The 30-year-old content creator from Mumbai who focuses on sex education, the human body and gender, has her inbox filled with questions from women about first time sex: whether they will be ‘damaged goods’ after they lose their virginity and if a person can tell whether a woman is not a virgin. This prompted her to make a simple Reel on the subject.
Biases against sex
“The hymen is more of a scrunchie than a sheet,” explains Leeza. “Having a full sheet of a covering means you won’t even bleed during your period! But then again, there are people who don’t know that the vagina isn’t where you pee from! Not everyone bleeds during their first intercourse and there’s no virginity test a doctor can do.”
“We don’t talk about sex enough and there is misinformation and bias due to conditioning, religion and tradition. Shame and stigma is associated with it across the country,” adds the creator, who started her YouTube channel in 2017 to add science to sex.
“This hymen mythology is damaging – women are literally killed for it!” says Leeza.
The chaste and pure virgin
{{/usCountry}}The chaste and pure virgin
{{/usCountry}}The concept of virginity being related to chastity and purity is problematic. “It’s called ‘losing’ your virginity as if you’re losing something that’s at stake, but nothing is actually being ‘lost’,” Leeza points out.
But if you grew up with parents and a society saying, ‘why should a man accept a wife who doesn’t bleed on the wedding night?’ you’ll have a hard time believing this.
“Hence you have to say this 5,000 times before people get the message,” she says. “People even say that using a tampon is taboo, but you can’t lose your virginity to a tampon! Shouldn’t parents arm kids with biological information so that they make smart decisions?”
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From HT Brunch, March 14, 2021
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