Item Detail
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Sarah Abboud
Loretta Sweet Jemmott
Marilyn Sommers -
"We are Arabs:" The Embodiment of Virginity Through Arab and Arab American Women's Lived Experiences
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2015
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Dec-15
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Virginity is part of our existence in the world as embodied sexual subjects. While many meanings are associated with virginity, in most of the Arab world virginity relates to the presence of a hymen and extends to encompass the honor of the Arab community, and virginity loss commonly relate to first vaginal intercourse. This study explored the meanings of virginity from the perspectives of Arab and Arab American women. A qualitative phenomenological approach, informed by the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, was used to conduct in-depth interviews with ten women. We identified one over-arching theme Virginity as Identity, and two major themes Embodiment of Virginity and "We are Arabs." To reach an embodied virginity, participants went through a disembodied virginity process, reflecting society's perceptions and values of virginity related to anatomical presence of a hymen and society'
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Springer Science & Business Media
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English