 Hi everyone, welcome back to our podcast from the Kamasutra to 2020, where we look at your questions, your concerns, even your worries around all things to do with sex and sexuality. Today, I have two amazing ladies with me. I have, of course, Dr. Anuradha Madan Bihal Anuradha, as you know, is a psychosexual therapist and she brings the psychological perspective to the advice that the Kamasutra has to give, but along with her, we also have the fabulous Dr. Tanea Narendra, who you all know better as Dr. Cutaris. And I love that name because I guess you're cute and you have a uterus. So Tanea, that makes you Dr. Cutaris. But aside from being a brand new bride, Tanea is also studying to be a gynecologist. She's a sex educator and the perfect person to talk about vaginas, which is our subject today. Welcome, both of you. Thank you very much. That was a lovely introduction. The perfect person to talk about vaginas. I will have that written on my tombstone. Absolutely. I have to say that Anuradha especially asked for you to do this particular episode because she felt that we get so many questions about vaginas, as Anuradha will tell you in a second. And we wanted somebody there who could answer the little nitty gritty, not just the relational side of things. Absolutely. I think, vaginas are such an unspoken thing. I just did a training the other day and the question I asked is, how is your vagina feeling? And that is a question we don't ask and that's a question that we don't talk about at all. And as we talk about vaginas today to the ladies out there, how is your vagina feeling today? And that's what we're going to explore. I think that's amazing. I'm going to launch right into the questions. As you probably know, Vinaya, because you deal with the same questions day in and day out, we get hundreds of these questions from women who they don't have anywhere to turn to to ask these questions. And some of them sound so basic. But I guess if you don't know where to go to have to get an answer, then you're just floundering. So I'm going to actually begin with this, the one that comes in the most, which is all about the insecurities around the vaginal area. We all know that there are certain parts of the body which automatically come with pigmentation, there's pubic hair, there's, you know, there are sort of scars, ingrown hairs, there's all sorts of things, pimples that happen in that general area. They don't look like they do in pornographical films. You know, they're not this bright, shining, gorgeous. They are on the inside, but, you know, not necessarily in their appearance. And a lot of people have so many insecurities around this. And I'd like you to address this because, you know, you have very young girls writing in and saying, I've got dark patches on the upper part of my thighs, on the inside of my thighs. I dare not ask my mom because she'll be angry if I even go to her with this question. And then women as they get slightly older, they're in relationships and are still feeling conscious of this. And I guess the real point to the question is, how do we address this so that they can get over their insecurities about it? Um, so I think that is a very pertinent question because even I get this a lot in my daily practice at the hospital, in my DMs, on emails especially. And it's not just the fact that they're insecure about it. It's also that they're shamed for it a lot. You know, I think a lot of men enter sexual relationships, expecting very porn like genitalia. And to be very honest, it's not their fault either because this is what they've been shown is normal. But everything that we see in porn has a lot of bleaching, waxing, sometimes even CGI, a lot of editing, a lot of color correction going into it, which obviously is not what real genitals look like. So I think the first thing that I absolutely do want to address with this question is, we don't even call our bitch the right names. You know, it's called the vaginal area. And the fun thing about it is that the vagina is not the part on the outside, it's the part on the inside. It's like, so how I like to explain it was with the nose, you know, the canal on the inside, like your nasal canal, that's kind of like your vagina and the stuff you see on the outside, all of this is your vulva. So the actual outside part of our genitals, the stuff we see, the stuff that touches our clothes, it's called the vulva. And it's normal to have darkness on the vulva and the area surrounding the vulva, which would be the inner thighs, like you mentioned. It would be the perineum, which is a little bit further back, all the way around the butthole. Now I don't know if somebody would go in front of a mirror and look at their butthole, but if they do, they will notice that it is darker than the surrounding areas. And this is a very normal thing in our bodies. Areas that have folds, they tend to be darker. So even if you flex your elbow and you see, there'll be a little bit of darkness compared to the surroundings in your elbow. People who have belly rolls, they will see there's a little bit of more pigmentation in the rolls itself. And these are very normal bodily things. The reason why it happens is because this pigmentation is a sign of maturity. You're trying to infantilize yourself if you want to get rid of that. A hormone step in at puberty, hormones cause pigmentation and this pigmentation