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Shattering Virginity: Perspectives from Arab Women’s Literature

Would you take a crumpled, used napkin as opposed to a fresh, crisp tissue to blow your

nose with? Chances are, you probably would not. A tissue is a simple object whose purpose has

been fulfilled-- someone else has already used it, so it no longer possess the same worth. Yet,

through the lens of virginity and sexuality, some individuals hold the belief that a person’s worth

is derived from their lack of previous experience with another in an intimate setting. According

to this logic, like a used tissue, no one wants an object that has been on the receiving end of

human secretions. Particularly, women are seen to derive their value from their “purity,” or lack

of sexual interaction. Virginity, as it is widely currently understood, as well as the resulting

societal understanding of sex, is rooted in misogyny and heteronormativity as demonstrated by

the stories The Tent, Girls of Riyadh, A Map of Home, and Zeina, and both undeniably harm

women as societal concepts.

Fictional literature often serves as a gateway into the private world and thoughts of

others. Through such literature, one can understand the perceptions of others whose identities

distinguish themselves from other dominant identities. Standpoint theory proposes the argument

that true knowledge comes from one’s social position and that one can learn from the

experiences of others who differ from them. Through the lens of Arab women’s literature, one is

able to understand the nuances of the concept of virginity, how it redefines sex, and how it is

enforced culturally in such a way that is patriarchal and heteronormative. Following the

publication of Girls of Riyadh, Dr. Andrew Hammond of Oxford University wrote an article

regarding how Rajaa Alsanea’s novel began a movement of similar literature containing sexual

content from other women writers of Saudi Arabia. Dr. Hammond wrote that the women of

Saudi Arabia are forced to lead private lives outside of the public eye, meaning that their writing

is the only way to truly see their world. While this statement is not applicable to Arab nations in
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general, the sentiment remains- women are culturally forbidden from engaging in certain

behaviors, particularly sexual interactions, in a way that is not applied similarly to men, thus

creating a double standard. Therefore, Arab women’s writings reveal a culture of sexual taboo

that has been long unspoken. In particular, Arab women’s writings reveal a complex idea of

“virginity” and what it represents.

Culturally, virginity is not defined as the first time in which one makes sexual contact

with themselves or a partner but rather defined as lost through the breaking of the female hymen

by the penetration of the male penis. Through this definition, same-gender sexual acts are

disregarded and virginity loss is seen solely as an act that is inflicted on a female partner by a

male partner. In Dr. Laura M. Carpenter’s study, a sociology professor at Vanderbilt University,

she found that only a quarter of her university subjects identified oral-genital contact as a means

of virginity loss. Instead, her participants used colloquial terms such as “fooling around” to

define oral-genital sex or other forms of sexual contact not involving genital penetration (131).

Further, Dr. Carpenter found that only 56% of participants defined anal-penile sex as an act that

constituted virginity loss if the receiving partner was female and the interaction preceded

vaginal-penile penetration (131). Therefore, it is neither sexual contact nor penetration itself that

defines virginity loss to most individuals. Instead, it is apparent that virginity is defined as

vaginal-penile penetration, meaning that virginity is enforced solely upon female individuals by

means of their hymens. This conclusion is further supported by the findings of Dr. Jason D.

Hans, Dr. Martie Gillen, and Dr. Katrina Akande of the University of Kentucky in their 2010

study “Sex Redefined: The Reclassification of Oral-genital Contact.” While 98% of their

university participants agreed that vaginal-penile penetration constituted sexual intercourse, only

78% of participants believed that anal-penile penetration constituted sexual intercourse,

regardless of the sex of the receiving participant (74). This definition of sexual interaction
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subsequently excludes both male and female same-sex partners. Specifically, a female and male

partner are required to be present and the male must be penetrating the female’s vagina with their

penis to be considered sexual intercourse and result in the loss of one’s virginity. This

subsequent definition of sex and virginity loss is deeply rooted in misogyny and

heteronormativity.

