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Figure from:The Field of Sexuality Studies: What is it?

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The Southern African sub-region is currently devastated by the AIDS pandemic. In search of answers traditional leaders and some health practitioners have reinstalled the practice of virginity testing. This is a practice where young women are tested by older women. These tests are often conducted using very unscientific methods such as mere examination of the calves around the legs, or insertion of fingers or even eggs into the vagina. (If the egg cracks inside the vagina one is not considered a virgin!) Unfortunately, the practice is being viewed by some as a sure way of preventing infection. us scary movies of sexually transmitted infections. Gaping vaginas, infested with sores, looking terribly unlike what I was familiar with. How this “transformation” occurred we were not told. The underlying message was virginity, virginity, virginity; not for myself, but for the husband who would love me forever and for my parents — read my father - who would make so much money out of the mythical groom. In those happy days we did not have HIV. The worst one had to worry about was an unwanted pregnancy, or maybe a sexually transmitted infection.

Figure 12 The Southern African sub-region is currently devastated by the AIDS pandemic. In search of answers traditional leaders and some health practitioners have reinstalled the practice of virginity testing. This is a practice where young women are tested by older women. These tests are often conducted using very unscientific methods such as mere examination of the calves around the legs, or insertion of fingers or even eggs into the vagina. (If the egg cracks inside the vagina one is not considered a virgin!) Unfortunately, the practice is being viewed by some as a sure way of preventing infection. us scary movies of sexually transmitted infections. Gaping vaginas, infested with sores, looking terribly unlike what I was familiar with. How this “transformation” occurred we were not told. The underlying message was virginity, virginity, virginity; not for myself, but for the husband who would love me forever and for my parents — read my father - who would make so much money out of the mythical groom. In those happy days we did not have HIV. The worst one had to worry about was an unwanted pregnancy, or maybe a sexually transmitted infection.

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