BEIJING – China has long been known as the land of cheap fakes – Rolexes, DVDs, handbags and designer clothes.

Now add a new one to the list: fake virgins.

A growing number of young Chinese women – mostly in their 20s and about to get married – are opting for a surgical procedure called “hymen restoration,” which repairs the hymen to its condition before it was ruptured, which most typically is done by first sexual contact but can also happen by playing sports or riding a bicycle.

Even as China has flung open its doors to the West and modernized, a deeply conservative, male-chauvinistic attitude persists. Many men still say they want their future wife to be a virgin. And increasingly liberated Chinese women have found a way to give men what they want.

“We can fix it so everything is perfect, so the men can believe they are marrying virgins,” said Zhou Hong, director of gynecology at the Beijing Wuzhou Women’s Hospital. “We don’t advertise it, we don’t publicize it.”

Zhou, 44, said the majority of her patients are sexually active young women who are about to get married and have told their future husbands they are virgins. She said a smaller number want to forget a bad relationship and “start over,” and a few have been victims of rape.

Zhou is one of many Chinese doctors performing the procedure, which is also done in other countries. She said she restores as many as 20 hymens monthly, and the number is increasing. Now for as little as 5,000 renminbi, or about $737, for a 20- to 30-minute procedure, Zhou is giving young women a second chance at having a first time.

Does she worry that she is helping young women begin their marriages with a lie?

“It’s just a white lie,” Zhou said. Besides, she blames men for their unrealistic expectations.

“I don’t agree with this value” placed on virginity, Zhou said. “It’s unfair to the women. The men are not virgins. But we can’t change this male-privileged society.”

The surgery, known in medical circles as a hymenoplasty, has been around for years, although it is considered very rare and is illegal in some countries.

It is practiced primarily in Muslim countries, where the traditionalists place a high value on a woman’s virginity. It also has become common in France among the French Muslim population, usually for young women about to enter into a traditional marriage.

There are no statistics available in China on how often the surgery is performed. But sociologists and other experts, as well as anecdotal evidence, suggest it has gained in popularity, alongside plastic surgery.

For women who don’t want to undergo a surgical procedure, a cheaper, faster path to “revirgination” is available in most sex novelty shops: a Chinese-made artificial hymen that, when inserted, purports to create a lifelike sensation for the man and emits fake blood when ruptured.

A 25-year-old woman from Guiyang bought several recently online, intending to resell them to the young women in her circle. Some were worried their boyfriends might leave them if they discovered they were not virgins, she said.

“It’s really worthless for couples to break up over this small issue,” said the woman, who asked not to be quoted by name.

Some sociologists and others have criticized virginity obsession as emblematic of a male-dominated society. And they are equally critical of women embracing possibly risky or painful methods to conform.

“I think it is really stupid for women to do this kind of surgery and buying fake hymens,” said Li Yinhe, a sociologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the country’s pre-eminent sexologist. “It’s self-deception.”

The topic of virginity has recently popped up in newspaper columns and Internet debates. Several men posting online comments to a popular website blamed women for what they called modern women’s materialism when seeking a mate.

“Women demand men have houses and cars; why can’t men demand women be virgins?” asked one anonymous man on the Internet chat site Tianya. “So, greedy women, remember, you have to protect your hymens, because those are big dowries for you to exchange for money.”

Some men interviewed agreed.

“I really care about virginity,” said Xia Yang, product manager for an IT company. “If you go to buy a cellphone, of course you’d want to buy a new cellphone. Who would spend the same amount of money to buy an old cellphone that’s been used for two years?”

The debate underscores a contradiction in modern China: As it becomes more freewheeling, there remains a deeply conservative core rattled by change.

“Since the reforms began 30 years ago, sexual relations in China are actually quite chaotic,” said Chen Lan, a novelist and social commentator. “One-night stands, extramarital affairs, prostitution. ... All this means Chinese women have more frequent sexual activity, and at a younger and younger age.

“And this makes men feel women’s bodies are not as clean as before. In these circumstances, men care even more about a woman’s virginity.”

Zhou, the gynecologist, just wants to make young women happy. She said after their wedding night, many of her patients send her text messages saying it had been a success.

“That’s the happiest thing for us,” she said. “We keep it quiet. The men won’t be happy. We have to keep the secret for the women.”