The heteronormative cultural perception of sexual intercourse being exclusively the

penile penetration of the vagina is demonstrated in Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home. Nidali, a

young girl who engages in sexual relations with both same and different gender individuals, is

the central character of the novel. Following her first romantic encounter with Fakhr, a boy who

served as her first kiss, Nidali befriends a young girl named Rama. Through digital-genital

contact, Nidali experiences her first orgasm through the stimulation of a partner with Rama

(Jarrar 142). In spite of this, Nidali does not self-define her loss of virginity until she has vaginal-

penile intercourse with her male peer Medina in which she reaches orgasm, although he notably

does not orgasm (Jarrar 275). Nidali remarks during this interaction, “[…] I regretted all the

years I’d spent not using tampons in fear that they would take my virginity” (Jarrar 274). The

defining difference between her experience with Rama and her experience with Medina is that

Medina had penetrated her vaginally with his penis. In both situations, Nidali’s partner had not

experienced orgasm, yet Nidali had. Further, through Nidali’s remark that she feared losing her

virginity to a tampon, it is demonstrated that Nidali perceived virginity loss as penetration and

likely also the breaking of the hymen. This concept negates male same-sex intercourse and non-

vaginal penetrative intercourse, denying same-sex partners the same definition of intercourse.

This concept is widely held, so it is unsurprising that as a queer woman herself Nidali denies her

same-gender interaction being the loss of her virginity. Dr. Ava Horowitz and Dr. Edward

Bedford of the University of Lincoln found in their study that even queer individuals were less
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likely to define nonpenetrative genital contact as “sex,” much less a means of virginity loss

(1662). Thus, regardless of one’s sexual orientation, virginity loss is widely regarded culturally

and societally as an act of penetrative sex that breaks the female’s hymen. Through Jarrar’s

novel, virginity is showcased as a heteronormative societal construct. However, virginity as a

heteronormative construct intersects with misogyny when comparing male virginity loss to

female virginity loss.

As previously established, virginity loss is defined as vaginal-penile penetration;

however, due to the nature of the definition, a woman’s virginity is often perceived as a gift for

her male partner. A female hymen, if present, can only be broken once. Thus, the ceremonial

breaking of the hymen is seen as a marker of female virginity loss. However, because a hymen

can only be broken once, some view the loss of a female’s virginity as holding special meaning

to their partner as it can only occur with one select partner. Notably, the same standard does not

exist for men. As there is no physical evidence of their virginity loss, men cannot “gift” their

partner their virginity. In the aforementioned study by Dr. Carpenter, she found that half of her

participants described virginity as a gift that is given to one’s partner. This idea was held

predominantly by her female participants (Carpenter 133). This may be in part due to the societal

and cultural messaging of virginity that targets young women. Women have been interpolated by

their society and culture to believe their virginity is a sacred gift that can only be given once and

should be received by someone “special.” Nawal El Saadawi reflects this idea in her novel Zeina,

in which she describes Mageeda al-Khariti, a young woman being raised in Egypt. Saadawi

writes, “[Mageeda] was only allowed to go to and from school, without stopping or going

anywhere else. She often heard her father say, ‘A girl’s honor is like a match. It can only light

once. Do you hear me?’” (Saadawi 80). Mageeda’s father fears that she would lose her virginity,

and, subsequently, her honor, if left unguarded and allowed to roam the streets alone. Using the
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metaphor of a match, Mageeda’s father reinforces the idea that a girl’s virginity can only be lost

once and thus must be regarded as special. Consequently, women view their bodies and sharing

them with another person in an intimate setting as a gift. Unsurprisingly, construing virginity as a

gift negatively impacts young women.

In Rajaa Alsanea’s novel Girls of Riyadh, Alsanea demonstrates through her characters

the negative impact of viewing women’s virginity as a gift for one’s partner. Her character

Sadeem signs a wedding contract with her husband, Waleed, and considers herself married in

spite of the wedding ceremony not having yet taken place. Due to his insistence, Sadeem allows

Waleed to engage in vaginal-penile penetrative sexual intercourse with her as they were

recognized by the law to be married. Alsanea writes of the moment that, “[Sadeem] was

convinced that [Waleed] wouldn't be satisfied unless she offered him a little more of her

‘femininity,’ and she was willing to do anything to please him, the love of her life, even if it

meant exceeding the limits she had spent her lifetime guarding” (Alsanea 32). Sadeem viewed

her virginity as a gift for her husband and allowed Waleed to receive this gift when they were

recognized as a married couple in the eyes of the law. However, Sadeem’s decision to gift sexual

intercourse to her husband allows him to view her as a conquest that was all too easy to conquer.

