# Female Dopers, have you ever douched? Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 27, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700 "2010-08-27T18:13:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/121 "2010-08-30T06:15:49Z")
These “clots” are just red blood cells that have clumped together. No biggie. Much more dramatic-sounding than they really are. And you can stop having your period if you lose a LOT of weight- anorexics stop menstruating because they don’t have enough fat to produce enough estrogen. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/122 "2010-08-30T06:20:09Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Jesus! I’ll never complain about my cramps again. They’re annoying but easily taken care of with aspirin and regular exercise. > > Does being heavier-set make it easier to pass clots, though? I have friends of all sizes who bitch about their periods… I wouldn’t imagine so, I was just providing my size at the time to illustrate how GODDAMN HUGE this thing was, especially in comparison to my hymen and I. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/123 "2010-08-30T06:23:06Z")
Ah, okay. Whenever I’ve read about people passing about blood clots, it always sounds so intense. Just about everything that comes out of my uterus seems to be pretty liquefied already. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/124 "2010-08-30T06:27:34Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > And you can stop having your period if you lose a LOT of weight- anorexics stop menstruating because they don’t have enough fat to produce enough estrogen. heh, yeah, I’m aware. I was joking. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/125 "2010-08-30T15:42:03Z")
I am way late to the thread, but I definitely wanted to come in and add my two cents. I’m 34 and never douched and never would. I actually rather like the smell of my vagina. I shower every day except on the weekends sometimes when I am feeling lazy, but I never go more than 48 hours without, so I know I am clean. I do sweat a LOT, I can’t help that; I think it’s my heritage. So yes, oftentimes even if I haven’t been sweating profusely that day I come home and change my panties…but that’s no different than taking off my bra, and changing my clothes or whatever. It’s sweat, not vagina odor. Not to mention, my vagina does smell differently throughout the month. Different before and after my period, mostly, and probably slightly throughout the rest of the month, but I can’t smell it then as strongly. But they’re all healthy smells - the only one I don’t like is the period smell because it smells like blood. I also do get clots, though it’s rare and they are not huge. Thankfully my period is mostly very orderly - 4 days exactly, every 28 days on the dot. I have never rooted around there with a finger to find…whatever. And you know, if not me, other people have put fingers in (though I wouldn’t call it ‘rooting’!)You’d think they’d have noticed something, if there were leftover clots and junk inside. congodwarf, my aunt has really bad/long periods like you. About two years ago though she had most of her plumbing removed with a laser (I forget the name of the procedure). Oh, and lastly - I am one of those who does not wash my hair daily. I used to, but it got so dry all the time I knew there was a problem. So I switched to twice a week. Well, at first it was horribly greasy, and then in time, it adjusted. Now I tailor it to the season - never daily, but in the summer it’s every other day, and in the winter, twice a week. You scrub your fingers through it, without shampoo, and you really get the water into it. Just because you don’t shampoo it doesn’t mean you’re not cleaning it. Same with the vagina. Just because we don’t douche doesn’t mean we don’t clean it. Finally, I love the scent of my own body. Not just my vagina! I mean all of me. Right now when I put my hand up to my nose, I can smell the faint scent of soap, and some of the lotion on there, and very very faint behind it, the scent of clean, healthy human skin. I love it on me, and I love it on my SO. Clean humans smell good. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/126 "2010-08-30T16:16:34Z")
> [@lindsaybluth](#): > > > [@Dogzilla](#): > > > > Never once. Can’t imagine why I would want to or need to. > > > > I once changed an OB tampon after cutting habanero peppers for several hours. That was a mistake. Even though I wore gloves, some of the hot pepper juice still soaked through the gloves… which I didn’t learn until after inserting a hot-pepper juice covered tampon into my hoo-ha. It occurred to me to try douching but I was afraid I’d push the hot pepper juice further up and burn my cervix. > > > > It turns out, my body did its job and flushed itself out in about 20 minutes. I had to just sit really, _really_ still. Then everything was fine. > > I sat straight up and sneezed when I read that. My god. That must have been the worst 20 minutes EVER. It was pretty sucky. 🆒 My point in sharing such horrifying TMI was that the capsaicin in the hot peppers did a really great job of making my body flush itself out. As long as I sat. really. still. it didn’t hurt. Any miniscule movement caused me to make this face —\> :eek:. Made a little wet spot on the couch until all the pepper juice was out and I could resume jam-making operations. Mental note: Next time, I will put on a fresh latex glove after scrubbing my hands AND before changing the tampon. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/127 "2010-08-30T16:29:55Z")
