Netherlands: High demand for "virgin pill"

Like a virgin.

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Demand for the vaginal suppository which imitates bleeding on the wedding night as gone up enormously, says gynecologist Ineke Van Seumeren (63). She doesn't know by how much, but it began two weeks after she spoke about the so called "virgin pill" in newsletter of her employer, University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht newsletter.

The requests come from hospitals, colleges and sexual help centers, though the pill, also developed by her, exists since 2003. Immigrant women exclusively, use it to start their marriage as a "virgin" even though they aren't. Van Seumeren is still surprised the most by the media attention. "it's a hype. I think it comes by the attention for Islamic customs."

The vaginal suppository works quite simply. the pill contains red gelatin that once inserted becomes fluid after half an hour by the body's temperature.


"We pull the men's leg." Gynecologist Ven Seumeren is the first to admit. She prefers to see it differently. "It's absolutely not my intention to put the customs of another culture in a negative light," but she does think "that a young women must have command over her own body."

The need to start a marriage as a virgin is a social and cultural problem, thinks the gynecologist. "It has nothing to do with Islam. It says nowhere in the Koran that a woman must bleed on the wedding night." Besides she thinks it's at the least double morals that Muslims boy can "get experience".

Annually dozens of immigrant women prefer to upkeep the illusion. They ask for a hymen restoration operation. Half get the operation, because Van Seumeren also has limits. "I will not do a restoration operation if a woman is divorced, marries again, and wants to bleed again during the wedding night!" If Van Seumeren agrees, it's in the cases where the gynecologist fears for the welfare of the woman, as in the afraid, than I play along in the interests of the girl."

That women bleed on their first time of having sex is a myth, as it happens by barely 60%. The same goes for the idea that the hymen is broken by tampons. "That doesn't really happen."

The "virginity pill" that the doctor developed with an Amsterdam colleague in 2003, is prepared by the hospital pharmacy at UMC Utrecht. The pill is not freely obtainable, and is given out only after consultation with a gynecologist or doctor. "I myself also speak extensively to the young woman. Why does she want it? She knows after all that she's not a virgin anymore."

Not everybody is happy with the gynecologist's efforts. "I have really had many negative emails cc'd to Wilders. In which it said I shouldn't associate with Islam, and misuse tax money."

The gynecologists sighs. She'd rather see the old fashioned ideas and myths of virginity change from within the Muslim community itself.

Source: Spitsnet (Dutch)

See also: Netherlands: Pill to replace hymen repair