I’m reading The Courage to Heal right now. I have to take it in small pieces. I don’t remember when my hymen was broke. I’m pretty sure Michael didn’t do it. And that was at 7. We had been away from my dad for a while at that point. I’m pretty sure that means my hymen was broken before I was 6 years old.
No wonder I’ve never identified with innocence lost movies. I’ve never had innocence.
While it’s definitely possible that you’re right, and the lack of remembering means it was broken early – it’s also very possible that you never had one to break. I am 99.9999% sure I don’t have any repressed trauma myself, and I never had a hymen. I was always very confused as an adolescent reading that I was “supposed” to have one, and break it, etc, since that’s not my experience at all.
More recently I’ve heard that missing/easily stretched hymens are far more common than the “broken at first sexual intercourse” variety, which tends to be discussed along with the discussion of fucked up concepts of virginity.
Fair enough. But my vagina has enough scar tissue in it that gynecologists have gasped. Amazingly, I haven’t had a problem with the scar tissue ripping or tearing since I had kids. Yay!
It’s not like the possibility of not having had a hymen in the first place makes your early life any less fucked up, really. “We don’t all have hymens in the first place!” is just on my list of unadvertised facts about the vulva.
…
Now I totally want to make an actual list entitled “unadvertised facts about the vulva.”
That’s actually really interesting that the scar tissue’s been better since kids. Is it just cause it stretched/tore as much as it was going to during the childbirth and then healed up in a more stretched configuration, or do you think it actually softened up?
Well, working through the layers of scar tissue with massage can make them go away. Why not a baby S—L—O—W—L—Y pushing by? I have no idea. That’s my guess.
It’s actually been interesting. Between the girls I had much less sensation in my actual vagina than usual but after Calli I seem to have more than I did pre-kids.
And other adventures in TMI. 😉