There's nothing funny about Virginity Soap

A couple Christmases ago, some lady friends and I were shopping for stocking stuffers in Al-Khobar – not an easy task considering Christmas – like Valentines Day and Easter – are unrecognized (most would say banned) holidays here in Kingdom. After scouting most of the larger stores, we stopped into one of the countless “5-Riyal” stores scattered in the nooks and crannies of the suqs. The stores are similar in function to Dollar Stores back in the States, filled to over flowing with a little of this and a little of that, all for just a few riyals. Most items, I should add, are worth about what you pay for them!

Anyway, so as we’re making our way through the store's one and only aisle, I couldn’t help but stop at a box of soap labeled “Virginity Soap”. Other than the name, the ingredients, proposed benefits and dare I say instructions were all in some teeny-tiny script I couldn't see much less read.

Obviously being the crass Americans we are, we all laughed, wondering at just what a virginity soap does and who it does it for:

Is it only sold to card-carrying virgins?
Does it magically restore virginity?
Does it prevent a virgin from having sex?
Should we buy it in bulk for our daughters and sons?

Frankly, I didn’t think much of it, assuming it was just another one of those Middle East oddities, like the T-shirts that have English writing on but say things like “The sun is flower lover princess”, signs that say “slow men working”, or OTC drops that claim to remove chicken fat and heal toothaches while at the same time helping with male erection problems and increasing a woman’s breast size.

Then the other day, I happened upon a post by a Muslim woman blogging and living in Oman, who took the time to look a little deeper at the Virginity Soap she saw in the suqs there.

According to Peaceful Muslimah, the soaps are indicative of a larger problem in the Middle East (and likely other parts of the world), where a woman’s virginity is her most important asset.

" Unfortunately in many Muslim societies, as well as non-Muslim underdeveloped nations, there is an extreme pressure brought to bear on women's chastity. As I recently discussed here, lack of chastity or even the perception of it can lead to fatal consequences. So is it any wonder that Muslim women are willing to go to extraordinary measures to maintain the appearance of the virginal bride on their honeymoon.”

She goes on to say that, even after marriage, Muslim men expect their wives to have the look and feel of virgins. In that context, she notes, "I doubt virginity soap is going to do the trick for these women but it may provide a solution to the woman who fears her husband may stray or even take another wife."

I did some checking, and the soaps are readily available throughout the world, thanks in large part to the internet. The idea is that the soap’s astringents “constrict and tighten" , creating that coveted "look and feel" of virginity.

One manufacturer boasts their product is...."Used and enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of women in the Middle East and Asia, it has brought back youthful passions, rekindled sensual yearnings, and completely intensified sexual experience.”

Ha! What a lot of bunk!

Lucy Oriang, writing in the Daily Nation hits it on the head when she calls Virginity soap a "a cynical ploy to make money out of insecure women".

It's interesting to note that, although Peaceful Muslimah suggests Muslim women in the Middle East use the soap primarily to either "prove" their virginity or return to their pre-sex days to satisfy philandering husbands, Oriang links the soap's use in Kenya and other African countries to a belief that virgins can't get HIV.

Vila H writing in The Smoking Section" explains it this way:

"The fear of AIDS has reinforced the social value of female virginity, and has lowered the ideal age of a new wife to the early teens. Capitalizing on a desperate market of potentially unmarriageable women, Argussy Paris [a specific brand of virginity soap] claims that its product will “tighten the vaginal muscle” if used daily, thus simulating virginity in its consumers."

Sick. The people manufacturing this crap - the lies behind it and the brainwashing that makes women believe it - have a special place in hell waiting for them. They will - no doubt - be joined by the men who make women feel they need to use products like this in order to be loved and lovable, not to mention worthy.

There's nothing funny about virginity soap. Thanks for setting me straight.