15 Things No One Tells You About Your Vagina

There are so many things we’re never told about our vaginas (like that most of the things on this list are actually about vulvas instead of vaginas, and no, the two are not the same). Here are 15 things I wish we’d had cleared up sooner.

1. What the hell is that white stuff in your underwear is. It is not uncommon for women to stare at their underwear and change their panty liners many more times than necessary after a weird white discharge scares them; they think they’re dying or disgusting, which isn’t the case. According to Carol Livoti, MD, ob-gyn at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and author of Vaginas: An Owner’s Manual, “clear, elastic mucous resembling raw egg whites” and milky white discharge is totally normal. If it’s cottage cheese-y, yellow, grayish-green, watery, or more than you usually produce, then you should visit a service like Advanced Gynecology. But if it’s just that clear-ish white stuff you’ve been seeing in your underwear every day since you can remember, stop stressing.

2. You do not need to clean it with nine Bath & Body Works cleansers. I spent years not knowing why cleaning my vag with weird scented mall soaps did not feel awesome to me. It would’ve been cool to know that the vagina basically cleans itself, and according to Karen Elizabeth Boyle, MD, FACS, using anything more than a mild soap to clean the vulva can cause irritation and disrupt the normal “flora” or pH of the vagina. Also, for the love of god, no, you don’t need to douche.

3. How to actually give yourself an orgasm that doesn’t involve pretending your finger is a penis. When you grow up, if you see any depictions of sex in movies, they’re likely to be images of heteronormative penetrative sex where the guy puts his penis into a vagina and and the woman comes wildly. So yeah, it’s unlikely that you’d be able to figure out that your clitoris is definitely a thing and most women need it stimulated in order to produce that over-the-top porn screaming.

4. That you can’t accidentally lose a tampon inside your vagina. Checking to see if my tampon had disappeared into my seemingly endless vagina was a regular activity for me as a teen and that’s just wasted time I’ll never get back. Dr. Boyle confirmed that even if your tampon seems to have migrated somewhere farther up, it can’t go any deeper than the vagina. Now you know.

5. Just because you need lube doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. When I was a teenager, I remember thinking that the only women who “needed” lube were women over 60 and women who wanted to buy scented lube as a gag gift. Back then, there were many pros and cons of lube but now-a-days there are more pros than cons! It would’ve been nice to know that even porn stars recommend that everyone use lube, no matter what age, because it just helps. Plus, Dr. Boyle says a woman’s vaginal secretions change at different points during her menstrual cycle and things like being on the pill can also affect how much natural lubrication a woman makes, so there’s no shame in helping your body out. Continue reading here.

11 Solo Sex Positions For Self Loving Women

This video shows sexy ways to get down with your bad self!