A Chinese hospital requesting for blood from healthy female virgins for new HPV study has been condemned insulting to women, Yahoo! reported Monday.

The Peking University Cancer Hospital has requested for blood from 100 healthy female virgins within the age range of 18 to 24 for its new study on the human papilloma virus (HPV), but was condemned by many for its alleged insulting request that promotes virginity worship, which is said to be demeaning on the part of women, the China Daily reported.

"Male virgins are not needed, just females, how is this science?" A Sina Weibo user posted online. Sina Weibo is a social media service similar to Twitter. It features a lively form for popular opinion.

The said hospital defended its request for virgin donors, saying that the blood of chaste women is unlikely to be infected with HPV.

"It's in line with international practice to collect female virgins' blood samples, which serve as negative control substances in HPV research, given that the risk of contracting HPV is low among women who have never had sex," the hospital's spokeswoman Guan Jiuping said, as quoted by the China Daily.

Jiuping added that the hospital officials would take the word of their donors for their sexual status.

"People who curse are basically those who haven't understood the whole story. Learn some science and rationality, rather than criticising others," another Sina Weibu user wrote, defending the hospital.

Yahoo! reported that female virginity in the Chinese culture is still a prerequisite for marriage; hence, Chinese men still prefer their wives to be virgins by the time they tie the knot.

Meanwhile, because of the paramount value the Chinese society has imposed on women's virginity, the market of technology that artificially restores hymens through surgery, enabling women to appear as though they are still virgins, has boomed in recent decades.

However, several commentators in China said the pressure placed on women to remain virgins at a certain age is demeaning and is allegedly an evidence of a double standard.