I would like to take a moment to dispel some myths about douching. It’s a bad idea. Don’t do it. In the course of one of my all-too-frequent screenings of “Sex and the City,” I was royally ticked to hear Samantha ranting about how men expect women to go to great lengths for beauty, including pubic waxing, leg shaving, douching and so on. Hold it! Douching?! Honey, you shouldn’t be doing that at all — this is a health concern, not a beauty standard.
If you are unaware, douching consists of pumping a solution from a plastic bag into your vagina, for so-called cleaning purposes. Douches are available at drugstores, but you shouldn’t douche unless you are instructed to do so by your doctor. But many women douche anyway, and the reasons they do so are multiform: Women do it because they think it’s a prerequisite of good hygiene, because they believe it will make their vaginas more palatable for oral sex or they perform it post-intercourse in the hopes it will prevent pregnancy.
But the truth is this: The vagina is a self-cleaning organ. It is a highly acidic environment, with a pH that can range from 3.5 to 4.5. This level of acidity is very effective at slowing the growth of harmful organisms; however, douching alters the pH, causing the levels of beneficial bacteria to be reduced, allowing harmful microbes to speed growth.
This is especially a concern if you are douching pre-sexual interaction, since you alter the pH environment just as you’re introducing foreign objects into the vagina, such as a penis or mouth (the human mouth is an especially bacteria-laden environment). Even inserting a condom-clad penis introduces new microbes. Finally, as far as pregnancy prevention is concerned, post-intercourse douching can sometimes actually increase the chance you will become pregnant, by propelling the sperm further into the uterus.
But we need to clear the highest hurdle. You may remain unconvinced when it comes to oral sex. If you are so lucky to have someone offer to go down on you, you of course don’t want to taste bad! First of all, you should be using a dental dam to protect yourself. You can also convert a condom into a dental dam by cutting length-wise down the condom. There are flavored varieties of both. Saran wrap also works in a pinch, as long as it’s the non-microwaveable kind. If protection seems lame, consider how high it is on your priority list that you remain herpes-free, HPV-free and STD-free in general.
If you happen to be in a committed, monogamous
relationship and have decided to forego protection in the case of oral sex (which is the only case in which you should even consider making that choice), he or she probably won’t mind the taste of your vaginal secretions enough to stop performing it. In fact, many who have performed oral sex claim to enjoy the taste. Finally, a healthy vagina is always going to taste better than an unhealthy or infected one. So, girls, soap up vigorously in the shower, do what you need to do to keep it clean, but please throw out that douche.
Andrenne is a fourth-year College student. She can be reached at
aalsum@cavalierdaily.com.
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