Two things I didn't know about vaginas

(1) Yesterday, a buddy of mine was chilling out at his sister-in-law's house, and he chanced to overhear while she was potty-training her two year old daughter. Astutely, my friend realized he was privy to some pretty exclusive information, so he listened carefully. Then, with the giddiness of a third grader, he raced to his computer and emailed me with a striking bit of information.

It seems girls are taught to wipe their vaginas from front to back, in order to minimize the risk of bacterial intrusion. Now, if this sounds absurd to you, you're not alone. Incredulous, I phoned a trusted vagina expert (let's call her VE), who not only verified the claim, but told me a good story to boot.

As an eighth grader, VE was sitting in sex-ed class when her teacher mentioned the aforementioned wiping procedure. Having known about this technique for years, VE immediately said to herself "man, it's a little late to be teaching this shit." But her smugness was quickly extinguished by a poor soul in the back of the room, whose heartfelt cry of "are you serious?!" echoed awkwardly against the cinderblock walls of the otherwise silent classroom.


(2) All this talk of vaginas reminded me of another conversation I had with VE, probably four years ago. We were sitting in a friend's basement, when I apparently made some reference to how weird it must be for girls to urinate out of their vaginas. (Perhaps it's difficult to imagine how this topic came up, but you'll have to take my word for it.)

Anyhoo, VE looked at me and said, with no small measure of scorn, "we don't. There's a separate hole for that."

I was unimpressed. VE had been known to put one over on me, and I wasn't about to let it happen again. "Right. So now there's a third hole?"

"Of course there is! How do you think girls pee when they're wearing a tampon?"

"Well I assume they take them out and change them. Isn't that why women's bathrooms have disposal stations?"

She took a deep breath. "No, you don't change your tampon every time you have to pee. There's a different hole."

"So you're serious? A third hole?"

"Yes. It's very small."

"Jesus. Does anything ever get stuck in there? Does it hurt?"

Despite being a vagina expert, VE was evidently ready to talk about something else. She fired a bitter glance in my direction and said, "yes, little things can get stuck in there. And yes, it hurts."

I changed the subject.