Virgin Envy: The Cultural Insignificance of the Hymen: Exquisite Corpse

Jonathan A. Allan is Canada research chair in queer theory and assistant professor of gender and women's studies and English and creative writing at Brandon University. He is the author of Reading from Behind: A Cultural Analysis of the Anus.Cristina Santos is an associate professor at Brock University. Her previous publications include Defiant Deviance: The Irreality of Reality in the Cultural Imaginary (2006), The Monster Imagined: Humanity's Re-Creation of Monsters and Monstrosity (2010) and Monstrous Deviations in Literature and the Arts (2011), to name a few. Adriana Spahr is an associate professor at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta. Her last co-authored book Madre de Mendoza/Mother of Mendoza (Corregidor, 2013) reflects her current research interest in testimonial literature.

Introduction: "Our Tantalizing Double": Envious Virgins, Envying Virgins, Virgin Envy - Jonathan A. Allan, Cristina Santos, and Adriana Spahr
Part I: Too Much Pain for Such Little Reward
1. "I Will Cut Myself and Smear Blood on the Sheet": Testing Virginity in Medieval and Modern Romance - Amy Burge
2. Between Pleasure and Pain: The Textual Politics of the Hymen - Jodi McAlister

Part II: Blood, Blood, Blood . and More Blood
3. The Politics of Virginity and Abstinence in the Twilight Saga - Jonathan A. Allan and Cristina Santos
4. Lady of Perpetual Virginity: Jessica's Presence in True Blood - Janice Zehentbauer and Cristina Santos

Part III: Men Be Virgins Too: Queering Virginity
5. The Queer Saint: Male Virginity in Derek Jarman's Sebastiane - Kevin McGuiness
6. Troping Boyishness, Effeminacy, and Masculine Queer Virginity: Abdellah Taïa and Eyet-Chékib Djaziri - Gibson Ncube

Part IV: F*ck: They Entrapped Us in Social Issues and Politics
7. Bollywood Virgins: Diachronic Flirtations With Indian Womanhood - Asma Sayed
8. The Policing of Viragos and Other "Fuckable"' Bodies: Virginity as Performance in Latin America - Tracy Crowe Morey and Adriana Spahr

Peers into the messy, tangled world of virginity via examinations of Twilight, True Blood, Tahrir Square activism, and Bollywood.
Ambitious, wide-ranging, and eclectic.
Smart and au courant . Virgin Envy provides a welcome addition to the new subfield of virginity studies with an intrepid array of old and new, Western and non-Western, virgins and virginities.