“Virginity tests” for women are still a thing in some countries despite being sexist, unscientific and gross.
But now medical ethicists say Doctors should refuse to carry out virginity tests because they violate women’s basic human rights.
Writing in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, a group of US medical ethicists have called on doctors to step in and stop the arcane practice.
They say doctors should refuse to perform the test because it’s based on a flawed scientific premise and is incompatible with three of the core professional ethics of doctors: protecting patient welfare, respecting women’s autonomy, and promoting justice.
“Virginity testing does not protect and promote the health of female patients; virginity testing is therefore completely incompatible with each of these three principles of professional ethics in obstetrics and gynecology,” Laurence McCullough, an ethics and health policy researcher at Baylor College of Medicine and a co-author the essay, told Reuters.
Virginity tests promote the idea that women’s worth is linked to their sexuality. And THEY HAVE NO MERIT.
Do you know what your hymen looks like?
If you’re picturing a thin membrane stretched taught across your vagina, sort of like glad wrap over a bowl or one of those AFL banners the players run through, try again.
In reality your hymen is more like a stretchy ring of tissue that covers some, but almost never all, of the entry to the vagina.
It’s actually more like a doughnut, but no two are the same. And it wears away differently for everyone.
Watch: What is the hymen anyway? (Post continues after video)
So when you first have sex there’s no “breakthrough”. And even if you do bleed or feel a bit of pain, that’s not something that should always be chalked up to your hymen tearing.
Anxiety and not being relaxed can also cause those things.
But despite this being the scientific fact, there are plenty of people who still think of hymens as a reliable measure of a women’s virginity, and some countries make women submit to “virginity tests” which are as intrusive and unpleasant as they sound.
In one high profile case, cartoonist Atena Farghadani was forced to undergo a virginity test while imprisoned in Iran.
Let’s hope doctors around the world step up and refuse to do this test in the future.
It is 2016 people.
The hymen isn’t a thing.
Top Comments
How can anyone think it's their business, let alone "right" to know about the insides of someone else's vagina?
Agreed. It's a disgusting invasion of privacy and really, an abuse to a woman's body. (Not to mention ridiculously inaccurate at proving whether a woman is a virgin. My daughter broke her hymen at 8 because she had a nasty fall at pony club, it means nothing!)
Yep, I'm going to go there....I think it's the same category as rape/sexual assault.
The Middle East are notorious for this. It's something that was invented by men to have power over women. And also to get their rocks off.
I feel so sorry for women in the Middle East. They are so restricted in living a normal life (despite what the women there say) eg driving, going out in public unchaperoned, have to wear burka. It's a cult.
The women in the western world complain they have a long way to go in being equal to men eg. wages etc. But spare a thought to our sisters in the Middle East. I don't know why more is not being done to unleash their shackles.
I remember inadvertently coming across a photo of a little girl about to undergo FGM. She was about 4 or 5, screaming, as what appeared to be an older male relative holding her legs, an old man with scissors and all the male relatives standing around the kitchen watching, including young boys. It was disgusting and disturbing and chilling and perverse. I wish I could unsee it but I can't. It was f**king disgraceful - this little girl clearly being reduced to an object for her male relatives' voyeurism and possession.
Inspecting a hymen falls into the same realm of depraved and unwarranted intrusive acts performed on females to uphold male control while stripping a woman or girl of her right to dignity, privacy and physical autonomy. It's sexual assault and must be stopped.
Revolting, perverse, intrusive and archaic practices have no place in society.
Its a horrible practice. I feel terribly for those women. For any woman subjected to this type of perverse abuse. Worldwide, human rights groups and other groups advocating for women's rights, are campaigning against this "virginity testing" voyeurism/control/abuse. The international group, Human Rights Watch works to bring attention to the issue, noting that there are various forms, including the infamous "Two Finger Test"..
Intrusive virginity tests are obviously a problem in Indonesia, where there's world pressure for them to stop the military testing female applicants. The UN works to raise awareness and work against the practice in countries such as Iraq, Egypt, Tuurkey and Morocco, as well as India, Nepal, Sudan, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
It seems the UK has officially stopped its own virginity testing: In the 1970s govt officials ceased their testing of females to immigrating to the UK, and it's possible that the British Royal Family have even more recently decided to simply take the woman's word on it. If we keep at it, there's hope worldwide.
What? Are you saying that women immigrating to the UK up to and including 1970s had to undergo virginity testing? So if a single woman wasn't a virgin they couldn't get residency in the UK? Am I reading this right? Totally stunned.
Yeah, I only found out recently too. Deffo a wtf moment. It was government policy to test female immigrants applying to in order to marry their fiancés and live in UK. The theory was that if the woman appeared to be virginal [¿?¿?] her claim was more likely to be true. I don't know how much weight it held, overall, in evaluating applications but it was happening as per official policy until it was canned in 1979.
As for the 'Windsors..there's probably history, tradition, and then, what really happened.
Elsewhere, in too many countries to list, a "two finger test" is carried out by police, on women who allege they've been raped. It's to see if they think she's 'used to having sex with men' (¿) or telling the truth. (Yes-thats their thought process)