Waleed leaves Sadeem after having had sex with her, leaving her both emotionally and socially

devastated as she is outcast by society for being a divorcee. Alsanea’s narrator describes the

thoughts of Sadeem after she is left, echoing, “Had she been wrong to give herself to Waleed

before the wedding celebration?” (33). Sadeem views her “femininity,” or virginity, as a gift for

her husband. In doing so, she is taken advantage of by Waleed, who is implied to have viewed

her as lesser for having accepted his initiation, and Sadeem is left devastated. Thus, it is

demonstrated that viewing virginity as a once-in-a-lifetime gift is exclusively applied only to

women and ultimately harms the woman and encourages men to engage in the “collection” of
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these gifts. Yet, it must also be noted that the narrator of the novel uses the term “femininity” to

describe Sadeem’s allowance of Waleed to initiate sexual intercourse. This reflects the concept

that women are passive receivers of sexual intercourse whereas men are active initiators of sex

and virginity loss.

Similar to how virginity is viewed as a gift from women to men, sex is culturally and

societally viewed as men conquering women. Virginity, when viewed as the first act of vaginal-

penile penetration, often entails the breaking of the hymen. Often described with terms such as

“breaking” the hymen or “popping the cherry,” virginity loss and sex are an act that is enacted

upon a woman by a man, not a mutual activity for pleasure. Dr. Jodi McAlister of Deakin

University writes in her book, Virgin Envy: The Cultural (In)Significance of the Hymen that the

hymen is viewed as a metaphorical barrier that serves as a guard between a man and the

woman’s virginity. As it is “broken,” the man has attained the woman’s gift and has

“deflowered” her (McAlister 51). Yet, for the man, it cannot be a simple conquest. As he is the

active initiator, he must struggle. Often, a woman is expected to feel pain when her hymen

breaks and a man first inserts himself. The woman is passive and in pain whereas the man is

active and successful having conquered the hymen (McAlister 59). By enforcing and defining

virginity through the hymen, the notion that women receive sex and men enact sex is further

perpetuated. Undeniably, this notion is heteronormative and misogynistic. However, it is a notion

that is traceable within society. Dr. Annie Potts of the University of Canterbury writes in her

book The Science/Fiction of Sex: Feminist Deconstruction and the Vocabularies of Heterosex of

the language used to discuss sexual activity between men and women. Dr. Potts writes, “Whether

it is the sperm ‘piercing' the ovum, the penis penetrating the vagina, the man sweeping her off

her feet, her passive feminine sexuality succumbs to his active masculine sexuality, an active

male sexuality which is at times ‘seemingly’ beyond his control” (Potts 112). The way in which
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language has been constructed throughout patriarchal societies has impacted the societal view of

sex and virginity. Men are seen to be conquering women and women are seen as yielding to men.

Therefore, it is culturally acceptable for men to have had multiple conquests, or many sexual

encounters, whereas women are seen as lesser for engaging in sexual intercourse.

In Nawal El Saadawi’s Zeina, she successfully demonstrates the socially and culturally

held perception that men are active initiators of sex who have earned badges of honor through

their conquests whereas women are no more than mere receivers of sex who are conquered by

their partners. Zakariah al-Khartiti, a male character whose infidelities are well-documented

throughout the novel, fears that his wife Bodour is also entertaining affairs. He imagines Bodour

having sex with her male psychiatrist, remarking:

[The psychiatrist] made love to all the women he fancied. God permitted him to have sex

after he had obtained his PhD in psychiatry. He imagined himself a prophet, God’s

messenger to cure the suffering women on earth. He locked up his wife at home, and

when she went out of the house, she wore the veil. He was jealous of other men’s eyes.

