75

In “The taboo of virginity”, Sigmund Freud reminds us that women’s sexual integrity is a supreme value, which leads him to assert that defloration can trigger a reaction of hostility towards men, and even take on pathological forms, such as frigidity, making the virgin a dangerous figure. The same notion of danger associated with virginity is highlighted in a text from ancient Greek medicine: the Hippocratic treatise “Diseases of Young Girls”. The treatise identifies a specific disease for virgins, the cause of which is the perpetuation of virginity. We aim to identify the underlying premises of the two writings in order to elucidate the opaque aspects of Freud’s text. The aim of this comparison is to provide food for thought on the representation of women based on a psychoanalytical approach to the figure of the virgin.