Sensitive questions

As it happens, that's how mine broke, through horse-riding.
Was riding bare-back, mare stopped suddenly and I landed hard on her withers. It hurt like buggery and I saw stars.

It saved me from awkwardness when it was my...um...first time.

If you want her to have a virgin birth, then give her an intact hymen. That would make it clear what the situation was, or clear enough.

I broke mine when I was forced down into the splits. Don't ask me how I managed it, because I don't. However, if it's school policy and if it's broken and she's pregnant they aren't going to let her stay. Gentleness doesn't matter, it's something entering, it can be broken with a finger.

Second with the invention of invitro, it's not impossible to have a virgin birth with the help of science. So simply because she's pregnant and a virgin doesn't rule out human involvement.

The hymen is not a barrier to pregnancy. Menstrual blood flows through it, and likewise semen can head the other way. Technically it is possible for a "virgin" to get pregnant if ejaculate enters her vagina without penile penetration.

So, a doctor verifying that the hymen was intact in a pregnant girl would not have proven immaculate conception. It only proves creative heaving petting.

Don't let that reality spoil your story though. There are thousands of people willing to believe not only in immaculate conception, but in virgin birth.

If the hymen breaks while you're a virgin (quite possible, considering tampons), people would just have to take your word for it.

PeterL said:

If you want her to have a virgin birth, then give her an intact hymen. That would make it clear what the situation was, or clear enough.

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I agree. This seems kind of vital to her argument.

I don't think there is any way to prove you haven't had sex. You could prove you haven't had vigorous sex Some girls' stretch quite a bit.

If the hymen is broken, I don't think it means much. It's a weird piece of anatomy and varies a lot.

backslashbaby said:

I don't think there is any way to prove you haven't had sex. You could prove you haven't had vigorous sex Some girls' stretch quite a bit.

If the hymen is broken, I don't think it means much. It's a weird piece of anatomy and varies a lot.

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Very true.

I think the best route to take is to convince the reader your character is a virgin based on, well, her character. If her virginity is convincing to the reader, the school officials should be convinced too. They'd make the exception based on just knowing that Miss Purity would never, ever lie about that ... and/or perhaps on knowing she was nowhere near any males around the time of her conception.

As a reader, I'd be more convinced by these things than by a doctor's assessment as to the state of her hymen.

I lost my virginity at a prison rodeo

If it's in modern times, I'd assume that there would be a DNA test after the child was born.

If the school has a rule about no pregnancies, I would assume that the rule would be just that--no pregnant girls. They might have a rule about no girls who were caught having sex, but as mentioned, a fair number of girls do become pregnant from heavy petting. I would suspect that the school would be more interested in finding the father than in finding out whether her hymen was intact. Even so, they might just kick her out and let someone else worry about finding the father.

However, since it's your school, you can interpret the rules in various ways. For example, maybe they decide she was passed out (drunk?) and a boy was messing with her, and they decide to forgive her because she was raped. Or maybe she really does convince them that she wasn't sexually active, and they decide to let her stay in school until they can do a DNA test, at which time they can identify and possibly prosecute the father.

There are cultures where the relatives of the groom check for blood on the wedding night sheets. The hymen is really important in proving to folks like this that the woman was a virgin. I think that in mind of the folks who run the school that an intact hymen is vital and absolute proof. Whether this is scientifically or medically true in the real doesn't matter.

From the Catholic dictionary, it sounds like the church demands physical/visible evidence, i.e. intact hymen. On some various medical boards, the general consensus is that is the only "test" and of course its only reliable if it hasn't been broken by other means.

I've been preggers three times, so I probably should be sure on this, but I'm not. I THINK one can do a test on unborn bubs to check for genetic defects, etc. Perhaps your MC could be made to undergo such a test to confirm paternity, and they find some weird and unexplainable "super chromosomes", only matching the DNA found on some other object (I'm thinking, like the shroud of Turin - something like that), which proves it to be a "child of God".

All a bit 'Da Vinci Code', but perhaps a nudge into an idea for you?

Collectonian said:

From the Catholic dictionary, it sounds like the church demands physical/visible evidence, i.e. intact hymen. On some various medical boards, the general consensus is that is the only "test" and of course its only reliable if it hasn't been broken by other means.