also increases when you're pregnant. So it's a sign of your body growing. It's something that actually should be celebrated. It's how in a lot of cultures when a girl gets the first period she's celebrated because that's the mark of her womanhood. And when a boy gets his beard, it's celebrated because that's a sign of his manhood. And on the contrary here, we're trying to hide this away. So there's nothing wrong with it. And people need to be very careful about not falling prey to these ads and these scammy lightning creams and these lightning serums and these beauty procedures that claim to lighten and whiten your genitals. I know a patient of mine who used this very strong lightning agent that is normally given to people who have melasma. Melasma is something that happens when in pregnancy some people get patches of darkness on their face. Under doctor supervision, we do give them certain chemicals if they want to get rid of that one particular dark patch. Now she used this on her genitals and her inner thighs and she came in with chemical burns because it was obviously too strong for going on genitals skin. So a lot of people will look at YouTube and I don't know put lemon juice down their thighs and on their vulva, which of course can cause irritation and vaginal infections as well. It messes with your pH. There's a bunch of things that can happen. So there's two steps to sort of countering this insecurity. The first is understanding that pigmentation in your genitals is perfectly normal. It's a natural thing and it's a sign of maturity. It's not something that we need to hide from. And the second thing is that I understand that, you know, loving your body is a journey. You're a work in progress always. But let's not put things that don't belong over there, over there. I just want to, sorry, I know that you're coming into the question. I can see it on your face, but I just want to put in a little something over here. A couple of years ago, I remember Dr. Wadsen. Do you remember the very elderly gentleman, Dr. Wadsen, who used to do the sex column in Mumbai? I remember him saying this. Some guy had written into him and said that should he put Nimbu Juice on his wife's vulvic area, the outer labia, et cetera. And Dr. Wadsen had written back and said, I love that. I was just saying that, you know, this idea once again that there is a perfect vagina. Whenever we're trying to fix something, we believe there is an ideal to be reached or matched. And it is really important to know that there isn't one vagina that looks perfect. This is a myth. It doesn't exist. Every vagina is different. I've spoken about this before, but there's something called the Great Wall of Vaginas, where you can actually, they are casts of different vaginas, and it's put into a picture. You can just Google it, the Great Wall of Vagina. And the idea was to show that vaginas come in different shapes, colors, sizes. Every looks different. Just as breasts, because we say that about breasts as well, people think there is an ideal-looking breast. Similar to breasts and vagina, there is no perfect shape or there is no perfect kind. I know people tend to believe that, but more so for vaginas. And once again, that idea is sold by porn that there is a certain vagina that's an ideal vagina, but that is not true. So I think this poll that I need to make it look like something, we need to really work on that, because what are we making it look like? We, and that can actually harm us when we try and alter things, change things like you said, it can lead to a burn, it can lead to a cut, it can lead to problems. So I think that mindset needs to change. Yeah, I think that it'd be lovely to have an answer. I can't think of something that I could say to these young girls to say, look, this will take away your insecurities. This will give you back your self-esteem around it. We can just reiterate over and over again that everybody's vulva looks slightly different and it does of necessity. It's like literally of nature, it comes with different kinds of pigmentation and marks and so on. And there are more permutations and combinations to how it looks than you would even imagine. So whatever you have is truly perfect. So just go with it. You trust me when I say that if there was actually something that mattered with it, you would not be simply worrying about the looks. You would be worrying about a lot more. You're perfect. And how many of us compare vaginas? I think it's the most weird, yeah, so anyway. I mean, I see at least 30-35 vulvas every day and I can guarantee you no two vulvas look the same. They all look different than their own sweet ways. And then they kind of like faces, you know, vulvas have a personality, just like faces have a personality. Somebody has a longer nose, somebody has longer inner lips. It's sort of like that. And I always say that if you're going to be that worried about how it looks, go with dimmer lighting. Turn the lights off, let the moonlight come in. You know, go with that till you become comfortable with your sexuality. Because once you get into the understanding that pleasure is what it's about, you won't think about this anymore. So yeah, go with dimmer lighting rather than all these strong chemical creams. So Anrita, am I asking the next question or are you? Well, I think what I wanted to do was I wanted to get some basic questions in and