The lowdown on hymen.

Since a reader of this blog asked me to write about the hymen, I decided to give you readers a little trivia about the hymen.

According to cool nurse:

During the early stages of fetal development there is no opening into the vagina at all. The thin layer of tissue that conceals the vagina at this time usually divides incompletely prior to birth, forming the hymen. The size and shape of this opening (or openings) varies greatly from person to person.

Sometimes this formation of an opening does not occur, resulting in an imperforated hymen (it lacks the more common opening).

It has been long thought that if a girl is a virgin, then during her wedding night, her hymen will break and she will then bleed. Many women, even now, are expected to bleed on their wedding night to proof their virginity and when they don't they face shame and humiliation.

But the truth is, whether a girl bleeds on her wedding night doesn't prove anything at all!

It is a proven medical truth that some females are simply not born with a hymen, since all the tissues had divided completely while they were still in the womb.

And if the woman is active in sports, her hymen could tear naturally. Apart from that, once she menstruates or when she uses a tampon, the hymen could break too.

For some females, the hymen may be very small or elastic and that means that they could be pregnant even if their hymen is still intact. In fact, the remnants of the hymen are usually still present until a women delivers her baby vaginally.

Of course, everyone's different. So gauging a person's virginity via this myth on the hymen is simply bullocks. =p Spread the word!

to Den: I hope this post helped you with your question. The other two topics are actually too medical for this trivia blog. So, I shall just post a couple of good sites for you to look at, and hopefully it'll help explain your questions. ^^

On dermoid cysts : [1] ; [2]

On parthenogenesis : [1] ; [2]

And yes, you asked about the purpose of the hymen... Well, from what I gather, there isn't any purpose. It's just something left over from fetal development. Correct me if i'm wrong. =)