Talk:Hymen

Clearer description of the Hymen

I am not Academic, but I did once ask a Doctor why the Hymen didn't prevent menstruation, and his answer gave me a peace of mind that I would like to share with you.

The Vagina is a tube that can expand and contract like an accordion. The Hymen is a piece of skin that grows over the wrinkles on the front, and it doesn't necessarily bleed unless a virgin squeezes hard enough to part the wrinkled portion.

As a women matures, the hymen becomes thinner, and there is less likelihood of pain or bleeding when it is ruptured.

If the scholarly among you would like to source this, I think it would improve the introduction to the article, and save a lot of women from self-doubt and abuse, and give men a clearer understanding of what should be meant by virginity.

Faragut (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

What? --Equivamp - talk 04:28, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

I could have been clearer in my description above. Instead of "wrinkles in the front," and "wrinkled portion," I should have said, "pleats in the front," and "pleated portion."

Faragut (talk) 19:35, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

The article is clearer now, but doesn't appear to answer the question, "How does the hymen remain intact, without blocking menstruation?"

If you visualize a tube that is pleated along it's length, then there is no "front," or "back." But if that tube is a female vagina, and she is lying on her back, then one side of the tube becomes the front. I can't answer how far up the tube the hymen reaches, but it needs to be clearer that the front of the tube nearest the opening is where the hymen is.

If it were a cave entrance, the front of the cave would be where the opening is, but the roof of the cave would be where the hymen stretches across the lengthwise pleats. To model a vagina, the cave would have to be capable of expanding it's diameter, to accommodate the girth of intercourse, and more so later, so that a baby could come out through it.

Does this suggest a way that the article could still be improved? We know that the normal hymen does not block menstrual blood from exiting.

Faragut (talk) 22:51, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

What? Equivamp - talk 00:41, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

@Faragut: it’s unclear what exactly you want. What issues do you have with the article.

@Equivamp: I’m not sure just saying what is very helpful. It would be more ideal to say “your request is a little unclear” or “I don’t understand your concerns”.CycoMa1 (talk) 22:55, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

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Looking for help adding medical illustration showing intersex variation + more

Hello, I'm still very new t o wikipedia editing, so I was looking for help on how to add a medical illustration to the page, along with information about how several of the hymen variations mentioned on the page already are considered intersex variations. The diagram is from a gynecology textbook from 1896, so it's public domain, and it shows what it refers to as a "double vagina" viewed from the vulva, with what many people in 2025 and 2026 are referring to as a "sleeve" hymen, which describes the shape of the hymen as it appears in the illustration — the end of a coat sleeve, sticking out from the vulva.

There is pretty much zero information available about this hymen variation online, OR this type of vaginal septum as the original illustration describes, so regular people trying to research this are coming against a roadblock, leading either: old reddit posts that provide no new information, or disturbingly easy to find research papers that detail child sexual abuse, but again provide no actual information for adults with this variation.

I don't know how to cite sources for intersex activists considering these variations to be intersex, since the page on reliable sources said social media posts aren't really reliable, and that's the only thing available right now (at least as far as I have been able to find). Like this post here talking about it (This person talks about them a lot) But I think by wikipedia's rules, a personal blog doesn't really count as a reliable sources?

I wanted to provide the illustration so that people can easily find it on wikipedia when they search the internet for "sleeve hymen", and get clear evidence that yes, this *is* a thing, it's a natural intersex variation. The alternative is they just get nothing that looks like their body even when they look on "vulva diversity" websites, which is extremely disappointing and scary.

I wanted to make sure the word intersex is brought up explicitly on the page, because it currently isn't there at all, and having one of these understudied variations can be really scary and isolating, so I wanted to make sure people who have them know that they are intersex and will find community there.

So...I'm just kinda confused on what I should do to make sure I have sources for these things. I don't really know how to cite the idea that intersex people consider these things to be intersex variations, or that this kind of thing can be called a sleeve hymen, besides this paper here https://www.obgynia.com/obgyn/index.php/obgynia/article/view/748. I wasn't really taught in school how to cite sources, but I assume since that's a research paper it might be okay? Nonbinary-Naturalist (talk) 17:23, 31 May 2026 (UTC)