(Saadawi 77)

Zakariah not only demonstrates his perspective that he is a conqueror and his wife a conquest

but also reflects the idea that it is culturally acknowledged that men are permitted sex whereas

women must be conquered. The psychiatrist may engage with as many women as he likes, with

Zakariah even remarking that he views his sexual conquests as a cure for his patients’ troubles.

Yet, the psychiatrist also views his wife as a conquest for others and a passive recipient of sex.

Therefore, he must protect his own conquest lest she succumbs to others. Through the

juxtaposition of the psychiatrist and his wife from the eyes of an outside observer, El Saadawi

successfully demonstrates the societally held view that men are active initiators of sex who can
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“take” the virginity of women whereas women receive sex and therefore cannot “take” the

virginity of others. However, although virginity is viewed as an item taken from a woman by a

man, virginity is also simultaneously held to be a state of being or an identity for women to hold.

When an individual, especially a woman, has not engaged in sexual intercourse and thus

possesses their “virginity,” they are referred to as a virgin, signaling that virginity is not only a

possession but also a state of being for women. Women who are virgins are not only expected to

possess their hymen fully intact but also to carry themselves in a way that signals to society that

she is a virgin. Through Randaa Jarrar’s A Map of Home, one sees how virginity is a state of

being for Nidali. After deciding she would leave home despite the wishes of her father, Nidali

remarks, "As cool and open-minded as my baba claimed to be, he wanted me to stay a virgin, to

stay ‘good.’ He didn't ever use the word virgin, he used the word ‘girl.’ He wanted me to stay a

girl because he didn't want me to be a woman. Why didn't he ever want me to be a woman?"

(Jarrar 258). Continuously throughout the novel, Nidali and her father engage in conflict over her

behavior. Often, her behavior is simply her developing and growing as a young woman and

engaging in activities that other cultures would consider normal for teenagers. Yet, given her

father’s Palestinian upbringing, he expects women to behave according to social norms that

demonstrate their virginity. Dr. Nancy El Gendy of Heidelberg University captures this idea in

her article “Trickster Humour in Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home: Negotiating Arab American

Muslim Female Sexuality,” writing, “For [Nidali’s father], virginity entails more than abstaining

from having sex; it necessitates behaving in a way commonly accepted by Arab society” (13).

For Nidali, her virginity is a state of being and behaving within societal Arab norms that is

enforced by her father. Virginity goes beyond the hymen but instead also extends to actions and

behaviors. Nidali is expected to stay a virgin or a girl, innocent and pure. When Nidali undergoes

the loss of her virginity, her entire character is supposed to change and she is to become a
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“woman.” In a similar manner, the loss of a woman’s virginity is seen to signal some intrinsic

change within her and a movement from her status of “virgin” to “non-virgin.”

Virginity is not only a gift and state of being according to Arab culture but also a status

that is subject to change if a woman loses her virginity. When a woman moves from “virgin” to

“non-virgin,” a change is expected to occur. She has given her “most precious gift,” therefore,

this should be reflected in her demeanor. Dr. McAlister writes, “Virginity loss is figured in

Western literature and culture as intrinsically transformative: that is, breaking the hymen should

have a tangible effect on the woman, and her virginity loss should be written not only on her

body (usually via bleeding) but also on her psyche” (McAlister 46). Traditionally, a woman’s

changing of status from “virgin” to “non-virgin” is expected to transform her and change her,

most commonly in a negative way. In Nawal El Saadawi’s Zeina, this expected change is

reflected in the titular character Zeina. El Saadawi writes of Zeina, "She had no honor and no

virginity that she could possibly fear losing, and possessed nothing worth guarding in this life or

in the hereafter" (Saadawi 1). Zeina is neither a virgin nor a non-virgin. Her status is unknown to

the world- she cannot lose it and her being cannot change. Her actions cannot be categorized one

way or another. Throughout the novel, this frustrates many characters as they cannot condemn

Zeina for her actions. Even after Zakariah al-Khariti attempts to rape Zeina and fails, she retains

her virginal statelessness. This lack of status directly contradicts the cultural association of

virginity with action. Dr. McAlister describes virginity as, “[A] cultural idea so often thought of

as an object yet also an identity based upon not doing” (McAlister 45). Women are expected to

be virgins, passive in their recipience of sex and behave in a way that signals to society that they

are a strong and difficult conquest (but, not too difficult). Through this statuslessness, Zeina

holds nothing to lose and therefore upheaves the patriarchal concept of virginity, threatening

those in power around her. However, as virginity is seen as a state of being that a woman is
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expected to remain in until the bond of marriage, sexual interactions are seen within the marriage

often to only be a means to an end for reproduction and are not to be enjoyed by women.

