Just before his adoption in 1999 by the Conservatives of Kensington and Chelsea, Mr Portillo disclosed that he had experimented as a young man with gay sex.

ECONOMIST: He who hesitates laughs last?

Mr Boyd said the current definition of rape dated back to 1858, in a case where judges ruled that a woman had been raped if a man had sex with her "forcibly and against her will".

BBC: Scots rape laws scrutinised

The idea that virginity has a high value harkens back to the days of early humans -- if a man has sex with a virgin woman, he knows for sure that her children will be his, anthropologists reason.

CNN: What is virginity worth today?