Medical ethics and parent-mandated "virginity tests"

In My Humble Opinion
21

I feel like you read a lot more into my post than what was actually there. Let me attempt to address a few of the things you said…

I didn’t say that, in fact I specifically said I wouldn’t do that and that the result of that ‘test’ would be meaningless.

Literally no one has said that anyone is valuing a girl’s virginity over everything else. If you’re suggesting that I said or implied that, I didn’t and I’d prefer you not to decide what you think I’m thinking.

Seems like a whole other question. Questions to which, at least to me, you’ve already poisoned the well about. At least the few blurbs that I read simply stated that he had his daughter’s hymen checked. Not that, if it was no longer in tact, she’d be a dirty slut. That’s something you added to the story. Again, unless he said it somewhere, you’ve decided what you think he’s thinking.

Huh? Ask TI, I specifically said I wouldn’t.

You should probably reread my post. I said it’s my businesses to know if my minor kid is sexually active.
I’m not sure why you seem to think I wouldn’t take her word for it. And, in any case, my comment was directed at ascenray’s comment about it being none of my businesses.

Seriously, again, that’s not what I said.
There’s a big difference between ‘I’m not going to ask her about…’ and ‘I’m not asking her to tell me about…’
You’re saying that I’d never ask her if she’s had her first kiss or if she’s dating someone. I said as part of a bigger point, that you seemed to have addressed out of context, that I’m not asking her to proactively come and inform me that she’s had her first kiss etc.

Dear god, I’m just going to assume that wasn’t addressed at me.
In short, broomstick, if this is what you got from my post, either I typed it poorly or you read it wrong. I’m not going to spend the next two days addressing the minutia of everything I typed in quickly written post. So this is as far as I’ll go with it. Hopefully it clears everything up.

22

I think part of the problem here is that we more forms of the word “you” in the English language. Most of my post was a “general you”, not a “specific you”.

And the last paragraph you took offense at was in reference to a quote by pool, not you-specifically-Joey-P. Really. Go back and look at that post again. The quote attribution is very clearly not you, Joey P. So calm down.

23

FWIW Broomstick, that was exactly how I took it. Very much at the “general you”. Joey P, if you are bothered that it might seem like an attack on you then at least this one poster didn’t read it that way.

24

That would be more convincing if you didn’t keep, you know, quoting him…

25

I think this is a weird ass thing to be pedantic/devil’s advocate about. This isn’t just “creepy”, it’s horrifying. At some point, he told his daughter “we have to get you checked out, to make sure you aren’t lying to me about fucking guys”. At some point, he looked past his daughter, like she was a piece of meat, and said to the doctor “I want you to check her out, make sure she hasn’t been fucking guys”, and they must have had a conversation about it. At some point–several points, apparently, she was up in the stirrups, splayed for a strange man, tense and anxious, with her dad in the room, watching her as she waited for the doctor to give her dad a verdict on her purity. Can you imagine the horror? The fear, that the doctor might find something, tell your dad right there? What would happen then?

To react to this with 'I in no way approve of his methods but I get his motive" is baffling. I assume it’s rooted in not really thinking through just how awful this is.

26

I assume it is also some of those people never having been flat on their back, their feet in stirrups with a stranger poking around their genitals. The fact that the parent that put them there is disapproving of them having sex just adds to it.

27

It appears to me that you have parenting backwards. Her emotional state and health and maturity as it evolves is something the parent should know about and the child should be open to discussing. Openness to discuss ‘stranger danger’ is part of that can can help in warding off pervs. Knowing if the child had sex after the fact is already too late and one should have picked up the trend and guided the child way before.

Also I get what some are saying, that it is not medically possible to tell from such a exam, but is there enough of a trend that it does provide probabilistic evidence of having/not having sex. Is the test so wrong in terms of accuracy that no patterns can be established.

28

It’s also worth noting that girls don’t generally have a pelvic exam until they are 18, unless there is a reason. It’s not a matter of asking the doctor to “check” as part of a normal exam—this is a whole extra invasive exam, annually, for no reason.

29

No, it’s not. Even if the “freshness seal” hymen of myth really existed, it would only tell you about penetration–not with what. And it wouldn’t tell you about all the other types of sexual activity that are possible.

But it doesn’t even tell you that. “Losing it” doesn’t leave this indelible, profound stamp on a woman’s body, and the paradigm that women’s bodies–and women’s natures–work this way is incredibly toxic.

30

It was unreliable in medieval times when the post-nuptial bedsheets where displayed out the window the following morning - what, you think women didn’t have work-arounds?

Nowadays, with girls encouraged to be in sports and otherwise active, and access to information on how to masturbate readily accessible to anyone with a smartphone (or a friend with one) it’s even more unreliable.

No doubt a LOT of women suffered terrible penalties for not being virgin enough on a wedding night, even though they actually were virgin, throughout history.

One of the “justifications” :rolleyes: given for female genital mutilation is that turning a woman’s crotch into a Barbie-doll crotch as a living chastity belt provided incontrovertible proof of virginity (of her vagina - it doesn’t eliminate anal or oral rape but I suppose in those societies that wasn’t so important), more than than the state of a hymen.

TL: DR no, it’s not nearly as reliable a test as commonly supposed.

31

Sexually activity (whether voluntary or not) would, actually, be a reason for a pelvic exam prior to the age of 18, as women are supposed to have one when they start having sex. So “I think my daughter is having sex” might be a reason to do one, though “I want to be sure my daughter is still virgin, can you check her hymen” is probably not the best opening line.

