From the immaculate conception to the modern American abstinence movement, the concept of virginity has been a source of much debate and, indeed, suffering. Anke Bernau’s short but wide-ranging book examines changing ideas about virginity in Western culture from the Middle Ages to the present day. There’s evidence of impressive research, including analyses of the way virginity has been represented in literature from Chaucer to Mills & Boon, as well as perceptive studies of myths about famous historical virgins such as Joan of Arc and Elizabeth I.
The structure is slightly problematic. Surely a ‘cultural history’ of virginity in the West which incorporates material from the last 2,000 years has to start with Mary? Equally, the cultures Bernau is investigating are almost uniquely Western and Christian, with male virginity discussed in much less depth than female. The brevity of the study is appealing, but it is inevitably incomplete as a result.
All the same, the writing is nuanced and non-judgemental. Bernau examines obscure antiquated medical ideas, for example the idea of virgins as being particularly susceptible to the complaint of a ‘wandering womb’, and juxtaposes this with modern practices such as hymenal reconstruction, which Bernau rightly points out is intimately linked to the idealisation of virginity and the myriad qualities it’s still held to embody: youth, inexperience, purity
and tightness.
Moving into the present day, Bernau examines the abstinence policies endorsed by both Bill Clinton and George W Bush as appropriate for both the USA and indeed Africa, and notes that meaningful definitions of what actually constitutes virginity are ‘conspicuously absent’ from the discourse of these programmes.
As this book shows, it is a lot harder than one might think to define virginity as a state, and that ‘while virginity can mean many things, those meanings have never been innocent’.