Virginity loss and subsequent sexual intercourse are often associated with marriage, yet

when women are allowed to engage in sexual intercourse within the socially acceptable bounds

of marriage, it is only for the enjoyment of the male partner, as previously discussed, or for the

purposes of reproduction. In Miral Al-Tahawy's The Tent, Fatima remains the youngest daughter

of her father’s family. Time and time again, she is praised for her status as a woman derived

from a noble line. As a child, her father remarks of her, “Fatim comes from a long line of noble

folk. She can’t marry a Circassian... She’s a pure Adnanian filly... Off with you, red-faced

Turk!” (Al-Tahawy 33). Albeit jokingly, Fatima’s father makes it clear from Fatima’s childhood

that he has high expectations for who will take her hand in marriage and openly compares her to

a horse. Declining several marriage offers, her father expresses that her marriage is a means of

reproduction for his line and thus must be worthy of his nobility and status lest the bloodline be

soiled. Dr. Shahd Alshammari, a literary critic from Kuwait, remarks of Fatima’s father’s

actions, commenting, “Fatima’s father expresses Bedouin ideology clearly, linking his

daughter’s identity to his own noble heritage. He places great value on her worth [...] She is

rendered an object, specifically a ―filly, to be either kept or sold. Just as the horse’s bloodline is

examined and is crucial for its value to be established, women’s value is derived from their

linkage to purity and noble asil lines” (Alshammari 13). Like a mare, Fatima is regarded as a

means to reproduce a purebred line. Her virginity and sexuality are policed through the confines

of marriage. Her status as a virgin is to be preserved until there is a man who is deemed worthy

in the eyes of her father to reproduce with her and continue his noble heritage. Sexuality is thus

seen only as a means to an end of reproduction regarding the woman’s contributions. Further,

similar to how Fatima’s sexuality is policed by her father through the confines of marriage which
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the expectation of offspring, virginity is enforced both physically on women and through societal

expectations.

In certain Arab nations, though certainly not all, virginity is enforced on women through

the means of removing a woman’s clitoral hood. This practice is referred to by participants as

female circumcision and by others as female genital mutilation (FGM). Rose Oldfield Hayes was

widely regarded as the first person to bring attention to this topic within the Western world when

she published her article “Female Genital Mutilation, Fertility Control, Women’s Roles, and the

Patrilineage in Modern Sudan: A Functional Analysis.” Within this research, Hayes identified

that in Sudan the practice of removing a woman’s clitoral hood was often done in order to, “[…]

ensure a girl's chastity, thereby safeguarding the dignity and honor of her own and her future

husband's patrilineages” (Hayes 617). However, female genital mutilation often extended beyond

the removal of the clitoral hood. Hayes also discovered that the vaginal opening would be sewn

closed, a phenomenon known as infibulation. This process would be undone slightly once a

woman was married, undone entirely for the birth of her children, and then redone as needed.

Unsurprisingly, the process is immeasurably painful and has resulted in deaths while also posing

no health benefits to the female mutilated, instead often causing immediate or long-term health

complications (Hayes 617). Through these processes, virginity was thought to be enforced as

women would lose sexual desire after the removal of their clitoris and would be physically

unable to engage in vaginal-penile intercourse from infibulation. No similar procedure exists for

men aside from the far less damaging removal of a male’s foreskin, thus reinforcing the concept

that virginity is an object inherent to women that must be safeguarded, even at the cost of

physical mutilation. Although Hayes’ research focused on Sudan, female genital mutilation is not

unheard of in other Arab nations. Nawal El Saadawi noted in an interview that, during her

undergraduate studies, she realized that every woman in Egypt that she knew had their clitoral
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hood removed, regardless of their socioeconomic status (“Nawal El Saadawi...”). Based solely

on their status and societal position as women, women were and are subjected to have their

sexuality and virginity physically policed through means of mutilation. As no equivalent for men

exists within these areas, it is undeniable that this practice results from the misogynistic concept

that women are defined by their sexual status and are passive recipients of sex. Further, women

are subjected to harm at the hands of men as a result of this process.

