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Pap Smear Detection for adolescents
Detecting Sexual Activity Through A Pap Smear Is Illegal?
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Want to answer more questions in the Relationships category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Love Life?
idk
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Hmmm... A pap smear can't detect sexual activity. A pap smear is a test run by scraping cells off of your cervix with a brush (it doesn't hurt though you can feel it) and examining those cells for signs of inflammation, malignancy, or viral infection. The doctor's exam with the speculum and his/her fingers and visual exam can confirm that the hymen is broken, but that does not make one not a virgin. The only way to lose one's virginity is to have sex, but that's not the only way for the hymen to get broken. The only way a pap smear can detect sex is if it detects a sexually-transmitted disease, which leads to the conclusion that the person is not a virgin.
That being said, virginity is not a medical term and is not easy to define. Is a life-long lesbian a virgin just because she's never had a penis inside her, even if she's had 100 lovers and used every female body part and toy available for her pleasure? I would say she's not a virgin. Likewise, a little girl who's been sexually abused and has had her hymen broken is a virgin in my eyes because assault is not the same as consensual sex.
There are legal ramifications of doing a vaginal exam to determine whether a girl/woman was sexually assaulted. Other than that, I don't know whether the law in the US makes any legal rules about how vaginal exams may or may not be used except that you have a right to have your medical records kept private.
Sabine
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