Fruit of ancient religious and cultural traditions, sometimes relayed by doctors wishing to apply their convictions to their patients, some people prefer "to remain pure" until marriage. Women even go so far as to have an operation to regain a virginity
The gynecologist David Elia intervenes on the survey of the age of first sexual intercourse among the French. The average girl as a boy is around 17 years old. But beyond the figures he wants to point out that these young people do not sell their virginities and that the feeling of love is very present in the first report.
At the time when the majority was at 21 years old a Catholic gynecologist advised a young girl of 18 years, probably came to ask for a means of contraception, to wait for marriage before having sexual relations with her fiancé and to warn her against the arrival of an unwanted child in a student couple. For the gynecologist "the conjugal relationship will be happier and more fulfilled" if "one does not put the plough before the oxen", "the fleshly relationship must be completion". The gynecologist continues with a very graphic argument on the consumption of the union during the engagement: "it is like two children loving the cherry pie wanting to eat it before it comes out of the oven"!
In Belgium, a senator, Christine Defraigne rebels against the trivialization and reimbursement by the Belgian social security of the reconstrucion of hymen proof of virginity in certain traditions. It proposes a law aimed at "prohibiting doctors from issuing certificates intended to reinforce religious, philosophical or cultural convictions".