Both the literary virginity test and its current association with Asian and African cultures have found their modern-day expression in the Orientalist sheikh romance novel: a consistently popular subgenre of contemporary romance publishing that details a cross-cultural love story between a Western heroine and a Middle Eastern or North African sheikh or sultan hero.
This chapter explores the representation of the virginity test in English Orientalist romance literature from two distinct historical moments: the late Middle Ages and the twenty-first century. This cross-period approach takes a long view of the virginity test, considering how current romance ideologies contrast with those of medieval romance. It antagonizes exactly what is at stake in persistent reference to the virginity test in romance literature, focusing on articulations of certainty and uncertainty, loss and possession. My focus throughout is on the test as it applies to women, echoing the deeply gendered discourses that surround virginity testing: there are no virgin sheikhs. Through close readings of six popular sheikh romances featuring virgin heroines published by the genre's biggest publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon - Lynne Graham's The Arabian Mistress (2001), Lucy Monroe's The Sheikh's Bartered Bride (2004), Penny Jordan's Possessed by the Sheikh (2005), Sarah Morgan's The Sultan's Virgin Bride (2006), Lynne Graham's The Desert Sheikh's Captive Wife (2007), and Chantelle Shaw's At the Sheikh's Bidding (2008) - alongside two popular English medieval romances, Bevis of Hampton (c. 1300) and Floris and Blancheflur (c. 1250), I consider how the test is positioned in each text and what it reveals about the importance of virginity. To put the testing in context, I offer a brief overview of virginity testing in European culture before examining the role of virginity in these romances. Then I focus on the test itself, indicating how testing for virginity in these romances is inherently unstable. Finally, I explore how testing for virginity ultimately functions to secure male ownership of women as part of the romance genre's heteronormative gender system. Ultimately, I encourage a deeper interrogation of the easy association of virginity and the East in these popular Western texts. (17-18)