You Won't Believe It's Not A Virgin!

(Pictured: A traditional Turkish Muslim swimsuit (no, I'm not joking)! )

Muslims, Coptic Christians, Hindus and Orthodox Jews all, typically, require women to be virgins before marriage. Recently, a French court annulled the marriage of a Muslim couple because the groom discovered on their wedding night that the bride was not a virgin. He halted their still ongoing reception party by outing her to all of their guests on the dance floor.

Of course, the only way that the would-be husband can verify his wife's claim of virginity is an unbroken hymen - a membrane which surrounds the vaginal opening. It's worth mentioning that the hymen is not only broken through vaginal penetration, but can also be ruptured in the course of daily activity. That, however, is largely unimportant to a soon-to-be groom in many of the world's oldest faiths, as the hymen is the only way he has of verifying that his wife is, indeed, untouched by another man.

For a little over two-and-a-half decades, it's been possible to pull the wool over a groom's eyes and restore a woman's hymen. Yes, plastic surgeons can give back a woman's technical virginity by cutting away the ruptured edges, narrowing the opening to the vagina and then suturing the pieces of the membrain back together with dissolving stitches.

The procedure, called hymenoplasty, was originally developed and perfected by Dr. Robert Stubbs twenty-five years ago in Toronto when he consulted with a couple with a unique request. The Iraqi couple was parting ways since the man was moving to the US to pursue a medical degree. The woman wished to remain in Canada and also demanded that her ex pay for the restoration of her virginity so that she would have a better chance of finding a new husband, even if fraudulently.

"It's basically to deceive a husband that a woman is virginal," says Dr. Sammy Sliwin.

"I am the mechanism through which this woman can perpetrate a fraud on her husband. Do I really care about it? No. Some of them made a silly mistake when they were younger and they didn't realize how important it was going to be to their fiancé."

Of course, many women in the New World find the mere fact that there would be any perceived need for this procedure appalling. Still, although an uncommon request, its demand is growing (especially in Canada, where the procedure originated). Many divorce decrees and prenuptial agreements are beginning to include the clause that, should the couple ever part ways, the ex-husband must pay for the procedure to restore that which he took.

The procedure is performed under local anesthetic about four to five weeks before the woman plans to have intercourse for the "first" time. There will be blood (although Daniel Day-Lewis may or may not be there... sorry, couldn't resist) - that's the point, after all - and some small amount of pain. The total cost of the operation is typically between $2,500 and $4,000 dollars.