When is a hymen a hymen?

Why is it that men are considered more equal in the sexual stakes than women? That it is perfectly alright if men have hundreds of lovers while women are considered out and out whores if they are not virgins the day they get married? What does an intact hymen actually mean?

All of those thoughts flashing through my head and then some. I have a daughter. She's 9. Right now I don't want to think of my baby having sex with another man or woman. As far as I am concerned she's going to stay my baby forever (wishful thinking I know but I just cannot face up to J or C ever having sex, the ick factor is just far too much!).

On a message board I frequent there is a discussion right now about an incident that all started with Rush Limbaugh's statement in which he basically said that a woman who uses birth control is a slut who wants to be paid to have sex. This incident was used as proof to call a 16 year old girl a whore after some of her classmates discovered she uses a low dose birth control pill to control excessive bleeding and PMS (whether the blog entry by the girl's mother is true or not is irrelevant as I have heard people say that any young girl who uses birth control is a slut).

As the mother of a young girl I am appalled that there are people out there who think it is ok to call a young woman a slut or a whore because she uses a birth control pill. Regardless of whether she is using it to prevent an unwanted pregnancy or on the advice of a doctor, it is just not something you call a young woman on the cusp of adulthood.

What message does that send out? To me it says that the world out there still thinks of women as possessions, property, chattel. Basically a slave to a man's whims. Really? Forget the burn the bra brigade and feminists. This is an insult to all women. We are not possessions or property. We do not owe our names, our reputations to a man. We are more than capable of standing up for ourselves, making decisions that affect our bodies without having the approval of some man out there. Men do not have vaginas, breasts or wombs. They do not understand the concept of menstruation, monthly cramps from hell. They do not understand what it means to have some little parasite living inside of you for 9 months kicking the shit out of all your major organs. They do not understand that when said parasite is finally out of your body that your breasts then become nothing more than a food supply mechanism, let alone the pain that is mastitis. They have no clue. Therefore they should STFU about our bodies, our choices, our reputations. Instead they should focus on being productive parts of society, using their little heads for good instead of bad.

For now, I will raise my daughter to respect herself enough so that when peer pressure starts, when boys decide she is ready to have sex, that she will be informed enough to make her own decisions. Decisions like using protection in the form of birth control pills and condoms, not relying on a boy to supply the protection (as we all know that a boy's brain sits in the little head and not the big head), and ultimately if she is ready or not. I don't expect my daughter to be a virgin when she marries (if she marries), in fact I won't insist on it. It is her body after all. I will however completely flatten the idiot who decides she's a slut just because she uses protection for whatever reason.