Victorian-ish virginity tests

[tasllyn]

Can anyone tell me or point me to a resource on how a doctor or healer would have checked for virginity during the Victorian era? Preferably not by just checking for a hymen, which is the big thing my research is indicating so far. There's mention of checking for scarring, but I don't know if there's anything else that could be checked for.

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Comments

[bigwinged]

what the examiner would realistically be looking for and what he would find.

If you're looking for the real medical evidence that would be there, don't just look for Victorian attitudes about it. Start with what evidence there would be on the body, and then determine whether your pseudo/Victorian doctors and their technology would be able to detect it or not.

And if I google that -- things like "physical evidence of virginity" -- it looks like the current medical consensus is that there is no such thing. There is no consistent physical feature of a human female that can be empirically used to determine whether or not she has ever been sexually penetrated. The best way to know if a woman is a virgin is to ask her. ;)

You may need to set up that your characters, in their culture, believe that virginity can be detected physically, and then have the results of her examination coincidentally match her virginal status so that they can do the exam, say "yep, she's a virgin" and go happily on their way through the plot.

If you've got some woo-woo magic energy in this universe you could always fudge a magical detection, too. A measurable difference in the colour of her aura or something like that.

[tasllyn]

Yeah, my research was pretty much pointing to "no sure evidence" also. In this particular case, the girl is from a foreign country where the sexual culture is a lot more open, and virginity (or lack thereof) is less of a virtue or a vice than a simple fact. She's been living in the country most of my other characters are from for a few years now, so she's somewhat adapted a bit to the culture (which isn't quite as strict as Victorian standards, but probably comes closer to that than modern day). That being said, the pirate captain kind of assumed that she wasn't a virgin, and is only really checking because she said so (still working that into the dialogue, since she wouldn't be as offended as some others in the story), since if it's true, it makes her more unique, and he can make a lot more money if he decides to sell her. That, and will actually make an effort to not let his crew rape her.

I kind of wanted to stay away from the magical detector in this case, just because I think the character doing the examining might be able to come up with something like that, but would consider a project like that a waste of his time. Then again, there's probably someone in this world smart enough to do it, and with the personality type or patron to get it done. Still, I don't think I need definitive proof here so much as enough for the examiner to believe she's telling the truth. I'm thinking something along the lines of:

Captain: So is she or isn't she?
Examiner: Well, it's hard to be absolutely certain, but as far as I can tell, she seems to be telling the truth.