Sex with a virgin is not a cure for HIV

It is widely agreed that this belief is entirely untrue. See for instance A cure for AIDS at Avert.org. The idea that having sex with a virgin will cure venereal disease predates the advent of HIV and AIDS. Although very little research has been done to establish the exact origins of this belief, the “virgin cure” myth is thought to have originated sometime in the 16th century, widely manifesting itself in the Victorian era (19th century) as a “cure” for syphilis and gonorrhoea (Earl-Taylor, Mike (2002) HIV/AIDS, the stats, the virgin cure and infant rape).




In South Africa, the earliest recorded incidence of virgin rape dates back to the end of the Second World War when returning soldiers triggered an epidemic of venereal disease in the Eastern Cape (Earl-Taylor, Mike (1999) HIV men rape virgins in search for cure).

An increase in reported child and baby rapes in the late 1990s and early 2000s lead to increased media and public attention to the issue of virgin cleansing (see for instance: Govender, Prega (1999) Child rape: A taboo within the AIDS taboo; CDC (2001) AIDS Myth Fuels South Africa's Child-Rape Scourge and IRIN (2002) Myth of the virgin cure).

Whilst these cases revealed that some South Africans do believe that having sex with a virgin will cure HIV, the extent to which this belief is responsible for the high incidence of child rape has been contested (see Jewkes, Rachel; Martin, Lorna and Loveday, Penn-Kekana (2002) The virgin cleansing myth: cases of child rape are not exotic).

The virgin myth is also thought to be linked to rape in individuals with disabilities. This stems from another misconception: that disabled individuals are not sexually active. A discussion by Nora Ellen Groce and Reshma Trasi entitled Rape of individuals with disability: AIDS and the folk belief of virgin cleansing puts this issue into context.

The trend has become rampant in Zimbabwe as most men are of the view that having sex with virgins can cure them of the virus. As such, that has led to increased cases of rape. One in every three girls are raped daily. Shockingly enough, an estimated 20 percent of rape cases are reported mainly due to fear of victimization.