Paper short abstract:

I will deal with surgical repairs of the hymen in Tunisia considering them in relation with the virginity norm and its adjustments. I will show how genital surgeries put medical techniques at the intersection between cultural norms and individual, social and religious arrangements.

Paper long abstract:

The reestablishment of female virtue is currently subject to medicalization, a phenomenon that is acquiring growing visibility. Drawing on ethnographic research in Tunisia, I will focus on two genital surgical techniques: hymenorraphy and hymenoplasty. I will examine the social uses of these practices and the gendered body norms legitimating them. I will analyse the discourses of several categories of actors: women, religious authority, and medical doctors. Young unmarried women conceive of genital surgeries as a means to purify their physical and moral person cancelling the defilement caused by premarital sex. The Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences, the main authority dealing with bioethics issues in the Muslim world, mentioned the idea that genital surgeries can be a technique of purification in 1987 during a debate on the legality of virtue repairs. Based on the principles of the common good, discretion, protection and repentance, some Sunni religious authorities have thus authorized hymenorraphy, defending its moral nature. Some legal opinions issued in 2007 and 2009 have confirmed this position, triggering the public reactions of more conservative groups. If genital surgeries are located at the intersection between cultural norms and multiple socio-religious arrangements, physicians are caught up in an ambiguous position. While some practitioners criticize the constraining norm of female virginity, others do not easily accept to endorse a social lie, although they are well aware of the importance of genital surgeries in that they allow the social reintegration of young women who have "sinned".