then we can get into some more complex ones. Because I think women, we have spoken about this very rarely do women look into the mirror to look how their vagina looks like, right? And I think it's really important and I will ask more questions from Tanaya, but because you need a baseline, you need to see what color it is, what does it look, what does it feel like, what does it smell like, because a lot of times the question that troubles people and they have nowhere to go and ask is it's smelling, it's itchy, it's dry. There are cuts, it seems like it's bleeding, but it's not period bleeding. What's happening? Why is it so dry? So we get a lot around the vagina, which can be related to the skin, but also, we should be using this right. So there's a lot that we hear about the vulva, which can be problematic or the vagina. So I think just if you can give the women out there some information of what does a healthy vagina feel like and what are the signs to look out for when things might be off and how do they find that out? We actually have two very curious insights into our health that men lack. The first is vaginal discharge and the second is periods. Now it gives you, it's not like a monthly doctor's report, okay, this is what's happening in your body. So I think that's a very privileged to have these health insights. Now talking about discharge, I know there's a lot of scammy ads out there that claim to cure white discharge, white discharge. That's all crap. You don't need to fall for that. Discharge is a very normal and natural thing. It's the way a vagina keeps itself clean. It happens every day. Some people find it less. Some people find it more. It ranges in colors. So it ranges anywhere from a colorless to a whitish discharge. Sometimes it can be like a pale grayish almost. How I like to describe it is it kind of looks either like malai or either like egg whites. These are the sort of two variations you're more likely to encounter. Anything different from this is usually a red flag. For example, I'm going to be using some food metaphors. So I'm sorry for grossing all of you out. But if it looks like dahi, that's which is yogurt. So that's occurred. You want to be a little bit more careful because that can be a sign of fungal infection. Now with discharge, any discharge regularly is fine as long as it doesn't come with any other symptoms. The symptoms being smell. If it has, you know, our discharge and our vulvas and our vaginal have their own distinct smell. Most people tend to describe it like a metallic smell. But if it smells obviously different, then you want to go see your doctor. If this comes with a different discharge as well, obviously you want to see your doctor. So color of your discharge. If there is a sudden change in the amount of discharge you're getting like you've been having a decent amount and suddenly it just dries up completely. Or you've had okay amount of discharge and suddenly you're just like gushing. That could be a sign to see a doctor and it's just happening, you know, repeatedly, not a one-time sexual encounter. So smell, look, amount, color. I mentioned sort of the range. If it looks green, you definitely want to run to your doctor. If it looks yellow and I don't mean yellow on your panties because when it's exposed to air, it tends to become yellow. But if it looks yellow when it's coming out of you, you want to see your doctor. It can be pinkish or red-inged or brown. That's usually a sign of either old blood or very little blood coming out of you. But anything different from what you're used to, you want to see your doctor. In terms of smells, a fishy smell, what is described as an ammonia-like smell. Now a lot of people haven't smelled ammonia. But a lot of people have smelled stinky fish and if it ever smells like that, that can be a sign of an upset pH balance. So you want to see your doctor for that. Sorry, am I bad? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so if it's a fishy smell, you want to see your doctor for that. If it smells different from what you're used to, if it smells especially foul, you want to see your doctor. And the other big thing is itching and burning. If you're getting any of these symptoms, you go to your doctor. Everything else, just let it be. It's fine. There's no big deal. Another thing that tends to be missed out and that's very important for older people is if you're getting white, the texture of your skin is changing and it's becoming like white patches that can be a sign of an early cancer as well. So you definitely want to see your doctor if you're feeling like leathery skin that is whitish. And the texture of your vulva is looking different and it's distinctly feeling different. And you want to see your doctor. But largely, like we all mentioned, there's so many varieties. Generally, it's okay. It's okay to see your doctor. And the patches of white that you're talking about, they look different from the eczema because sometimes women feel like there's extreme dryness in the vulva, especially in the exterior lips. And what do you just put regular like coconut oil or creamer? What do you do when the vagina feels dry in the exterior, the vulva feels dry? So usually what I recommend for feeling a lot of dryness is a light moisturizer like Cetaphil has a very nice fragrance free moisturizer. Another thing that can be good is petroleum jelly. I don't