T.I. Is Yet Another Overbearing Dad Doing a 'Hymen Check' On His Daughter

The idea that an intact hymen is proof that a woman is virginal—and therefore pure—is an obsession that persists, despite the fact that it has been repeatedly discredited. (Some women are born without a hymen, which can’t actually “break” because it’s seriously just vaginal tissue that’s somehow become tied to a girl’s sexual cleanliness!) But just like overbearing Christian dads who want their daughters to wait for marriage to have sex, and MRAs who want “perfect virgins” for girlfriends, rapper T.I. is very concerned about his daughter’s hymen. He’s so concerned that he recently told a podcast that he goes to the gynecologist every year to have the doctor “check” her hymen.

Buzzfeed first reported on the interview, in which T.I. says that he’s accompanied his 18-year-old daughter on trips to the doctor to have her hymen inspected. He says he asked his daughter if the doctor could share information with him. “I’m like, ‘Deyjah, they want you to sign this so we can share information. Is there anything you would not want me to know? See, Doc? Ain’t no problem,’” he said.

Despite being told hymens “break” (again, they tear, they don’t break, it’s not a seal you rip off the top of a juice bottle) in a wide variety of ways, T.I. wasn’t having it. “I say, ‘Look, Doc, she don’t ride no horses, she don’t ride no bike, she don’t play no sports,” he said. “Just check the hymen, please, and give me back my results expeditiously.’”

Besides being a deeply creepy way to treat one’s daughter and her sexual agency, it makes me wonder who the hell this doctor is that goes along with a bizarre hymen inspection. It’s also, a second invasion of T.I.’s daughter’s privacy to talk about this predilection on a podcast considering his celebrity. But comments like this are just one example of how virginity myths still perpetuate. Perhaps someone can accompany T.I. to a high-school sex education class?