| | The Happy Feminist: THE CULT OF THE HYMEN LIVES ON . . . |
 | | Yarborough, 40 years old, a medical assistant from San Antonio [who paid $5,000 for the surgery on the occasion of her 17th wedding anniversary]. |
 | | According to Joan Jacobs Brumberg in The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, a hymenotomy is a surgical incision of the hymen which gynecologists began performing in the '30s and '40s to prevent hemorrhage, pain, and infection on the honeymoon. |
 | | As I was reading about the hymenotomy I was struck by the idea that underprivileged women could probably do it themselves with some topical Novocain and a pizza cutter for fewer than thirty bucks, so long as they didn't press too hard on the pizza cutter. |
| happyfeminist.typepad.com /happyfeminist/2005/12/the_cult_of_the.html (6701 words) |