A Sex Educator’s Message to T.I.

"My doctor's virginity test haunts me 11 years later." Sex educator Cassandra Corrado has a message for T.I. and anyone who thinks virginity testing isn't traumatic.

No laws at the federal or state level ban virginity testing


When it comes to broaching the topic of sex with your kids, no one is perfect. It’s an awkward, goofy and almost painfully real conversation to have. And, of course, paired with the layers of stigma, anxiety, and patriarchy of-it-all, it’s a fraught issue that leaves a lot of room for discomfort and misunderstandings. Sex educator Cassandra Corrado got candid about virginity testing after hearing about rapper T.I.’s annual OB/GYN visits with his daughter, Deyjah. “I will say, as of her 18th birthday, her hymen is still intact," T.I. shares with on the Ladies Like Us, Podcast. Corrado wrote an article detailing her own experience of what happened when she went in for birth control pills.


“To T.I., my childhood doctor, and anybody else who thinks that virginity testing is real or reasonable: please stop doing this. Every single time you look at them and question what they're doing with their body or you place judgment on how they're taking care of it or what shape it is or anything, you're telling them that their body is ultimately yours because you helped make it or you helped take care of it. And that's not the message you want to be giving your kids. So please. Be better at your job. My doctor’s virginity test haunts me 11 years later. And as a 15-year-old, I didn't realize that you really should be going to a gynecologist for all of your pelvic care. I was just like; he's a doctor and all doctors know everything. And I was really wrong. Hearing somebody say, good girl, I felt so dirty and gross and nauseated and judged because the reality is that I was already having sex and so if I was a good girl because I supposedly wasn't having sex yet,” Corrado tells Brut.


Corrado adds that it’s not uncommon for parents to be afraid to bring up sex or to be worried they won’t have the right answers or the right words to stumble through the conversation. But you can’t let that fear of an awkward unknown keep you from giving your kid access to the information they’ll inevitably need. Now, Corrado holds sex education workshops across the country.


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