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A neglected aspect of female sexuality, the loss of virginity and the experience of defloration, is the subject of this book. In their introduction the authors tell us, “we have been struck and puzzled
by the fact that whenever the subject of defloration or the hymen was approached by our patients, which in fact was quite frequently, it was inevitably introduced by or couched in language of negation: ‘I never experienced that,’ or ‘I never heard of the hymen,’ and so on. It was this clinical phenomenon that first drew our interest to the subject” (p. 3). Holtzman and Kulish, in their scholarly and comprehensive work, explain the denial of this milestone in female development while elucidating its many meanings and placing it theoretically within contemporary psychoanalytic understandings of female sexuality.
The authors range far in their study of the hymen and defloration. Acknowledging that the psychoanalytic literature has little to say on the subject, they turn to other sources: mythology, anthropology, fairy tales, literature, psychobiography, and, most important of all, their own extensive clinical work. Psychoanalysis has a long history of seeking confirmation and expansion of its observations in other disciplines. These authors' efforts have yielded rich material. For instance, the word hymen comes from the Greek word for membrane; it is also the name of the Greek god of marriage. While it is not clear that the Greeks knew about the anatomical hymen, the loss of virginity at marriage was celebrated with recognizable customs and symbols, the marriage veil being a notable one.
Holtzman and Kulish turn next to anthropology and cross-cultural studies. These, they feel, provide larger samples and necessary corrections to our assumptions about man's (or woman's) essential nature. They find virginity to be widely but not universally prized. The more patriarchal the society, the more the woman is seen as a commodity and the more important proof of virginity becomes.