Like a Virgin
(Documentary – Public Sénat 5, 2020 – 52 min.)
Production: Drôle De Trame
Director: Feriel Ben Mahmoud
US producer: Jennifer Luby

After the sexual revolution, virginity was thought to have vanished: a forgotten and old-fashioned concept. However, it has put up some resistance. Female virginity, of course, since nobody’s ever really cared about male virginity. For the past 30 years, both in the Muslim world and in certain Western countries, conservative movements have been brandishing virginity again as a banner of moral crusade.
The film investigates the condition of virgin women on several continents. In Egypt or Indonesia, women still undergo humiliating practices of “verifying” their virginity. In the United States, “purity balls” bring sexual abstinence before marriage back into fashion.