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“Men are like grains of rice that can grow anywhere they fall but women are like cooked rice which can only get rotten”. This is an age-old metaphor about the concept of sex and virginity that is still being passed on to today’s youth by Thai society. It can be implied from this metaphor that Thai people place a lot of emphasis to women’s virginity. Thai women are taught to keep themselves “unblemished” in order to preserve their virginity for the husband only. For a long time, the issue of women’s virginity has been the subject of dispute in Thai society. Many argue that women losing their virginity before marriage contribute to the loss of dignity and respectability. However, for many significant reasons, I strongly disagree with this idea and it is my contention that Thai society should not use virginity to judge women’s value. According to the article “About Thai ladies and Customs” by Sanitsuda Chaikul, it has been argued that in Thai society, virginity is regarded as the most important qualification of proper and decent women. Women who are lack of virginity before getting married, so this argument goes, can be automatically condemned as worthless products or defects of society without accepting any explanations. Such great emphasis Thai society places on virginity has backfired and has discouraged women in many ways. Among rape cases, for example, most young girls believe that once they have lost their virginity, they have also lost their value and their life has ended.
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