I remember when a subgroup of the abstinence-only movement first came
up with an escape clause called ‘secondary virginity.’ The idea was
that just because you had sex once didn’t mean you had to do it again.

This prompted a cynical question from a young lawyer in my family:
“Does that mean you can renew your virginity again and again? Or is it
three strikes and you’re out?”

Well, now we are having a secondary argument over secondary virginity.

This time the subject isn’t spiritual revival, but surgical re-virgin.
The furor comes from Europe, where there’s a trend among women — mostly
immigrants and mostly Muslims — to have their hymens restored for the
marriage market.

This began with a recent case that has France in an uproar, even by
French standards. A Muslim groom who discovered on his wedding night
that his wife was not what she claimed to be — a virgin — sued for and
won an annulment. He claimed a breach of contract on the grounds that
virginity was an “essential quality” of the woman he chose to marry.

This ruling outraged a country that bans headscarves in schools and has
immigrants sign a pledge that describes France as a secular country
where men and women are equal. It was described by a Cabinet minister
as a “fatwa against emancipated women,” and identified by others as
something that would pressure more women into hymenoplasty.

Now, why precisely one woman found guilty of fraud would drive other
women into deeper fraud I’m not sure. But gynecologists in Paris report
women coming to them for certificates of virginity, and medical tourist
packages take women to places such as Tunisia where the surgery is
cheaper.

There is even a new Italian movie about an immigrant returning to Casablanca to “have her odometer brought back to zero.”

All this is happening despite the fact — Biology 101 — that the
presence or absence of a hymen may be unrelated to sexual experience.
Indeed, one surgeon gives patients a vial of blood to pour on the
sheets just in case.

This has led to a controversy not just over sex and equality, but the
ethics of surgery that’s designed to retrofit a woman to a rigid
culture. On one side, the French gynecological organization condemned
the practice as a “submission to the intolerance of the past.” On the
other side, a doctor who performs the surgery said, “My patients don’t
have a choice if they want to find serenity — and husbands.” And some
of the patients describe it flat-out as a matter of life and death,
acknowledging that they are in real danger from their families if their
‘dishonor’ is discovered.

Now, before we dismiss this whole restoration project as Europe vs.
Fundamentalism, remember that American doctors are also offering to
repair hymens in Web site ads promising privacy and like-a-virgin
results — thank you, Madonna.

Bioethicist Alta Charo squirms over the idea of hymen repair, but then
says we ought to “put it in the larger context of how far women will go
to make themselves marriageable and sexually attractive.” Just what
will secular, modern women do to fit their own cultural stereotypes —
breast implant, anyone? What will they do to stay employable —
face-lift, anyone?
But there’s something in the tale of fear, fraud and France that
resonates with the darker side of the abstinence-only education
movement here.

Government-promoted virginity lessons are not simply an attempt to
protect our daughters — and, oh yeah, sure, sons — from a culture that
sells sex like Pop-Tarts. Nor are they just about helping them delay
and think twice about hooking up. They too are based on fear and
control.

And consider the father-daughter Purity Balls dotting the country. At
these deeply creepy events, fathers promise “to cover my daughter as
her authority and protection in the area of purity.” How far is that
protection from the protection racket where fathers oversee their
female property until it’s passed on — intact or else — to a husband?

All in all, the flip side of purity lectures is the conviction that sex
— and the girls who have it — is dirty. On either side of the Atlantic,
doctors in the “like a virgin” business are not only accomplices of
private deceptions, they are accomplices to those who keep the reins of
sexuality out of women’s own hands.

Where, I wonder, is the Internet ad for repairing a whole culture?

Ellen Goodman’s e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com.