T.I. Takes Daughter : Another day, another example of women not having control over their own bodies.
This time, T.I. has taken it upon himself to make sure his 18-year-old daughter – an adult – is still a virgin by taking her to the gynaecologist every year to check her hymen is still intact.
The 39-year-old rapper, whose real name is Clifford Joseph Harris Jr, made the horrifying revelation on a podcast earlier this week, admitting he makes the appointments himself shortly after Deyjah’s birthday each year.
The comments came about when Harris, while speaking on the Life Hacks episode of the Ladies Like Us podcast, was asked whether he had spoken to his children about sex.
He responded by saying Deyjah had just started her first year of college and was ‘figuring it out for herself’, so ‘not only’ had they had the conversation, but they have ‘yearly trips to the gynaecologist to check her hymen’.
To clarify, the hymen is a thin piece of tissue that surrounds the external vaginal opening and can ‘break’ for any number of reasons – including sex, yes, but also: horse riding; inserting a tampon; riding a bike; gymnastics; etc, etc…
So T.I.’s claims he can ‘check’ his daughter’s virginity is not only extremely disturbing and harmful, but it’s scientifically inaccurate too. Even if it turned out Deyjah’s hymen was not intact one year, it could be for any number of reasons.
The rapper’s claims initially drew laughs from hosts Nazanin Mandi and Nadia Moham, who thought he must have been joking or at least exaggerating. But he wasn’t, with Harris then going into more detail about the doctor’s visits.
He continued, as per Femail:
So it’s this one time we go, I think this might have been after her 16th birthday. 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 the doctor’s maintaining a high level of professionalism. He’s like, ‘You know sir, I have to, in order to share information.’I’m like, ‘Deyjah they want you to sign this so we can share information. Is there anything you wouldn’t want me to know? See doc? No problem.’
The teenager admitted in a June 2019 episode of the family’s VH1 reality show he’s already having sex. Something you think would cause outrage, judging by his father’s yearly trips to the doctors with his 18-year-old daughter.
It turns out that’s not the case though, as Harris isn’t nearly as concerned with his son’s sexual deeds, laughing off the entire thing and stating: ‘I will definitely feel different about a boy than I will about a girl.’
What a surprise.
