I don’t really think it is, but all of the stories about St. Maria Goretti that I have read always say that she “chose not to sin.” There are a few other saints with similar stories who “chose death over sin” but would it have been a sin if they could not have stopped their attackers? Would they still be virgins?
Where there is no free will, there is no sin. That means that someone who is forced into sexual relations is not a sinner but a victim of someone else’s sin. If such a person had never before engaged willingly in sexual relations and did not choose to do so when attacked, that person would indeed be a virgin. The bodily sign of virginity is physical evidence of virginity but does not determine whether or not someone is a virgin.
Someone who does not fight off an attack or cannot prevent an attack from occurring has not sinned. But the choice to be willing to fight off a sexual attack even to the death, rather than to allow an attack on one’s purity, is indeed a heroic virtue and might perhaps spare someone from even more horrors being perpetrated against her. In such a way, to this very day the example of St. Maria Goretti’s willingness to fight off her attacker to the point of her own death can be an inspiration to all who are threatened by sexual violence. And, of course, St. Maria’s willingness on her deathbed to forgive her attacker and to desire his salvation was an even greater act of heroic virtue.
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