For many years, women have been turning to surgery to mask the fact that they’ve had sex before marriage. The surgical procedure involves closing up, sometimes almost completely, the vaginal opening so that the woman will bleed when she has intercourse with her new husband. This bleeding is supposedly proof of the young woman’s purity, as most will assume that the bleeding comes from the tearing of her hymen.
A woman’s hymen, however, doesn’t necessarily tear the first time she has sex and, even if it does, it might not bleed. Secondly, a hymen can be torn outside of sex. But the myth that a woman must bleed during her first experience of vaginal penetration is widely believed in Iran and around the world. The result is that these operations have been common in Iran since the 1970s (as well as in many other countries, including France.)
A pill that releases red liquid
Starting in the 1990s, another option appeared for women wanting to fake their virginity: pills that are supposed to make it seem as if a woman has an intact hymen. The price of these pills vary widely, but most seem to work in the same way. About an hour before having sex, the woman is supposed to put a pill in her vagina. When the pill becomes damp, its exterior softens. During penetration, the exterior breaks and releases a red liquid, which is supposed to trick the husband.
In recent years, more and more ads for these pills have been popping up on both Telegram, an encrypted instant messaging service that is extremely popular in Iran, and Instagram, which is also widely used.
Women can order these pills to whichever postal address they want in just a few clicks. The ads promise to deliver the pills in plain packaging so as not to arouse suspicion. The price usually varies between about 30,000 and 350,000 tomans (equivalent to between 6 and 70 euros).
Most of the pills on the market are made by four different brands: Noval, Beauty Virgin, Butterfly and Robert. However, online searches in both Persian and English don’t produce any results for legitimate pharmaceutical companies. If you search “Beauty Virgin”, for example, you get information about a line of cosmetics made by the Chinese company Realmus, but they don’t make “virginity pills.” Noval Cosmetics is apparently based in Singapore, but it’s not clear if this is the same company that produces the pills that have become so popular in Iran.
The France 24 Observers team tried long and hard to find an Iranian woman who had used one of these pills without success – it is a taboo topic, after all. So it is hard to know what kind of pill these companies are actually selling, if they work and if they pose health risks for users.
Vaginal pills that simulate bleeding have been manufactured and sold since the 90s in Japan, India, China and in the United Kingdom, but none of these brands seem to be on the Iranian market.
However, if the large number of ads for these products on Iranian social media is any indicator, these pills do seem to be popular. According to a 2014 study conducted by the research unit of the Iranian parliament, 74.3% of Iranian high school students (both male and female) have had sexual relations (though “sexual relations” is not defined in the study and it isn’t clear if that means penetration or not). In 2015, Iranian local media reported that it had contacted a company selling these pills. The company claimed to receive about 100 calls a day and to ship 15 packages a day to customers.
“Men want to discover sex with their girlfriends but also want the women they marry to be virgins”
For a small part of the population – the most privileged – it no longer matters if women are virgins or not when they are married. But for a large number of Iranians, even if having a boyfriend or girlfriend before marriage is starting to become normal, it’s still very important for women to be virgins when they are married.
In summation, even if lifestyles are changing, gender roles in society are still in place. Men want to discover sex with their girlfriends, but they want the women they marry to be virgins on their wedding day. That leaves many women with little choice but to resort to a fake hymen.”
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