The act of removing a woman’s clitoral hood and infibulation causes irreparable harm

and damage to the woman that is often worsened by the hands of men. While the process itself is

painful to undergo, sex and childbirth become excruciatingly painful following the procedure. As

cited by Hayes previously, the vaginal opening is only undone slightly for sexual intercourse.

Therefore, when women engage in sexual acts, they experience pain that can result in death.

According to Nawal El Saadawi in her interview, following the marriage ceremony, a young

woman is, “[…] exposed to [a] very harsh operation […] by the finger of the bridegroom to

deflower her. Then the family will take the blood of the hymen on a towel and show it to the

people celebrating and say, ‘This is the blood of honor of the man,’ it is the honor of the father.

And the father is so happy with this blood on the towel” (“Nawal El Saadawi...”). During this

process, a small opening is entered with the finger of her now-husband and she is forcibly

subjected to the breaking of her hymen to prove her status as a virgin. The father and husband

are pleased by her status as a virgin whereas the woman suffers excruciatingly. As El Saadawi

notes in her interview, some women die following this ceremonious action (“Nawal El

Saadawi...”). Thus, it is evident that virginity defines both a woman’s worth and the honor of her

family, even when its preservation poses insurmountable harm to the woman. Yet, while men

celebrate the enforcement of women’s virginities, they also create a double standard for their

wives. In Nawal El Saadawi’s Zeina, Zakariah al-Khartiti is displeased with Bodour’s sex drive.
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The narrator notes that Zakariah is aroused by the idea of a woman deriving true pleasure from a

sexual encounter, stating, "With the movement of the thighs as he walked, and the friction of

flesh, the hidden body part began to feel some ecstasy, to tremble with some pleasure or the

promise of pleasure which his wife could not give him. The reason, perhaps, was that her clitoris

had been cut off in childhood." (Saadawi 39). Zakariah attributes Bodour’s lack of libido due to

the removal of her clitoris. Though Zakariah and similar men within Arab cultures that practice

female genital mutilation encourage the policing of virginity, they hold the belief that women

should please them during sex in spite of being consistently told that sex is shameful and wrong

and being forced to undergo physical procedures that make having sex painful. Men both

celebrate and are repulsed by women’s sexuality, particularly when virginity is enforced.

Although men do enforce women’s virginity, women oftentimes aid in the enforcement as well,

if not more often than the men.

Women who are oppressed sexually may be subjected to interpolation at the hands of

their patriarchal society, subsequently adopting hegemonic views of virginity and policing their

fellow women’s virginity. During the ceremony in which women’s clitoral hoods are removed,

women often play the central role in carrying out the ceremony. According to Rose Oldfield

Hayes’ fieldwork, the grandmother of the young daughter is often the one arranging the

ceremony during with the FGM procedure will take place (Hayes 620). When the ceremony is

carried out, individuals can be found celebrating and creating noise through drumming, clapping,

and singing whilst the girl is held down by women of the community and has her clitoral hood

removed by the female midwife of the community. The girl is presented with gifts from her

fellow women in spite of her pain (Hayes 619). Females are the sole recipients of such a deadly,

painful procedure yet continue the cycle of enforcing one another’s virginity through force, even

celebrating their peers as though they have completed a rite of passage by being subjected to
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such abuse. Through their patriarchal societies, families, and places of worship, women are

interpolated to believe their sexuality is inherently shameful and that they must mutilate

themselves unless they wish to succumb to their so-called shameful desires. This belief is so

deeply ingrained into women that oftentimes no man is necessary to enforce women’s virginities.

