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Rapper T.I. Faces Flak After Saying He Makes Daughter Get Virginity Test Every Year

The rapper recently declared he escorts his daughter to the gynecologist each year to "check her hymen" to ensure she's a virgin.

Rapper T.I. has been hit with thinly veiled condemnation from Planned Parenthood in the wake of his proud declaration that his daughter is still a virgin ― information that he knows because he’s had a doctor “check her hymen.”

When asked if he’d had the “sex talk” with his daughter, the father of six announced to “Ladies Like Us” podcast hosts Nazanin Mandi and Nadia Moham on Tuesday that not only has he had the talk, he takes his 18-year-old daughter, Deyjah Harris, to the gynecologist after each birthday to check that her hymen remains intact. He said he does this for her own good.

The rapper described his annual appointment with his daughter, which, now that she’s an adult, requires her to sign a consent form in order to disclose her private medical information to her father:

“This is what we do. 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.” So we’ll go and sit down and the doctor will come and talk and, you know, the doctor’s maintaining a high level of professionalism. He’s like, “You know, sir, I have to, in order for me to share information” ― 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.” And so then [the doctor] come and say, “Well I just want you to know that there are other ways besides sex that the hymen can be broken, like bike-riding, athletics, horseback riding and just other forms of athletic physical activity.” So I say, “Look, doc, she don’t ride no horses, she don’t ride no bike, she don’t play no sports. Man, just check the hymen please and give me back my results expeditiously.”

“I will say, as of her 18th birthday, her hymen is still intact,” he concluded.

The comments were met with outrage and disgust online, prompting both the rapper’s name and “She’s 18” to trend on Twitter. Planned Parenthood fired off a string of tweets, not addressing T.I. directly (“Idk who needs to hear this,” they began the thread), but making some very relevant points about, firstly, virginity being a social construct irrelevant to a hymen, and secondly, the science behind the hymen and the many other ways in which it can be stretched or broken.

Other social media users also provided some basic sex education in response to T.I.’s revelation, particularly acknowledging that, hymen or not, T.I. has no right to police his adult daughter’s body.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.