Convicted Rapists Go Free After Acupuncturist's Absurd "Virginity Test"

In Vietnam, acupuncturist Pham Thi Hong has announced the existence of a virginity spot, a small red spot that she alleges male virgins have on the back of their ears, which disappear after engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman. Her outrageous claims and vehement insistence that three men convicted of gang rape were innocent because they possessed a virginity spot led Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet to reopen the case. The men convicted of gang rape were then released.

In one spark of reason, the three men were at least not released simply because of the presence of a red dot on the back of their ears. Investigators noticed flaws with the original trial and decided to overturn the results after the men had been serving prison time for a decade. If due to these flaws innocent men were wrongly convicted, then of course their release is positive. But plenty of convicts would like another chance to have their case reviewed, and many innocent people are in prison; basing the decision on whether or not to reexamine a trial on the existence of a scientifically unfounded virginity spot is ludicrous and dangerous. Is the next step admitting the testimony of one imaginative acupuncturist in an actual trial, and letting a rapist off as innocent because he has a bug bite (or got a conveniently-placed tattoo)?

Equally disturbing, MSNBC reports that the Vietnamese press has given Hong widespread applause and credit for the release of these men, without casting any doubt on the validity of her little theory. Yet it's not just Western medicine that raises an eyebrow at this virginity spot: other acupuncturists and practitioners of traditional medicine are shaking their heads in disbelief.

Hong says that she was first taught how to test for virginity by feeling a guy's pulse, then came up with the ear-spot method out of her own head. Compounding the fantastical nature of her claims, she states that, somehow, this virginity spot only disappears after a man has had heterosexual sex — masturbation or sex with another man won't do it, although rape of a woman, apparently, would. It's the mystical nature of sticking a penis into a woman's vagina that makes spots fade away.

Now, other men convicted of rape are contacting Hong to ask her to check for red spots behind their ears. Will Hong take up more of their causes and push for retrials on these absurd grounds? She seems to have media backing and the president's ear, but this unfounded idea of a virginity spot should not lead to the Vietnamese criminal justice system being filled with retrials for men who have no better claim than men who don't happen to have (or can't fake) a red spot on the ear. More importantly, in the next case, will her claim that a man has a virginity spot be enough to secure his release, without any other evidence in his favor, potentially setting free a rapist who poses a danger to women?

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