Rajaa Alsanea notes this in Girls of Riyadh. As Sadeem, Gamrah, Lamees, and Michelle act

independently and spend time together, they observe that other women are watching them for

any promiscuous behavior. The unnamed narrator remarks, “[…] guys stare at women for their

own reasons, while women stare at each other just because they are nosy! And they have no

excuse for it. A girl can't stroll about in the malls under the protection of God without being

checked out thoroughly by everyone, especially her own kind” (Alsanea 17). While the narrator

believes that women are simply nosy, the truth extends beyond curiosity. Women have been

taught that their virginity is a gift to be given under no circumstances other than to please her

husband. Women then internalize this as truth and find any other beliefs or actions to be

shameful. Through their status as women in the community, they observe their fellow women

and enforce virginity and police sexuality through social pressure, like that felt by Sadeem,

Gamrah, Lamees, and Michelle. Virginity as a state of being and as a way of behaving is

enforced onto women through both physical means and social pressure, often driven by means of

internalized misogyny. Undeniably, the enforcement of virginity and policing of sexuality causes

irreparable harm outside of the physical harm done through the female genital mutilation

procedure.

When women are made to view their sexuality as shameful and base their worth solely on

their status of virginity, they suffer irreparable psychological damage following their first sexual

experience, regardless of consenting to the interaction. Dr. Daniel Rees of the University of

Denver Colorado and Dr. Joseph Sabia of the University of San Diego State University
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conducted a study regarding virginity’s impact on adolescents. Through their study, they

concluded that young women who engage in sex are likely to experience symptoms of

depression and lower self-esteem than their male counterparts who engage in sex and female

counterparts who do not engage in sex (Sabia 1380). Though Dr. Sabia and Dr. Rees conclude

from these findings that women, particularly adolescent women, should not engage in sexual

relations as it is damaging, this conclusion can be countered by exploring why women suffer

after engaging in sexual relationships. Nidali of A Map of Home, after having had penetrative

vaginal-penile sex with Medina, returns home in a state resembling depression. She narrates:

I briefly pondered whether I would go to hell […] I thought about the man, my parents

and everyone around me always said I would marry: that was the man I was supposed to

lose my virginity to. I felt a sense of panic about whether I would be loved. Now that I

was no longer a virgin […] I felt free, unburdened, but I was also scared and in pain.

(Jarrar 276)

Nidali, having been the one to initiate the sexual interaction with Medina, still experiences

immense guilt over losing her status as a virgin. She reflects on the societal expectations she was

held to, and still is held to, and fears that the loss of her virginity makes her unlovable to her

family and the future lifelong male partner she anticipates having despite demonstrating same

and different-gender attraction. Through Nidali, one sees the true reason women suffer

psychologically following sexual encounters, even when they initiate the encounter, consent, and

are looking toward the interaction: women are told consistently and repeatedly that their status as

virgins is what gives them value and worth. If women reclaim their bodies and sexuality, they

then lose the value and worth imposed onto them by society. Virginity as a societal concept and

the resulting definition of sex directly harms women and perpetuates a heteronormative narrative

of what sex is supposed to look like.

Through metaphors of used objects and popped cherries, virginity is portrayed as the

status of being pure and unused and virginity loss is explained as an act of violence inflicted

upon women that results in the loss of any worth they hold. By examining the literature written

by Arab women who are subjected to such beliefs, one comes to understand how virginity and

sex are defined and enforced onto women. Virginity has been purely used to describe the state of

having received vaginal-penile penetration, subsequently meaning that women are virgins when

their hymens are intact. Sex, therefore, is also defined as vaginal-penile penetration, disregarding

other sexual acts and forms of intimacy and discounting sexual interactions between same-sex

individuals. Women may give their virginity to a worthy partner, but men are simultaneously

expected to conquer women’s virginities. The sexualities of women exist only to bear children

for their partners and families. Further, virginity is beyond a physical state, but is also reflected

in how a woman carries herself within society. This state is enforced both socially and through

physical means of female genital mutilation. Women are physically and psychologically harmed

through these concepts and a society that is both misogynistic and heteronormative is further

perpetuated by cultural norms regarding virginity and sexuality. As demonstrated by the stories

The Tent, Girls of Riyadh, A Map of Home, and Zeina, the voices of women subjected to such

beliefs must be heard and shared so that the harm resulting from the current narratives can begin

to be reversed.
 Stanfield 17

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