The Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit is now available and is causing trouble in Egypt.

It allows women who are not virgins to fake it so their new husbands will think their hymen has broken, something like blood will appear, and husbands will never know that their wives have had other lovers.

It is produced in  China and has become popular in cultures where premarital sex is forbidden and even punished.

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls 20% of the seats in Egypt’s parliament, have called for banning the kit and arresting anyone selling it on the black market. Cleric Abdul Moeti Bayoumi has issued a fatwa urging that peddlers of the $29.90 device be charged with banditry and punished for spreading immorality and sin.

Critics worry it will lead to promiscuity and “the spreading of vice and the loss of all the good morals and values we had and that totally contradicts with our Islamic beliefs.”

This is actually a great invention. Many Muslim women seek out surgical procedures to create a fake hymen and using this product would be much less harmful to their bodies and their wallets.

If women in Muslim societies are already seeking out ways to hide their non-virgin status, then it is not products like this that are to blame, but rather the fact that Muslim cultures won’t accept the fact that some people have premarital sex and modernise in some way.

The fact is that many women are terrified that people might find out they have had sex before marriage because there are such serious cultural restrictions and punishments on their sexual behaviour.

A better option would be to stop persecuting people who have premarital sex, but, until that happens, this product will help ensure the safety of these women and allow their dowries and marriages to be successful in what can be incredibly restrictive cultures.