How did I lose my virginity without having sex?

I was a virgin until last month when I got married. Surprisingly, there was no blood during our first time being intimate. How could I have lost my virginity? Anonymous

Dear Anonymous

A virgin is someone who has never had sexual intercourse. It is hard to determine whether one is a virgin, requiring proof to that one is a virgin, especially when tradition demands it as a requirement before getting married.

Virginity has traditionally been used as a yardstick for purity and, therefore, qualification for marriage in many African societies and an intact hymen is often taken as proof of virginity. Unfortunately, one will not look at the hymen to prove that it is intact, but bleeding during sex as indicated by blood has been used as proof that a woman had an intact hymen yet the bleeding could have been caused by other factors.

Bleeding during or after sex may be misleading since there may be other reasons causing the bleeding instead of an intact hymen being torn. Intimacy during one’s period, or around the time of ovulation, being on hormonal contraception, having an STD, including Human Papilloma (HPV) warts, taking drugs that cause bleeding including aspirin and having cervical cancer, among other reasons could all cause bleeding during sex.

The hymen as proof of virginity apart from not always being shown by bleeding during sex is most flawed since some women may have multiple sex acts and yet retain an intact hymen (false virgins). This may happen when the hymen is thick, loose or elastic. Sometimes, the hymen can heal completely or grow back to look intact. Other women may naturally have never had a hymen, yet still others may have lost their hymen due to activities unrelated to sex including one scratching their private parts due to an infection such as Candida.

Claims that the hymen may be lost while a woman is climbing a tree, boda-boda, bicycle or horse are false. However, using tampons during one’s period can tear or remove a hymen, requiring a virgin to avoid using them.

Hymenoplasty is an operation done by doctors to restore a ruptured hymen, making the presence of an intact hymen during the first sexual intercourse even more false.