generally recommend coconut oil for people because coconut oil is known to clog pores. So you can get blackheads which can get infected and you can get boils and stuff. If it works for you and it's been working fine for you, sure, do it. But if it's a new thing, I'd avoid it. Since you did mention eczema, eczema is something that happens for a lot of people in their vulva area, especially in the skin folds. So you know, the folds of your thighs, you can have extreme dryness. That's also something to watch out for. And if you have eczema, generally you can speak to your doctor about it. They can give you a particular emollience that can help keep that moist. Thank you. And I just wanted to say that I'm sure so many people sitting out there must be thinking, oh my god, I've always wondered about this because I think there's so much about the vagina that we want to know. And it's one of those things, you pick up the phone and you call your mother or your sister or your friend and you say, something's happened to my hand. See, it's very dry. But very rarely do you pick up the phone and say, oh, you know, my vulva is like feeling very dry, like what do I do? Or it's smelling foul. And there's a lot of examples that you gave are to do with thrush, like commonly known as thrush as infection. And that is basically, and you can correct me, is when the pH level of the vagina goes off. And that literally could be because you were having antibiotics. The antibiotics can just, you know, change the pH level. And there are multiple reasons for that. But everything that you spoke about is sometimes a good indicator that there might be, you know, a bacterial infection, there might be thrush that is happening. Is that correct? So thrush specifically refers to a fungal infection, but everything that you said is absolutely correct. Long term antibiotic use can increase your chances of getting a fungal infection. Recently in India, we had a lot of scare of black fungus and white fungus, which is essentially that in COVID people were indiscriminately being prescribed antibiotics, which was leading to essentially we have a colony of good bacteria that live in our body. And they tend to, they're sort of our army, and they fight off everything that's not supposed to invade. Now antibiotics, they kill all kinds of bacteria, go bad, everything. So when the good bacteria also die out, things that normally should not grow in our bodies, for example, fungus that starts growing. Another reason why that might happen is diabetes, or certain medications can do it if you have a very high blood sugar. Also, particularly in India, we have a very hot moist environment and fungus likes to grow in moist and dark places, which, you know, the groin is the perfect sort of party hangout for fungus. So thrush precisely would be that, and that's when you have a cottage cheese or curd like discharge. But yeah, absolutely. Anything that messes with your pH can cause an infection. It can be a bacterial infection like bacterial vaginosis. It could be a fungal infection. It could increase your risk of getting an STI. So there's a whole variety of things. Yeah. And the only, and Seema, you can ask the next question. The only tip I was going to give is that if you do feel any of those symptoms and you do have thrush, try not having sex, especially without a condom, because you can pass it to your partner. And then it's really difficult to get rid of because you keep giving it back and forth. Like you might get treated, then you might give it to your partner, then your partner might have it, and the partner might give it. So even one, it might hurt a little bit if, because the dryness, the lubrication goes of the vagina. But otherwise, try using a condom while having sex so that, you know, people think that it's not an STI because it doesn't come in, like it's, it's like different category because it's an infection, fungal infection, but you can pass it. And so just try using a condom while having sex. And the stages for you, Seema, for the next question. No, I was actually going to follow up with this thing and just make a point of saying we mentioned orders. And as you know, that there are a lot of products out there, people sort of saying this is a douche who washed the inside of yourself with it. And that's really, really bad for you, isn't it? So if you just want to address that quickly before we. So a lot of times these douches are sold with the idea of cleansing your orders. Historically, they were sold as a contraceptive device, you know, that if you after you have sex, you just wash yourself from the inside and all the sperm will go out. Did not work, by the way. But what it does is that all of the natural moisture that's inside your vagina, is gone. The discharge that's supposed to keep you clean is also gone. And lastly, it's, you know, all of the good bacteria that's like building its nice little parties in the corners, you're flushing it all away. So you're creating a perfect ground for infections. Now, douching was so much like so popular, in fact, that listed in the mouthwash and lies all the table household cleaner. They were originally meant to be vaginal douches, and people used to have awful chemical burns, they were meant to be vaginal douches for contraception, for getting rid of odours. And you know, all of these sort of euphemisms for implying that the vagina