I love that for those of us cheapos who don’t pay, and get ads, Summer’s Eve is advertising at the bottom of this thread. They don’t know about all the smack-talk! And it just occurred to be that there’s (almost?) never a male-Doper version of these kinds of threads, where dudes share all sorts of TMI dude-stuff. Nope. It’s almost always the gals, circling together to talk about gross stuff. (Also … for the record, it never occurred to me to “root around” for anything. I don’t keep my keys in there, for heaven’s sake!) ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/128 "2010-08-30T16:31:39Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > (Also … for the record, it never occurred to me to “root around” for anything. I don’t keep my keys in there, for heaven’s sake!) I’d never lose them again! 🙂 I do wonder what guys do…do they just never find out? I’d like to know. I know they talk jokingly but what happens if they have a serious problem? I can’t ever see guys bringing it up with each other. I had some questions and asked them on tmi\_chicks (livejournal) and got answers, but I don’t know if there is a tmi\_dudes. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/129 "2010-08-30T19:07:49Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > Yeah. . . if you can smell your vagina at the grocery store, that’s not normal. I LOLed. yes, I did. > [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Also, you can count me in with those that find it highly, highly dubious that squirting some vinegar and water up your hooter is going to keep completely and totally 100% odor-free for the next 24 hours or however long until your next douche. It might deodorize for a while, but it’s not going to stop your normal secretions. Even weirder to me is the every 2 weeks douche that some posters are mentioning (I keep getting **Serenata67** and \*\*Sateryn76 \*\*confused, so I’m not going to try to attribute it to any one person). The idea that you could douche and have everything be all fresh and non-odorous for 13 days, but then on the 14th day…BAM! I dunno. Seems to me that it would either be something you’d have to do more often or not at all. > [@Guinastasia](#): > > When I go out I have to curl it other wise it just hangs there – so I wash it at night, then use the curling iron AND sponge rollers in the morning. It works for me. Plus I like the smell of freshly washed hair. OK, so I initially clicked from p1 to p3, and I really, really did not know what we were talking about curling and hanging. :eek::eek: Glad it’s hair on one’s head and not douche-related. ---
**Author:** ![lindsaybluth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90db22/32.png) [@lindsaybluth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsaybluth)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/130 "2010-08-30T19:09:50Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > These “clots” are just red blood cells that have clumped together. No biggie. Much more dramatic-sounding than they really are. > > And you can stop having your period if you lose a LOT of weight- anorexics stop menstruating because they don’t have enough fat to produce enough estrogen. In high school when I was doing two sports a day (hard exercise for 3+ hours/day) I had such low bodyfat that my periods were 2 days long and 6-7 weeks apart. I wasn’t underweight - I was 5’4" and 135 - but I had insanely low bodyfat. The only downside was that I was cold _all_ the time. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/131 "2010-08-30T19:24:32Z")
Not only have I never douched, but I wasn’t even clear on what a douche was until this thread. I’ve heard the word mentioned in American books and movies, but wasn’t sure if it just meant wet-wiping or was something like a bidet. Anyway, I use a mooncup (diva cup) so I do ‘root around’ up there occasionally, and there are never any clots that need help in getting out. I occasionally pass clots that look like bloody placentas, but it’s not like they cling to your vagina walls - once it’s on its way out, it’s coming out whether you like it or not. If any women really want to douche with stuff that’s not harmful, then that’s up to them; there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the psychological sense of being clean inside and out. But it’s not going to actually make them cleaner or nicer-smelling; douching is not going to make any difference to how your outer genitals smell, and it’s not like your partner’s sticking their nose right up your vagina. Well, I guess maybe they are - there’d be nothing wrong with being into that! - but I’d hope they wouldn’t try to breathe through their nose while they were up there. Aah, fresh vaginair! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/132 "2010-08-30T20:25:39Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Well, I just hope she went vagina then rectum and not the other way around. Screw that – let’s just hope she didn’t use it in her MOUTH. :eek: No one’s saying they’re traumatic, **Alice** , just annoying and uncomfortable. (God, I probably go through like 20 pads in a single day! And there’s only sixty in a Super Pack!) It seems though like one month my period will be super heavy, and then the next month it’s pretty mild. Doucheing – wouldn’t that also push alot of material UP into your vagina? And if you’re really that upset about having semen inside your body, why not just use condoms so you don’t have to worry about it? (I swear though, there was a troll – **serlin**? – that had a thread here telling women they should use apple-scented hygiene spray or something like that) ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/133 "2010-08-30T20:37:08Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > No one’s saying they’re traumatic, **Alice** , just annoying and uncomfortable. (God, I probably go through like 20 pads in a single day! And there’s only sixty in a Super Pack!) I really am not trying to be a dick, but you’re either exaggerating or something is wrong-- that’s not normal _at all_. I realize I’ve got light periods (I could get away with changing my “regular” tampon once or twice a day if I wanted to), but even I know _twenty_ super pads a day is not normal. Assuming you sleep for 8 hours, you’re changing your super pad more than once an hour. