Male "Virginity Test" Frees Three Convicted Rapists in Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam (CBS/AP) A female acupuncturist has gained celebrity status in Vietnam for founding a new and literally unbelievable medical procedure: the ear-based "virginity test."

That's right.

Traditional medicine practitioner Pham Thi Hong claims she can tell whether or not someone is a virgin by examining the spots on their ears and taking their pulse rate.

Since the method's inception, Hong has established a quite a fan base; however, her clientele consists mostly of convicted rapists who swear they are innocent and have the dots to prove it.

Hong's  "revolutionary" new practice has already led to the "exoneration" of three jailed rapists who were convicted for gang-raping a 20-year-old woman. 

"They all had small red spots on the back of their ears. The spots should have disappeared if they had had sex. My many years of experience told me that these men did not have sex before."

Experience, huh.

Hong believed in the men's innocence and even threatened to light herself on fire in order to get their case their case reexamined. It worked. After serving 10 years of a 16-year sentence, the three men were released.

Unfortunately for Hong and rapists all over the world, her "virgin-radar" has been met with skepticism from other traditional medicine practitioners.

"I have never heard of this method before," said Nguyen Van Hao, 60, an acupuncturist who has practiced for 14 years. "From the medical point of view, it's impossible to determine whether a man having sex or not by feeling the pulse or examining the red spot on their ears."

There is a good reason why Dr. Hao has never heard of this method before, and it's because Hong made it up.

She says she was taught how to determine sexual activity based on a person's pulse, but the ear-spot test she developed on her own. 

The spot only disappears after heterosexual intercourse and is not affected by gay sex or masturbation, she says. Well, obviously.

"I'm not planning to launch a campaign to clear innocent people who were falsely convicted of rape," she said. "But I'm willing to help people to prove their innocence, if they really are."

Let's hope Vietnamese prisons can keep red Sharpies out of the hands of convicted rapists.