The procedure, also known as “revirgination”, is being hawked in magazines, the Internet or on radio stations as a way for women to improve their sex life or enjoy a second honeymoon.

Jeanette Yarborough, a medical assistant from San Antonio, Texas, said she decided to undergo hymenoplasty, which involves reattaching the hymen, as a special gift for her husband on their 16^th wedding anniversary.

“You know I wasn’t a virgin when we got married and I though what better gift to give my husband than revirgination,” the 40-year-old mother of four said. “It was a real sentimental gift, it was something I could recreate for him and he was thrilled. He was like ‘yeah, it was worth every penny’,” she said.

Though long popular among women in the Middle-East and Latin America, where being chaste is important on one’s wedding night, hymenoplasty is experiencing newfound popularity among US women.

One clinic boasts on its internet site that its practitioners “can repair the hymen as if nothing occurred.”

Many who undergo the procedure, which costs between 1,800 and 5,000 dollars, also ask that their vaginas be tightened, doctors say.

Though there are no clear statistics, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons says vaginal surgery is one of the fastest growing trends in plastic surgery. - ASP