Tightening Creams: Women empowerment or Patriarchal Reaffirmation?

An Indian company has launched what it claims is the country's first vagina tightening cream, saying it will make women feel "like a virgin" again. The company says it is about empowering women, but critics say it is doing the opposite. The BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan in Mumbai reports.

So it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything, mainly because I just moved to Australia so been really busy but this caught my attention. I’m not sure what to think of this, a vagina-tightening cream. Is it really empowering women or reaffirming a patriarchal view that women should be virgins until marriage?

The first of its kind in India, the product is marketed towards women who wish to build their self-confidence. My problem with that is, why should having a tighter vagina have anything to do with someone’s self-esteem? Ancient India was praised for their open-mindedness and lack of hypocrisy (I mean, they wrote the Kamasutra!) in most departments except for the need for women to be virgins. This attitude has not changed but the reason for chastity has changed. It used to be that chastity was about maintaining racial purity (in terms of the caste system) not about saving yourself for the right man or exploring your sexuality. This reasoning has become irrelevant now but the attitude remains.

Practically speaking, as people get married later and women are working and have more independence, it just becomes more common that they would become sexually active but on the ‘down-low’. Gynaecologists say that the most common questions she receives is, ‘Will my husband realise that I’m not a virgin?’ And from men, it is the enquiry of how to find out if his wife is a virgin. I know this is a common worldwide problem and it’s been done to death, but I have to write this one line about it: !@#$% this double-standard!

From a biological perspective, while a woman with multiple sexual partners will have experience, there usually isn’t that much evidence to be found in her vagina. Regarding the first bleed, nowadays, most women are active enough to have broken their own hymen at some point so it doesn’t really say much. Many virgins don’t bleed either. And regarding the loosening of the vaginal muscles, the only real difference happens during childbirth and that is due the walls tearing due to the physical trauma. Sorry men, you just aren’t that big!

In terms of positives, a woman would probably have a better sexual experience if she was tighter, both for her partner and herself so that’s always a positive. I mean, a men’s equivalent would be lubricant, easing and increasing sexual pleasure.

My personal suggestion for women who wish to be tighter (for their own pleasure, not to prove anything to anyone) is, take control of your own body. The vagina is a muscle that you can work out. Heard of Kegels? Google it, do it.