11.16.06
Hire Me To Talk About Virgins!
The fascinating, misunderstood, controversial topic of virginity is the subject of Hanne Blank’s groundbreaking new book Virgin: The Untouched History. Aspects of this history—a history chronicled for the first time in this sweeping new survey—are also the subject of four vibrant, information-packed, surprising, and entertaining talks that Hanne is offering for 2007.
Reviews have raved that Blank’s work is “a huge helping of stereotype busting, old-fashioned feminist consciousness raising” that “does for sex what feminism does for women: gives us context.” Conference and event organizers say “fantastic speaker… and a huge part of why the conference went so well!” and describe her as “at once learned and accessible, informative and provocative.”
To bring Hanne Blank and Virgin: The Untouched History to your campus, conference, or other organization, contact her at hanne at hanneblank dot com or contact Jennifer Baumgardner or Amy Richards at Soapbox, Inc. at (646) 486-1414.
Gypsy Flowers and Piss-Prophets: A Historical Tour of Virginity Testing
Human beings have been inventing virginity tests for as long as we have recognized the status of virginity itself—since before written history began. Some of the earliest documents of Western culture discuss the problem of how to verify virginity. Across the centuries, women and girls have had their genitals inspected, endured having their breasts and buttocks groped, drunk bizarre concoctions, and literally had smoke blown up their vaginas, all in the name of determining whether they were virginal. No virginity test has ever done better than chance at determining anyone’s sexual status. Even modern medicine cannot offer us anything more conclusive than conjecture. But the methods that we have tried over the centuries, whether seemingly abstract (astrological forecasts), bizarre (sniffing lettuce), or seemingly scientific and modern (gynecologists’ exams), reveal volumes about what we have believed to be true about the body, about sexuality, and about the elusive quality of virginity itself.
(Includes audience participation. Approximately 50 minutes, plus Q&A.)
Hymen Wars: The Two Thousand Year Search For Anatomical Proof of Virginity
Ask most people how you can tell whether or not a woman is a virgin, and it is likely that they’ll mention the hymen. The condition of this storied membrane has, in recent history, been considered so definitive of virginity that reports of its condition have been admitted as evidence in courts of law, and we often assume that this is not only warranted but that the hymen has been known and understood this way throughout human history. Nothing could be further from the truth: the hymen’s physical reality wasn’t even confirmed by dissection until 1546, after twelve centuries of medical debate about whether it existed at all. Even then, some physicians dismissed it as nothing more than a minor birth defect. The startling history of the hymen, stretching from ancient Greece to the pages of modern medical journals, is a saga of controversy, projection, paranoia, and medical mystery that continues to infuriate and amaze.
(Visual component includes graphic clinical photographs. May not be suitable for all audiences. Approximately 50 minutes, plus Q&A.)
True Love Legislates: “Abstinence,” Education, and the Politics of Virginity in America
Since 1996, the United States has been the only nation in the developed world—and one of only a few worldwide—with national legislation regarding the virginity of its citizens. Why, and what does this mean in the larger context of American history and culture? With hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and the staunch support of powerful political and religious conservatives, the legislation that created “abstinence”-only sexuality education was never subject to public referendum, yet it neatly encapsulates nearly a century’s paranoia about the sexuality of young women and men. Devoid of oversight requirements or even proof that “abstinence” programs work (and indeed with increasing evidence to the contrary), “abstinence” education policy is creating a chilling effect on freedom of information and expression not just in America’s public schools and youth programs but in the halls of public research institutions like the Centers for Disease Control. Public figures, including several former Surgeons General of the United States, have called for an end to this controversial Federal program, but economics, social history, and politics alike make repeal a difficult task. A hard-hitting and layered look at the big picture of “abstinence” in the context of American history and culture.
(Approximately 50 minutes, plus Q&A.)
Virgins, Veils, and Eunuchs For The Sake of Heaven: Virginity in the World of Early Christianity
In the fifth century BCE, the Greek poet Bacchylides wrote that “as a skillful painter gives a face beauty, just so chastity gives charm to a life of high aims.” But what Bacchylides meant by “chastity” was light-years away from what Saint Augustine, writing at an equal distance into the Common Era, meant by the same term. The development and spread of Christianity brought with it a startling new philosophy of sexuality and of virginity in particular: to a world in which the married household was the cornerstone of the social and political order, it introduced the notion that “…he who gives in marriage does well, he who does not does better.” (I Cor. 7:38) In order for this radical reprioritization of virginity to succeed, the virginity culture of the pre-Christian world had to be encompassed and transformed, and the results aggressively promoted in doctrine, ritual, organizational structure, and the rapid generation of a vast and fascinating literature. The result was nothing less than a paradigm shift in the Western culture of virginity, one which continues to shape our thoughts, emotions, and experiences of virginity a millennium and a half later.
(Approximately 50 minutes, plus Q&A.)
While visiting your campus as a featured speaker, Hanne Blank may be available (pending scheduling) to enrich student experience by speaking in undergraduate and graduate classrooms on general subjects relating to her work as a feminist writer, activist, and historian. With abundant classroom experience and guest-teaching credits at institutions including Johns Hopkins University, Tufts University, Brandeis University, University of Delaware, Virginia Commonwealth University, and many others, she is happy to speak to many topics related to her past and current work.
For educators who would prefer more structured and topical guest-teaching on subjects relating specifically to virginity and the book Virgin: The Untouched History, Ms. Blank is also offering
topic-based classroom teaching on the following subjects:
Virginity as a Problem in Contemporary Medical Ethics
Suitable for women’s and gender studies, applied philosophy, and ethics classrooms, this topic requires students to read two articles from major medical journals (four for graduate classes) in preparation for a wide-ranging discussion about issues of institutional and cultural misogyny, issues regarding medical definition of anatomical “normality,” patient consent and confidentiality, legal and forensic issues regarding physician interpretation of anatomical evidence, and physician liability for patients’ social and cultural safety. (Bibliography for this class will be provided to the professor upon confirmation of booking. Study questions for students will be provided.)
Under Wraps: Gender, Appearance, and Power in Tertullian’s De virginibus velandis
Suitable for women’s history, history of Christianity, ancient literature, and Classical history classrooms, this class centers around close historical reading of Tertullian, De virginibus velandis (On the Veiling of Virgins), with the goal of better understanding the role that gender, sexuality, biological sex, appearance, and women’s agency played within the intersecting cultures of Tertullian’s world and within the developing theology of third-century Christianity. (The core text may, depending on the nature of the class, be read either in Latin or in English translation. Study questions for students will be provided.)
Virgin Sexy: Sex, Power, and the Eroticization of Virginity
Suitable for women’s and gender studies, cultural studies, human sexuality, and modern social history classrooms, this class considers the complicated issue of how virginity is eroticized in Western culture and what ramifications this has for the personal well-being, cultural and legal agency, and sexual self-image and experience of women. Discussion centers around 3 readings (graduate classes may have more) from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (Bibliography for this class will be provided to the professor upon confirmation of booking. Study questions for students will be provided.)
To bring Hanne Blank and Virgin: The Untouched History to your campus, conference, or organization, contact her at hanne at hanneblank dot com or contact Jennifer Baumgardner or Amy Richards at Soapbox, Inc. at (646) 486-1414.