TRUE or FALSE:
1. An intact hymen makes someone a virgin.
False.
First thing’s first—not every woman is born with a hymen; this is completely healthy and doesn't mean that they are missing something. Tampons, blood and fingers can easily pass through the vagina without disrupting the hymen. When a woman has penetrative sex for the first time, the hymen doesn’t even disappear then— it simply stretches!
This goes against so much of the language we use when we talk about ‘virginity’. The truth is, nothing physical is ‘lost’…there’s no biological change to our bodies.
2. Virginity is not a medical term
True!
The World Health Organization states that ‘virginity testing’ is a violation of human rights. This is because medically, you can’t tell whether someone has had sex, just by looking at their vagina. Every hymen looks different…some are perforated, some are donut-shaped and some are barely visible—but essentially, that means there can be no standard for determining penetration.
Even the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists concur that a medically accurate test for virginity, simply does not exist.
