Over on the LiveJournal anthropologist community, there's a bit of "discussion" about a recent Wall Street Journal article about women undergoing hymenoplasty, a surgery on a woman's hymen that makes her appear to be a virgin again. The general consensus seems to be that unless a woman lives in a country where she can be killed for not being a virgin, hymen repair is a symptom of societal pressures for women to stay subservient to men.

I say it's an example of women exercising their rights over their bodies.

There seems to be an automatic assumption that a woman has this surgery because a man expects her to or wants her to. But in American culture, which is where the article focused, a woman's reasons for having hymenoplasty don't have to be any different from having any other kind of cosmetic surgery.

The reasons woman have cosmetic surgery are varied but ultimately, it's about self-confidence. They want to look better or at least feel better about how they look. God didn't give them what they wanted, so they accomplish surgically where nature let them down. Hymenoplasty is then the ultimate do-over. Sometimes we have a choice about how we lose our virginity; sometimes not. Almost none of us have a first time that is the stuff of poetry. If you could do it all over, knowing what you know now, how much better could it be? Some women think this surgery is the way to find out. It doesn't erase the past, but if it gives these women, these couples pleasure, then what's the harm?

Yes, there are women who feel pressure from men to have this surgery done because those men value intact women. But that pressure isn't any different from men who want their wives and girlfriends to have their boobs done or some other plastic surgery. We only look at it differently because it's surgery "down there."  Societal pressures or not, if she's a voting adult in America, the choice to have this surgery is hers.  "But she feels pressured!" critics cry.  That's what a big chunk of being a grown-up is about: dealing with pressure and making choices and hopefully still sleeping at night.  If she's a voting adult, it's her choice, outside pressures or not.

The problem with living in a culture where people have the right to make choices about their bodies is that they might choose to do something other people disagree with.  They choose to do something that doesn't make any sense to other people, but then, it's not about other people. It's about the person having the surgery, and if they're willing to go through six weeks of recovery, pain, the cost  and the inconvenience, let 'em.