somehow unhealthy or dirty or unclean, which is very patriarchal notion that let's not get into right now. But yeah, it's a very quick way of destroying all of your good bacteria, of destroying all of the natural moisture. It's the equivalent of taking a dish scrubbing sponge and, oh no, a foot scrubber and scrubbing your face with it. It's not going to do you any good. Yeah, you know, the pharmacist was very big about hygiene down there for the genitalia, but for both men and women. So it talks about how you need to wash the outside area, keep it free of perspiration, keep it, you know. And I think it's absolutely wonderful. And it definitely says that you should be, I mean, it says that the smell that you have on the inside depends on what you've eaten. And that makes sense because I mean, your perspiration will smell of what you've eaten. So, you know, especially for men, it says that their semen will start to taste different if they don't have alcohol, for instance. So, you know, and there was this one point where I remember I did this little talk where I said to that, you know, if the guys want a blowjob, then they should actually maybe go off the alcohol for a little while. And that might encourage their partner to, you know, go down on that. But anyway, we're talking about vaginas. We're not talking about penises today. So to come back to the next question, the one that comes in in very large numbers is about the size. Now, most women are worried that the vagina is going to be, the vagina is going to be too large and too loose to give any pleasure to the man. There are a few that come in saying that they're too small and it's going to be, so they're worried either about the pain or whether there won't be any pleasure or the man won't want to come in, etc. But let's actually deal with the fact that they think that it might be too big. And this is people who've not had children. So this is pre-childbirth, just this worry. And for some reason, there seems to be like this big sort of thing around it, you know, with the man talking about how my vice vagina is too big and too loose. Sorry, talk to us about that. The vagina is an elastic organ. So what I do will be that certain people are constitutionally smaller and certain people are constitutionally larger. The vagina is like a balloon. You know, if you blow up a balloon, it expands and when you let air out of it, it goes back to the same size. That's exactly what it is. The tissue is elastic. I have a small model here that doesn't quite exactly show everything, but so this is the uterus and the canal leading out of the vagina. I don't know how much you can see on this, but there's like sort of ridges on the inside. What these ridges are doing is that they're meant to show that the vagina has all of these convulations on the inside. Now I'm going to explain it using a piece of paper. So excuse me for one second, but essentially the point behind having these ridges is to increase the amount of tissue that's there. For example, if you think about our brain, there's not a very large space inside our head to hold the brain, but we hold a lot of brain tissue inside and that's why the brain looks like the way it does. It has all of these ridges inside. What this does is that instead of occupying this much space, this much of piece of paper occupying this much space, if you put it in folds, it occupies less space, but there's a lot of tissue here. Now instead of just putting this piece of paper here, if I do this, I can probably accommodate three more pieces of paper here. A good way of explaining it is that it looks like an accordion. The accordion has all of these folds and it has all of these sort of convulations and ridges and that's exactly what our vagina is like. The vagina is like the brain in that regard. That the more folds you have, the more it can expand just the same way as you would fold a sardine and keep it inside. It occupies less space, but when you open it, you realize it's nine meters, nine meters, six meters. How long is the sardine? Some of them are nine meters. But I was actually thinking, I thought you were just going to make a fan out of that piece of paper and that is what I was doing exactly that. In this tiny space, you've actually got this whole piece of paper and when the vagina expands just like this. This is really important because remember, you deliver a baby out of there and your cervix has to dilate the whole 10 centimeters. The 10 centimeters is the smaller scale we used to get in our geometry box. Your cervix has to dilate that much to deliver a baby. So of course, the vagina has to dilate a lot. It's like an elastic sock. So this whole thing about the vagina becoming loose is not a thing. It's an elastic organ. You can't loosen it. Now, there are two things that do affect the elasticity, which is childbirth and age. So it does go down with the years and with more and more childbirths because there's a lot more muscle tissue that's destroyed. But largely, the vagina doesn't become like Dheela. It's not like a Purana mosa that's become Dheela now. And when people do talk about being smaller or tighter, now, once again, I do agree that there's certain people that are constitutionally smaller. But again, it's an elastic organ, so it's going to expand. So the best thing to do for making sex wonderful, comfortable, enjoyable for all parties involved