Poetry Friday ~ It’s time to check your “virginity” again.

Hello, everyone! Welcome.

Have you heard about rapper T.I.’s podcast interview in which he revealed that he checks his daughter’s virginity? I saw this on TV, but it’s all over the internet. In case you haven’t heard, this is the gist of it: Grammy-winning rapper T.I. (Clifford Harris) told a podcast that he forces his teenage daughter to undergo an annual virginity test at the Gynecologist. The day after her birthday, he takes her to get her hymen checked to ensure that she’s still a virgin.

To say I was outraged by this is an understatement. Firstly, how backward and ignorant do you have to be? Having sex isn’t the only way a hymen gets torn. It can happen in many different ways. Secondly, what lessons is he teaching his daughter? That she’s only worthwhile if she’s a virgin? Her entire worth as a woman is based on her virginity status? Her word has no meaning because instead of asking her if she’s sexually active and trusting in what she tells you, you need medical proof? Why doesn’t he make her wear a chastity belt?

As if this yearly ritual wasn’t humiliating enough, he revealed everything on a podcast heard by thousands of people. His daughter is eighteen. Even if you don’t know who rapper T.I. is or listen to his music, you need to know that this goes on right here in the USA. And you know what? Even if you’re a fan, you have to admit this is insane.

To top it off, T.I. has a fifteen-year-old son who disclosed that he’s sexually active, and the rapper is fine with it. What? It’s okay for his fifteen-year-old son to have sex, but his eighteen-year-old daughter has to prove her virginity by going to a gynecologist and getting her hymen checked? This is a huge double standard, and I can’t stand it.

I guess T.I. doesn’t care if his son impregnates several girls his daughter’s age or younger, and either he doesn’t know or care about all the sexually transmitted diseases his son could easily catch. Why can’t this man talk to and educate his children, so that they can learn to make the right decisions on their own?

I understand some fathers are overprotective with their daughters, but in my opinion, this is going too far. Deyja Harris is T.I.’s daughter, not his property. And his fifteen-year-old son is in danger of contracting aids, herpes, hepatitis, among other diseases – not to mention getting someone pregnant.

What is your opinion on this subject?

“It’s the first of the month, and you know what that means! Poets choose your own prompt words.” Colleen’s 2019 Weekly Poetry Challenge No. 152

A
woman
who speaks her
mind is not a
bitch. She doesn’t need
men to validate her.
She’s not his sex toy or a
baby machine. She’s who she wants
to be. Society won’t make a
puppet of her, because she’s a woman.

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