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Which is silly, cuz the only thing you can POSSIBLY prove by looking at/for the hymen is whether or not a woman has given birth (because then it isn't just broken or stretched, it's gone). If it is a real miracle, let her keep her hymen.

I don't know what broke mine, but I was an active kid. Sex never hurt.

The_Ink_Goddess said:

how can they tell if you are a virgin, assuming that the act itself was, um, "gentle" (no bruising/scarring etc)?

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They can't. It's impossible to prove virginity (or lack there of).

StephanieFox said:

There are cultures where the relatives of the groom check for blood on the wedding night sheets. The hymen is really important in proving to folks like this that the woman was a virgin. I think that in mind of the folks who run the school that an intact hymen is vital and absolute proof. Whether this is scientifically or medically true in the real doesn't matter.

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Until last year I believed hymens were a myth created to subjugate and humiliate women, lol. I believed that because I was a completely inactive child (and I mean completely, I thought and still think all physical activity is evil), but didn't have a hymen when I lost my virginity. Now (after researching) I know that some women have hymens really close to the opening of their vagina and can break them doing simple things like running or by wearing tampons. I'm still partial to my original theory, however.

Virgin Births aren't unknown in science.

The best known case was in 1988. A girl in Lesotho was pregnant.

Nothing unusual about that, except that she claimed she'd never had sex.
The reason the doctors believed her was simple - due to a birth defect she didn't have a vagina.

To quote:

... looking at her records the hospital staff realized the young woman was in the hospital 278 days earlier with a knife wound to her stomach. The average pregnancy lasts 280 days. After interviews, they gathered that "Just before she was stabbed in the abdomen she had practiced fellatio with her new boyfriend and was caught in the act by her former lover. The fight with knives ensued."


The girl arrived at the hospital with an empty stomach -- and therefore with little stomach acid around -- and doctors found two holes from a stab wound that opened her stomach up to her abdominal cavity. The case report said doctors washed her stomach out with a salt solution and stitched her up.

"A plausible explanation for this pregnancy is that spermatozoa gained access to the reproductive organs via the injured gastrointestinal tract"...

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Rather than screaming 'Virgin Birth !' from the rooftops, however, the case report in the medical journal was simply labelled as:

Oral conception. Impregnation via the proximal gastrointestinal tract in a patient with an aplastic distal vagina.

Virgin births are also common in other species. It wouldn't surprise me if it had happened at some point in our history to a human.

Mac

I had a friend in high school whose hymen stretched but still bleed and, if given enough time, "healed" into its original condition. She referred to herself as "the eternal virgin" and joked about going into porn or becoming a hooker and how much she'd make. At least, I assume it was a joke. I've lost touch with her a while ago.

Back to the OP, though. If you're thinking about the acutal science of the Immaculate Conception, then perhaps what you want is more along the lines of how having a diety as the sire would affect the DNA of the child. Prenatal paternity testing might be expensive, but probably the way to go if you want to do the science rather than the faith aspect of such an event.

The_Ink_Goddess said:

Thanks guys . However, I probably should've been more specific about my story...in it, the girl claims it's a virgin birth. But this isn't strictly true. So I'm using the, "She has a broken hymen via physical activity" to get her out of the "Why don't you have a broken hymen?" thing. All your help has been amazingly helpful (seriously) but the story is less about the actual science of the Immaculate Conception than it does with people's willingness to believe in it...if that makes sense.

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Well I personally would call BS, but it's your story, explain it how you want.

Mac H. said:

Virgin Births aren't unknown in science.

The best known case was in 1988. A girl in Lesotho was pregnant.

Nothing unusual about that, except that she claimed she'd never had sex.
The reason the doctors believed her was simple - due to a birth defect she didn't have a vagina.

To quote:

Rather than screaming 'Virgin Birth !' from the rooftops, however, the case report in the medical journal was simply labelled as:

Oral conception. Impregnation via the proximal gastrointestinal tract in a patient with an aplastic distal vagina.

Virgin births are also common in other species. It wouldn't surprise me if it had happened at some point in our history to a human.

Mac

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OMG! That's just fascinating. And totally creepy.