read.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional book. I was much more intrigued by this book than I expected to be, and on completing it, I can't believe I ever doubted it. Blank presents an impeccably researched and compellingly written socio-political and medical-scientific examination of the state and concept of virginity, with meditations on the repercussions virginity or lack thereof has had on women through the ages. She also states the limitations of her research, a habit I find endearing in any historian.

This book does discuss multiple triggering subjects, including sexual assault and the punishment of women who are not or who are perceived to be no longer virginal, as an inevitable offshoot of the discussion of virginity. However, if you can stomach those subjects, I highly recommend this book.

[melis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bekâret, kitapta da pek çok kez altı çizildiği üzere, zaman-mekân-toplum farkına göre değişebilen bir kavram ve burada Batı'nın bu kavramı nasıl algıladığı irdeleniyor (eski çağlardan bugüne kronolojik bir inceleme yapılmış olsa da mekân çoğu zaman İngiltere, kitabın sonlarına doğru da ABD). Çevirmen Emek Ergün'ün yazdığı önsöz sayesinde Türkiye'deki algıya da değinmiş oluyor aslında kitap ve açıkçası beni kitabı hevesle okumaya yönlendiren şey de bu önsöz oldu. İstisnai birkaç durum haricinde feminist çevirinin varlığını hissettirmesi de etkileyiciydi. Kimisine dayanamayıp güldüğüm, kimisi kanımı donduran oldukça ilginç bilgiler edindim ve farkında olmadığım ya da farkında olsam dahi üzerine düşmediğim pek çok şey hakkında kafa yordum bu kitap sayesinde.

[maha · Rating 4 out of 5]

فهمت كثيرا عن الأسباب التاريخية لنشأة فكرة العفة والتي تستمر الى اليوم في التحكم بمصائر النساء
ربطها للعفة بمفهوم انتقال الانسان من حقبة ما قبل الحضارة الى الحقبة الزراعية التي يمتلك فيها اشياء(منها الأرض والماشية والولد الذي سيرثه)، مما اوجب التأكد من كونها تنجب ابناؤه هو لا غيره، حتى يستثمر أمواله فيهم،
وبالتالي، وجب التاكد من كونها عفيفة،
وبالتالي، طرق لا محدودة في محاولات البحث في جسد المراة عما يقيده،باسم العفة

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this book. Really, really fascinating — it covers history, sociology, religion, biology, literature, and cultural studies, all as they relate to attitudes about virginity, sex, women, and marriage. Very insightful into current ideas, past ideas, and ideas throughout literature and history. Recommended.

[Zack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Felt like something an undergrad would slap together after procrastinating all semester on a final paper. Just much longer. No real citations of any kind. Some jumps in logic from the author "X happened. This was because these people thought Y and Z" and the connection wasn't always obvious. Oh well.