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.

This

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

[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

[sashatwen]

If he's the sympathetic kind of scientist, have him provide her with an easily and conveniently breakable container filled with non-clottable blood (otherwise it won't keep). Voilá, stain faked, problem solved. I am a medical student and absolutely agree with the first commenter.

[bigwinged]

I would think that if a society was that obsessed with virginity, doctors trying to detect it wouldn't go around breaking hymens to figure it out -- or is that really the only way to detect a hymen, is destructively? If not, he could be sympathetic and just lie and say "yes, she has a hymen" and no blood would be necessary.

[ditaykan]

I think that sashatwen was thinking that, if they're checking for virginity, the character is scheduled to be married soon. If the doctor thought that, and didn't find a hymen, he might provide the easily breakable container of blood to show 'proof' of virginity after the fact. Since it's a pretty common myth even now that virgin sex = blood.

It is not the only way to detect a hymen. A visual inspection would likely show an intact one (with caveats, hymens do have holes in them anyway and some are larger than others) easily.

[full_metal_ox]

...(with caveats, hymens do have holes in them anyway...)

Barring, of course, an imperforate hymen. (Although this would've been circa 1950 and therefore of limited relevance to your setting, in her memoir Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, Florence King describes how she had to undergo surgery to correct the condition--followed by the receipt of a certificate of virginity, to reassure a future husband that she wasn't damaged goods.)

[meridae]

From what I remember of my women's history in the Victorian era, there were some quite brutal and traumatising ways of 'detecting' virginity because that essentially destroyed the hymen they were looking for. This was around legislation (The Contagious Diseases Act) designed to control venereal disease by controlling prostitution, particularly in military towns (ports or towns with with barracks/garrisons quartered in them). Basically if you were a single woman, you could be grabbed off the street and subject to virginity tests. If you weren't deemed a virgin, you were a prostitute and shipped off to a 'lock hospital' until you were cured of the diseases you carried. If you were a virgin, well, you'd just been violated and traumatised, the proof of your virginity destroyed (in case you got picked up again) and you were told you were a good girl, given a shilling, and sent home. Josephine Butler campaigned against this, so if you googled for the Contagious Diseases Act, Josephine Butler and Barracks towns like , it might lead you to

[bigwinged]

I stand corrected, and... am totally not surprised. o.o

[tyopsqueene]

This isn't strictly true; you were examined for evidence of venereal disease, not virginity

[tasllyn]

Ooh, thank you! That helps a lot!

[anonymous]

The Victorians believed the presence of a hymen to be proof of virginity (as some believe today). Unfortunately, science is not exempt from cultural bias. The events meridae mentioned are the tip of the iceberg. Check out the gynecology of the period, such as the cure for hysteria.

[bookblather]

Also try "Virgin: An Untouched History" by Hanne Blank, which has an excellent discussion of varying ideas and tests.

[naamah_darling]

Seconding the recommendation just in general, as it's a fascinating and very necessary book.

[tasllyn]

Ooh, thank you!