Muslim women surgically ‘restore’ virginity

Repairing the hymen is a 30-minute surgery that costs just under $3,000 and involves a small cut and some 30 stitches. It’s purpose is to provide “the illusion of virginity,” the New York Times reports in tomorrow’s paper:

Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the thin vaginal membrane that normally breaks during the first act of intercourse.

“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”