This post on Reddit’s Relationship Advice forum from a young woman whose fiance wanted her to have her hymen checked before their wedding (by his dad!) has been making its way around my Twitter feed, so I thought it would be a good time to re-up a few resources here. (BTW, here’s her update for all of you wondering.) Of course, virginity testing isn’t an actual thing, but we know that sometimes patients are brought in for that very purpose, so you can consider this a mini clinical guide:
Virginity and Hymen Testing: No Factual, Scientific or Medical Basis (Physicians for Human Rights)
Myths Surrounding Virginity: A Guide for Service Providers (International Rescue Committee)
Virginity Testing: A Systematic Review (Olson & Garcia-Moreno, 2017. Reproductive Health; FULL TEXT)
Eliminating Virginity Testing: An Interagency Statement (World Health Organization)
As always, I encourage you to follow the footnotes in these documents because there is a treasure trove of related readings that are relevant to practice.
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