32

I’m going to stop you right there.
Let’s just leave your feelings about my parenting out of this. There’s no reason to insult me here.

33

I disagree. You don’t take your daughter to the doctor and say “I think she might be having sex, so can you check under the hood”. You might take your daughter to the doctor and say “I think she might be having sex, so you two have a conversation about it”.

I mean, if a 16 year old having her annual physical with her pediatrician and says “I am sexually active”, does that actually call for a pelvic right then and there? These sites (siteq and site 2)seems to suggest that the general recommendation is for pelvic exams to start is 21, and “sexual activity” isn’t listed as a reason to have one earlier. Maybe back in the day that was the recommendation, but it seems like that was more rooted in the “losing your virginity is a liminal experience” paradigm than actual science.

34

I’m certainly not doing that. I just think characterizing all interest in your child’s sexual health as perverse is an over-reaction.

35

Deleted because I don’t want to beat a dead horse

36

Nor is evidence she is has a hymen in any way an answer to the question of whether she’s been sexually assaulted, unless you buy into a sorta 19th c. fixation that whether or not a victim was penetrated vaginally is the key element. That’s like a torrid novel: as long as the veil is not torn, all is not lost! Will the hero get there in time?

37

Here’s the decision path in Canadian jurisdictions:

Is the procedure medically necessary?

If not, then the physician does not have to perform the procedure.

Is the physician competent and licenced to perform a gynecological exam?

If so, then is there a public law that prohibits virginity tests?

If not (presently here is no such law in Canada), then is there a professional regulation by the physician’s governing body that prohibits virginity tests (for example, in Québec there is a prohibition, but in Ontario there is not)?

If not, then the physician may perform the procedure, provided there is consent by the patient, or if the patient is not capable of consenting, then by a substitute decision maker (capacity can be determined by a consent and capacity tribunal or a court of appropriate jurisdiction; duress voids consent; for children age alone is usually not determinative).

I can’t speak for other provinces, but here in Ontario, even if consent is given for the procedure on the child, that consent does not necessarily prevent a child with sufficient capacity from refusing to consent to the doctor disclosing to the parent or anyone else any or all of the child’s personal health information such as the virginity test result. (Ontario’s legislation on this is Milo Minderbinder complex, but well thought out if you can figure it out.)

Beyond the strict legalities as set out above, what makes this issue interesting is that it brings human rights into play from two directions.

Virginity tests are part of the subjugation of women, so virginity tests are frowned upon from a human rights perspective, and for some people (such as myself) virginity tests are considered to be child abuse.

By the same token, however, honour killings and honour based domestic abuse are problems. A physician refusing to perform a could put a patient at risk of emotional abuse, physical abuse, or death by the hands of her family.

I am of the opinion that virginity tests should be banned by the various colleges of physicians and surgeons across Canada based on the human rights issues, and that provincial and territorial governments should, despite physician-patient confidentiality, mandate reporting of requests for virginity tests to child protection authorities to try to mitigate the child abuse leading to honour killings.

38

I felt such despair as I read the article in the OP. Ditto the other day when I read about how astrology is supposedly making a comeback. And then there was the article about the challenges people face when trying to leave insular religious groups. And the article about literal witch hunts in Nepal…

Sometimes it feels like we’re still in the Dark Ages. I can’t believe these are the things that are still happening.

39

In the matter at hand, the child is 18. The father and daughters are residents of Georgia (fortunately not Virginia) where the age of majority is 18 (or less for VD or pregnancy medical treatment).

The father is a misogynist. “Not to be sexist but, I can’t vote for the leader of the free world to be a woman. . . . I just know that women make rash decisions emotionally – they make very permanent, cemented decisions – and then later, it’s kind of like it didn’t happen, or they didn’t mean for it to happen. And I sure would hate to just set off a nuke. [Other leaders] will not be able to negotiate the right kinds of foreign policy; the world ain’t ready yet. I think you might be able to [get] the Loch Ness Monster elected before you could [get a woman].”

The father has done jail time for trying to purchase machine guns, and had repeatedly been in conflict with the law.

As far as his adult daughter’s virginity testing goes, the father uses it to publicize himself internationally. I can’t see how putting his daughter’s hymen up for public discussion is in any way in her best interests.

40

I put it in terms of fathers and daughters because that’s how it is expressed in our society. Fathers like T.I. express the idea that as fathers they are the guardians of their daughters’ chastity. If anyone were to go to these lengths to ensure their sons’ chastity we would be speaking in those terms.

And I stick to my earlier statement — any father who feels he must be certain by any means necessary that his daughter has never had anything up her vagina is a sick fuck.

Note what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that parents’ shouldn’t be aware whether their minor children are sexually active or that they are being molested or whether they are aware of and have access to contraception and the means of avoiding STDs.

It’s specifically the concept of female virginity and the concept of girls not being vaginally penetrated. The obsession with female virginity and penetration in the part of “old fashioned” fathers is sick.

Virginity, first of all, is a made up concept. It has no biological validity. Second, the idea that a girl’s experience of vaginal penetration is anyone else’s concern except hers, especially her father’s, is sick.

You sometimes still hear of men “joking” about threatening their daughters’ dates or boyfriends or taking other action to ensure their daughters’ chastity. Those aren’t jokes to me. They’re evidence of a sick social construct.