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/134 "2010-08-30T20:42:26Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > > [@Guinastasia](#): > > > > No one’s saying they’re traumatic, **Alice** , just annoying and uncomfortable. (God, I probably go through like 20 pads in a single day! And there’s only sixty in a Super Pack!) > > I really am not trying to be a dick, but you’re either exaggerating or something is wrong-- that’s not normal _at all_. I realize I’ve got light periods (I could get away with changing my “regular” tampon once or twice a day if I wanted to), but even I know _twenty_ super pads a day is not normal. Assuming you sleep for 8 hours, you’re changing your super pad more than once an hour. It happens. My aunt, the one I mentioned before, did indeed go through a great deal of pads a day - but while something was definitely wrong, they never found out what. They still don’t know, and she’s had the laproscopy (ah! that’s the word!) since then. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/135 "2010-08-30T20:44:37Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > > [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > > > I really am not trying to be a dick, but you’re either exaggerating or something is wrong-- that’s not normal _at all_. I realize I’ve got light periods (I could get away with changing my “regular” tampon once or twice a day if I wanted to), but even I know _twenty_ super pads a day is not normal. Assuming you sleep for 8 hours, you’re changing your super pad more than once an hour. > > It happens. My aunt, the one I mentioned before, did indeed go through a great deal of pads a day - but while something was definitely wrong, they never found out what. They still don’t know, and she’s had the laproscopy (ah! that’s the word!) since then. Yeah, I definitely have friends that have various hoot-related problems that lead them to having excessively heavy periods (and other problems), but your average, healthy-but-heavy period is not going to cause you to go through 20 super pads a day. That’s why I had my little qualifier that perhaps something is wrong, because that’s not a healthy normal flow, as it were. ---
**Author:** ![BigBertha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@BigBertha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigBertha)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/136 "2010-08-30T20:46:15Z")
Has anyone ever gotten an infection or made one worse by douching? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/137 "2010-08-30T21:22:21Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > > [@Guinastasia](#): > > > > No one’s saying they’re traumatic, **Alice** , just annoying and uncomfortable. (God, I probably go through like 20 pads in a single day! And there’s only sixty in a Super Pack!) > > I really am not trying to be a dick, but you’re either exaggerating or something is wrong-- that’s not normal _at all_. I realize I’ve got light periods (I could get away with changing my “regular” tampon once or twice a day if I wanted to), but even I know _twenty_ super pads a day is not normal. Assuming you sleep for 8 hours, you’re changing your super pad more than once an hour. When I say super-pack, I mean Economy Pack, not super maxis! (Meaning, you get 60 pads instead of 40, say). I use regular pads. And yeah, I’m probably exaggerating – I probably change about once every two hours. (The instructions say four, but mostly because I feel more comfortable doing so.) And then there are days when I don’t need to. (It’s usually only for the first day or so that I get THAT heavy. And I keep around over-nights. I’m probably just anal. Well, I don’t know if this counts as being “anal” in this case…I’ll mention it to my doctor next time, though. I didn’t see you as being a dick at all. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/138 "2010-08-30T21:26:52Z")
Oooh, gotcha. I was about to suggest you immediately go get a hoot inspection, because 20 SUPER PADS a day, you should be passing out from blood loss at that rate. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/139 "2010-08-30T21:35:16Z")
It’s heartwarming how we all care about each other here… ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700/140 "2010-08-30T21:46:39Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > Oooh, gotcha. I was about to suggest you immediately go get a hoot inspection, because 20 SUPER PADS a day, you should be passing out from blood loss at that rate. 😛 When I was a teenager I was going through more than that even when using tampons too, but then I did sometimes pass out from the blood loss. Oh, and they lasted for on average 11 days with about a five day break till the next one, were excrutiatingly painful the entire time and sent me into a deep depression. Hmm, maybe I should have douched… 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/female-dopers-have-you-ever-douched-why/551700.md?page=8)