Girls, What is the purpose of a hymen?

[DillonB69]

Is it to keep bacteria out of the vagina? That is my only guess.

Bonus question: does the hymen actually close off the vaginal opening? WTF IS A HYMEN

[petitedollbabee]

Hymen is a thin piece of tissue at the opening of the vagina. The hymen typically doesn’t completely cover the opening, it needs to be open to allow menstrual blood and discharge to exit the vagina. Hymens come in different shapes, they look different for every woman. Hymens can tear and break over time, or from various activities, they don’t only break from sex. The purpose of the hymen is to protect the vagina in the embryonic stage from external sources of infection. In an adult woman, the hymen serves no purpose.

[DillonB69]

That was very informative thank you! Embryonic stage? Explain what that is and why it's more important for the vagina to prevent infection then rather than other stages of life pleaseee

[petitedollbabee]

Embryonic stage is when you’re still an embryo in your mothers stomach, roughly between the 5th and 10th weeks of her pregnancy. From what I understand, there can be germs inside of her stomach while you are in there, so the hymen is there to stop any germs entering your body, since you are sitting in a sack of fluid during that time. After you are born, the hymen is less important because you’re not in fluid constantly, it’s much easier to keep germs and risk of infection outside of the vagina when you’re not in fluid.

[DillonB69]

Oh wow that makes sense. Thank you!! The female body is pretty amazing. One last question. Is the hymen visible? Super weird question but if you spread open the vulva and look inside the vaginal opening can you actually tell if the hymen is intact? Or is it deep enough inside where it would not be visible?

[petitedollbabee]

I’m not sure sorry, you could look up photos on google and see if there’s any results about that.

[DillonB69]

All good I appreciate the feedback. You are officially girlsaskguys resident hymen expert 🙏🏼

[CourtneyJane2]

The hymen is meant to protect the vagina from infection and debris during development, it's not really necessary after puberty and it usually gets broken when a girl is penetrated for the first time.

For much of history, the only way to tell if a woman is a virgin or not is to see if her hymen is still intact.