is to focus on foreplay. The minute you focus on foreplay, your brain, it takes a little bit of time. There's like a bit of a traffic jam between, you know, sending the signals from your brain to your vagina. So the traffic jam for time, give the signal from here to here, reach the vagina. I will realize I have to pull something about to enter me. I need to open my garage door and it just relaxes. So you want the vagina relaxed for comfortable, safe, healthy sex. Some people claim that, you know, if it's really tight and if it's not lubricated, it's more fun. But I hardly think so, you know, if your partner's going to be in pain, if they're really not relaxed, they're going to get more injuries, they're going to get more scrapes and cuts. They are not really going to enjoy it because there's not enough lubrication. But again, if they're relaxed, there will be lubrication, the vagina will be allowing things to enter. And that makes sex wonderful and great and all that it's supposed to be. So small focus on more foreplay. I'm sorry, my Google is acting up. So small focus on more foreplay and lose, it's not lose. It goes back to the same sense. I actually wanted to ask you, I feel like this question of tightness, I feel also comes from these myths around and these moral ideas around virginity. And I think it becomes very problematic a lot of times with young women, landing up being abused because men have this idea that because you're a virgin, you're going to be tighter. And then that's what it is. And then women carry that in some ways, you know, when they have been in a sexual relationship for some time, they really worry saying, Oh, am I tight enough for my partner? But these are myths, you know, perpetuated and sold over years and years. But actually, it's not true. So I just want to like make a kind of a headline. And if you can reiterate that it is a myth, I'm not true. I also want to point out over here that we've said this very often. But, you know, this is what the positions in the chemistry project created for that if you felt that you were too big, then, you know, this was the ideal way to keep your legs, etc., to tighten yourself up. And if you were too small, then you would practice certain other positions to open it up a little bit more. So they were thinking about it way back then as well and saying, it's okay, nothing is wrong with you. It says your body is made in a certain way. You learned to work around it. But yes, like I said, just reiterate that one more time, please just say it in so many words that it doesn't lose because you've had sex so many times. Yeah, the vagina does not become lose from having a lot of sex. Because if that were the case, you know, if the vaginas were such a crushing force, would penises get smaller, the more sex you had? I mean, if it goes that way, the penis should shrink the more and more you have sex. But, you know, for some reason, having more sex for men is a badge of honor for having more sex for women is something to be ashamed of. And that's one of the ways we've learned to control women's bodies and sexuality. Anyway, that's all of the clusterfuck. But yeah, the vagina does not become lose from having too much sex. The only thing that can affect the elasticity of the vagina is age and multiple traumatic childhoods. And also, I think that there are a lot of men who are possibly very small, their organs are very small, in which case, like I said, you do have the help of the Kamasutra to understand what kind of positions to make love. You know, so don't take it upon yourself. There is the way forward. And that toxic ideals of sorry, no, no, no, go ahead. Go ahead. The toxic ideals of beauty go both ways because men are also fed this absolute lie about how big they should be because most men are not the size and that's perfectly normal. You know, nobody wants to carry around the giant snake in their pants. So, you know, sorry, back in the day, in one of the Santhal stories, do you know the Santhal tribe from sort of between Bengal and Bangladesh? They believe that in times gone by, a man's penis used to be 12 qubits long. A qubit is from here to here, basically from your elbows. And they used to wear it wrapped around their waist and carry it around. And then there's this whole story about how it's shortened to this because they get punished. Yeah, it's a really funny story. That's for another time. We have to talk about the story another time. To be very honest, though, medically, that might make sense because there's a lot of penile tissue you can pull out if you want to do a penis reconstruction surgery. There's a lot of stuff inside that you can pull out and make more penis out of. Really? Well, that's amazing. So it could maybe in the past been 12 qubits long. I don't think so. That would make humanity very difficult. Imagine walking through the wheelbarrow in front of your clutch. But talking about reconstruction, I feel like I'm the party popper in this podcast. You're talking about story and I'm like, I'm going to spoil the party. And bring in, there are surgeries today around vaginal reconstruction and hymen reconstruction. And there is a big conversation about actually the law changing in UK, where they're going to make hymen reconstruction illegal now because, and that's coming in the newspapers because more and more apparently, and I hope I'm not giving ideas to