It seems that every other day we hear of a new and improved way to become more desirable, beautiful, and alluring. We make fun of ancient Romans and Greeks using crocodile poop for face masks but are willing to go to crazy lengths to keep our vaginas nice and tight. Case in point? A few weeks ago gynecologist Jen Gunter had to ask her readers and women across the planet to not put a wasp nest in their vagina. Yes, you read correctly. Wasp. Nest. As in live larvae.
You’re probably thinking, this is just a millennial trend. We’re surrounded by modern medicine, yet are continuously looking for some old school remedy to feel like we’re not stuck in an industrial landscape. But, actually, this is a symptom of a much larger problem that is affecting our current society. Because, it’s one thing for some shady seller online to start telling people to buy this product of theirs. It’s another that physicians have to let the public know that it’s not a good idea. We’re buying snake oil under the guise of some sort of pseudoscientific claim we desperately want to believe is true. Also, why are we so concerned with how tight our vaginas are? It’s not like it’s been proven to improve sex or quality of life.
Just like contemporary women are looking to bizarre bug eggs to physically “fix” their vaginas, the history of women’s health appears to be a continuous quest for ways to be more attractive to the opposite sex, usually due to erroneous or misleading information that includes shame and finger-pointing. One of these confusing nuggets of disinformation involves douching, which was considered to be a solid method of birth control, which Charles Knowlton popularizes in 1832 in a book about planning parenthood. Then, in the early 1900s, heavy duty cleaning products, like the ones you use to clean your stove and shower, became a popular method to avoid an unclean vagina. Fast forward to all the flower-scented and ethereally-named cleansers and douches we see in the women’s health aisle. The problem with all this is that, for all accounts, they have never proven to help with personal hygiene. In fact, they seem to do more harm than good.
So, why are they so popular? Well, men and advertising agencies have kept a solid parade of shaming women into the idea that their partner will be disgusted with them if their vagina has a particular smell. There are plenty of ads for vaginal douching that claim that, “(…) One most effective way to safeguard her dainty feminine allure is by practicing complete feminine hygiene as provided by vaginal douches….”
For so long, women have been told that if a man is no longer interested in them, it’s probably because they’re not trying hard enough. They’ve been blamed for not keeping them interested or attracted to them. By doing so, they’ve made them even more ashamed of their bodies, while perpetuating myths that are likely to put them at risk of STIs and other infections. Yes, in this case, overcautious hygiene results in more problems.
To this day doctors have explained that vaginal odor is not something to hide, but to be aware of. Different scents can lead to correct diagnosis of problems such as Bacterial Vaginosis, Yeast Infection, as well as other issues. Also, it’s normal for a healthy vagina to have a particular odor. It’s when that odor changes, due to a shift in pH balance or abnormal microbes, that someone will realize they need to see their doctor ASAP. If they self-medicate by washing profusely, the only result will be irritation, discomfort, and a groin that smells like roses but hurts like hell.
Medical professionals are still not entirely sure what causes Bacterial Vaginosis. However, douching is not a cure. In fact, Dr. Gunter herself explains how not even white discharge proves a yeast infection diagnosis either. The only way to know for sure what’s going on down there is for a gynecologist to do an inspection. Looking up for bizarre folk remedies and techniques is only sure to make things worse. What the internet should be doing, instead of telling people to put Jade inside their vagina, is empowering women to love their bodies. The more comfortable they get in their own skin, that easier it is for them to notice that something’s not quite right.
The very Victorian-sounding claims that women who are too sexually active –the nineteenth century play on words for slut shaming– are more likely to have a distinct vaginal odor are also not based on any documented evidence. It seems that whenever the medical community, which continues to be mostly male, wants to tell the female population what to do, they’ll do it under the guise of science. Yet in recent years, there’s no science. The wasps and the jade were called “ancient holistic methods,” which of yet have not been proven by historians. What’s worse, there are women telling other women to buy them or get their vagina steam cleaned, as if it were a living room carpet.
So next time you search for a magical cure, think about what you’re curing. Is it a real, life threatening condition, or is it just a consequence of the powers that force you to remain subdued by the patriarchy?
Sources:
Facing the Complexities of Women’s Sexual Desire by Vera Sonja Mass
Dr. Jen Gunter
The Atlantic
Timeline
Business Insider
NY Mag
Images by Sam Livm
