T.I. landed in hot water yesterday after some offensive jokes about checking his daughters hymen caused outrage. Now, a doctor has taken to Twitter to explain what the hymen actually is and that no, you cannot tell if someone has had sex by inspecting it.
‘Deyjah’s 18, just graduated high school now and she’s attending her first year of college,’ T.I. said on the Ladies Like Us podcast. ‘And yes, not only have we had the conversation, we have yearly trips to the gynaecologist to check her hymen...Right after the birthday we celebrate. Usually like the day after the party she’s enjoying her gifts. I put a sticky note on the door: Gyno. Tomorrow. 9:30.'
While there has been much debate about whether or not T.I. was joking, the rapper has not yet spoken out about the backlash himself. His daughter however has liked tweets about the story describing T.I.’s behaviour as ‘disgusting, possessive and controlling.’
Naturally, the comments caused massive backlash - including from his celebrity colleagues. 'Unfortunately, he is dead serious,' Iggy Azalea tweeted and then deleted in response. 'Really I wish the women who interviewed him would have said something to him. He has serious control issues with women in all aspects of his life & needs therapy.'
'Don't talk about your kids' sex life, about what's going on in their body, it is sacred to them. It's not your life,' Sharon Osbourne commented. 'Because you're the daddy doesn't give you other rights, its not your life, let your daughter lead her own life. And keep her privacy.'
Madeleine Brewer too had a lot to say, tweeting 'this makes me feel physically ill. It’s abhorrent. This isn’t behavior to laugh at or joke about. The level of toxicity and malice and control he’s exerting on his own daughters life and bodily autonomy and and privacy. I’m sick.'
It goes to show that whether or not T.I. was joking, he is spreading some seriously damaging misconceptions about the hymen. Ones that lead women to be virginity tested a global endemic. Just last year, the UN Human Rights, UN Women and World Health Organisation (WHO) joined forces to condemn the ‘humiliating and traumatic practice’.
With so much misinformation still prevalent about virginity testing and the hymen itself, Dr. Jen Gunter took to Twitter last night to thoroughly explain what exactly the hymen is.
‘The hymen is a left over collection of cells that typically partially occludes the vaginal opening,’ she began. ‘Many mammals have hymen. Humans, dogs, cats, camels, elephants etc. if this were for marriage/a social construct of virginity then other mammals would not have them.
‘The hymen is more rigid at birth and provides more covering for the first three years to keep urine and faeces out of the infant vagina, which lacks oestrogen so is very sensitive to irritants,’ she continues. ‘When most children become continent coincides with the time the hymen starts to take on different shapes and flexibility because evolution no longer cares.’
Describing the hymen as ‘like baby teeth’, she goes on to explain that it serves a biological purpose for a narrow window of development, and is discarded when no longer necessary. Explicitly stating that the ‘hymen is no virginity indicator’, she told followers that half of sexually active teens do not have a disrupted hymen because it is often very flexible.
‘What about blood stained sheets on the wedding night?’ she asks. ‘Two thirds of women have no bleeding with first coitus and for those who do it is usually spotting. The hymen does not have a rich blood supply. Blood stained sheets come from sexual trauma.’
Concluding that ‘the hymen means nothing physically and hymen exams are medically not a thing’, she finished by stating that this jokes like T.I’s only ‘support a disgusting patriarchal trope’.
With over 60,000 likes, her Twitter thread has proved popular among users who wish to separate fact from very, very damaging fiction. Perhaps now, more people will begin to understand that jokes like T.I.’s really just aren’t funny.
Read More:
Why Is Virginity Testing Still A Thing In So Many Parts of The World?
Chloe Delevingne On Why We Should Be Talking About Our Vaginas