people, but people are asking for virginity certificates. And the certificate comes from a doctor who basically examines, which is obviously really, you know, you cannot do that to a woman. You cannot. I think what we're looking for is fucked up. Yeah, exactly. And but the law is coming out in UK, where they are going to say that hymen certificate, these virginity certificates and reconstruction is going to be considered illegal in UK. And they're working towards presenting it in parliament. But just, you know, what would you like to say to women or people there who are considering vaginal reconstruction surgery, cosmetic surgery, or hymen reconstruction? What would you say to them? So I actually have two personal stories with regards to this. The first is that I've genuinely witnessed this. I was in second year of medical school. It was my first OBG posting and obstetrics and gynecology. And there's this man that walked in with his girlfriend and he's like, she's now my fiance. We've been together for bloody die years. And you know, give me a certificate that says that she's a virgin because I wouldn't marry her otherwise. So it legitimately does happen. I have genuinely seen this with my own eyes. And the second is that there's a lot of, there is genuinely a lot of media, mixed media messaging and there's a lot of pressure on women's bodies to be a certain way. There's a lot of value that is associated with a very tiny piece of tissue. And the funny thing about the tiny piece of tissue is that not having a hymen may not necessarily mean that you're not a virgin. And having a hymen may also not mean that you're not a virgin because there's a very good case record of a sex worker who had an intact hymen. And you know, she was a sex worker. So of course, there had been a lot of penis vagina interaction there. But the hymen is essentially a ring. It's not, it's not a dhakan is how I always say it's not a dhakan at the end of your water bottle. Because if it were a dhakan, you put your water bottle upside down, there's no water that comes out. Right. And if that were the case, how would the period blood ever go out? And there's a genuine legitimate medical condition called an imperfect hymen where the hymen does not have holes in it, where the period blood keeps getting collected. The girl presents with the age of 14 or 15, never had a period. And she'll come to the emergency room in a lot of pain, because all of this blood is now clogged up on the inside. And we have to make an actual decision in them to let go of all of this. So the hymen has holes in it. It's like a chutney. It's like a ring. There's multiple ways. And I completely get the fact that there's a lot of pressure. But we want to break free from that because the hymen is not what we've been sold. That it's like, you know, you don't need hymen reconstruction surgery. You don't need a vaginal tightening surgery. It's more likely to make sex more painful for you than anything else. They can damage tissues. The extent of the clitoris was fully nabbed out in 2005. That was 16 years ago. So we didn't even understand female sexual response in terms of anatomy 16 years ago. So all of these surgeries that have been happening, they're botching up a lot of the clitoral tissue, they're botching up a lot of the sensitive, pleasurable tissue that's actually existing to make things better for you. So you don't want to fall prey to these half baked surgeries, essentially. All of that said, if it makes you feel better in some way, and if it empowers you in some way, sure, go ahead and do it. But it's not the right medical message. These are not medically factual things. You know, talking about, sorry, I thought were you going to follow up on that? No. Literally from what you were saying, I actually thought of something that, again, one of the questions that had come in that, you know, a lot of women don't feel orgasm when they have sex. And they, you know, we know that that doesn't necessarily happen, but there is also this huge amount of pressure to say that you're with somebody that you want to be, and if you are this perfect woman, then when the man penetrates you, you will have this amazing orgasm and you will come together and there'll be this, you know, this is from all the films where everybody sort of falls back panting and sweating and you know, so on. And there's a lot of women that don't feel pleasure or don't feel an orgasm when they're being penetrated. And again, this has been coming in about can they do something to enhance, because they're actually worrying. So they're wondering they can enhance the sensitivity in their vagina, can they do something to enhance the sensitivity so that they feel the orgasm more? And I just, I mean, for me this question was particularly problematic. I would love to actually go out and talk to these people personally to reassure them, but I think you're the right person to do so. I think what's very important to remember is that for a lot of people we think the female equivalent of a penis is the vagina. You know, some German sexologists have gone on to call the vagina and inside out penis, you know, and what we always forget is that these are not the same tissues, they're not derived from the same thing. The female equivalent of a penis is the clitoris. If you look at the embryological origin of both of them, I've started, I'm an embryologist, so I've studied this quite in depth. They both look the same, they kind of look like a small man with his head bent and like arms kind of like this and you know, little feet sticking out. They derive from the same tissue, the clitoris becomes erect in the same way that a penis does. So it's kind of like the question of asking how do I make my vagina more sensitive to, you know, sexual pleasure is kind of like asking a man coming up and asking, how do I make my balls more sensitive to getting an orgasm? You're not going to know, I mean, there's some people sure that do orgasms from, you know, scruple stimulation. But for the vast majority, you're not going to have an orgasm from stroking your balls. It's not going to happen. So there are certain stimulants you can get that can enhance your sexual experience largely. But between 50 to 75% of women, and this is a very well known fact in sort of people who do study sex, between up to 75% of people agree that they've never had a vaginal orgasm or vaginal orgasms don't work for them. And that's because the vagina is not the organ that's meant to orgasm, you know, the clitoris that's meant to orgasm, which is where the positions come into play because there's something about the coital alignment technique that I haven't read too much about. There's one book that I've read on it. That's a wonderful book I'd recommend it to everybody. It's come as you are by Emily Nagoski. Wonderful book. But there's something about the coital alignment technique there, which basically suggests that how to have sex in a way that your clitoris is also stimulated, which is where the positions come into play. So you don't necessarily have to increase the sensitivity of your vagina. You just have to include clitoral play in it, either before, after, during, however, that's up to you to orgasm. I think that's just, it's so simply, but thank you, because whenever I discuss this from the point of view of what the karma sutra says, somehow it has a two-pronged effect. You know, there is this one thing about, it suddenly feels very exciting because it feels doable, but it's also a book that was written 2000 years ago and it becomes part of mythology. And so somewhere in the middle, we get stuck in this twilight zone. So yeah, I think that's really well explained that this isn't the organ that's supposed to come. So hence, it's okay if you don't feel that sensitive or if you don't feel that you need to come from that there. And also, I think in a woman's body, there is just so many other pleasure points. I mean, I know most of us have so many points that we can actually stimulate for pleasure that I don't think we should be worrying if you can't have it in that one place. But on that happy note, Tanea, thank you so much for explaining so much of this to us. I know that this particular podcast has become much longer than our regular podcast aimed to be, but I think that it's going to be particularly useful for everybody, every vagina owner out there needs to know this. And I have to say that we'd like you, we would both like you to come back again and talk about vaginas in slightly older women. So postmenopause, postchildbirth, etc. Because I know that there are such changes that take place both on the outside and on the inside. So let's do that as part two. For sure. Yeah. So just in closing, I think what I'd like to reiterate is, as Tanea was saying, that vaginas are very, very different, vulvas are very different. There is an automatic amount of pigmentation that happens. You don't need to be worried about that because anything that has a fold to it is going to have more pigmentation. And the odors are again, very, very natural. Please don't try and get all these different chemicals and products to try and perfume the area, perfume the outside if you want, as much as you want, you know, but not on the inside. Don't do shit. Don't wash it out. And by and large, understand that you need to respect your vagina. It's this beautiful organ that can expand and do amazing things, contract and come back to whatever you need it to be. It doesn't need to follow anybody else's rules. It's your vagina, your rules. There are a lot of different ways of finding pleasure in and around it. Don't put it through any more angst and stress than it needs to be. And I think that I just like to wish everybody well and stay well and healthy. And you know, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please do like, comment, subscribe. If you have any questions at all, I am on info.seema.anand. Oh, no, that's not the whole thing. It's info.seema.anand.gmail.com. If you have any questions to do with consultation or therapy, she is on and at that.medanbehelledgmail.com. And if you have any questions for Tanea, she is on drcutress.gmail.com. It is still COVID times, as we've said, things haven't become okay. So please do stay careful, stay well. We will see you over here again very soon. And we will come back with part two, the older woman's vagina, or the mature woman's vagina. But I want to say that because we have no platforms, and we always have questions about our vagina, even if you're not an older woman, and you have a question, send it in. We're happy to do a part three. So send in the questions about your vagina and do take care of your vagina today. And we'll ask the question again next time, how is your vagina feeling today?