Here's What Happened When I Stuck An Herbal Stick Up My Vagina For Better Sex
I suffer so you don't have to.
So I've been using Tongkatajimat Madura, an Indonesian beauty product design to tighten your vagina, reduce unpleasant odors (also of the vaginal variety), and help you have better sex overall. The Tongkatajimat Madura looks like a white clay cigar, authenticity seal around the middle and everything.
Only, instead of setting this thing on fire, you're supposed to put it inside your vagina (whatever kind of vagina you have) for 10 to 30 seconds every morning to get a tighter vagina.
The idea is that the rare combination of herbs (native only to Indonesia) will help cut back on excessive vaginal discharge, again, the idea being that the dryer your vagina is the better sex will be. The ingredients are limestone calcite mineral and ... wasp galls.
The gods wept.
I decided to try out this sketchy vagina cigar when the internet quickly embraced and then shunned wasp galls as the latest way to make your vagina right and tight.
What, may you ask, are you wasp galls? Wasp galls are bark and wasp excreta that once nurtured a wasp larva. Oak galls grow when a gall wasp punctures an oak tree and deposits larva. This process secretes tannic and gallic acids creating a round formation known as a gall nut or an oak apple.
People who believe in using wasp galls in vaginal treatment do so because they believe that the gallic and ellagic acids have antimicrobial properties which can help "clean" and tighten the vagina, much to the distress of OBGYNs everywhere.
While the notion that smearing products ripe with wasp gall into your cooter was rapidly disproved and banished to the darkest recesses of Etsy, the fact remained that for hundreds of years, products containing wasp gall have been a popular way for women to get their vaginas in order.
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So, I got online, ordered some of the stuff, and tried it out because I am a paid professional and the idea that I've saved a few vaginas from having to suffer because of weird trends fills my heart with my gladness. Plus, let's be real: This ain't my first rodeo when it comes to putting myself in potentially dangerous situations, vaginally speaking, in the quest for better sex.
My vagina has suffered for you.
I would never compare myself to Jesus Christ, but my God, oh my God what my vagina has endured so that you, the humble women of the internet, will be able to spare your own bits and pieces.
Lest you think I'm being overly dramatic, let's revisit my past crimes: I burned my vagina with Jade eggs, I got a needle stuck into my clitoris for better orgasms, used a vagina spray every day for a week and wound up with a snatch that smelled like fetid roses, and I once smeared my boyfriend's semen on my face to see if it would clear my skin. (I know, the last one isn't really vagina related, but it was foul and I did it for you, America.)
Using Tongkatajimat Madura has been the worst thing I've ever done. Think about that. I let the world watch as a needle the length of my index finger punctured my clitoris, I pay a woman once a month to rip out my pubic hair with melted sugar (it's the best Brazilian around), and I am saying that putting an herbal vaginal suppository inside of myself is the worst thing I have ever done to my vagina.
That's saying something.
Tongkatajimat Madura has vague, incense-like smell. I don't know about you, but the idea of a vagina that could be mistaken for a stoner's bedroom didn't really appeal to me, but I am a serious journalist (lol) so I put it inside my vagina every morning for a week. While my snatch did not immediately start singing about peace, love, and harmony, it did get immediately less moist than it was usually.
I didn't tell my boyfriend I was doing it, and he didn't say anything about our sex life becoming insane or anything.
I however, noticed a difference, mostly after sex. My vagina felt raw and sore — and not in a good way. By day three, I had two pimples on my labia. One wasn't a big deal, but the other one was massive and cystic and when it popped (I nearly passed out even writing that), I began to curse the patriarchy for making women buy stuff that's supposed to make their sex lives better by ruining their naturally flawless woman caves.
Related: 10 Tips For Giving Super-Hot (And Super-Safe!) Road Head
By the end of the first week, I decided to throw the stick away. While I've held on to some of the other products I've tested (because they have rocked) I felt dark even having this one in the house. There is no shame in wanting to have better sex, but by the same token there should be no shame in having a vagina that it perfect just as it is.
If your sex life has hit a snag, the solution isn't your vagina being too wet, or too smelly, or too hairy.
Your vagina is perfect: it's the world that's got it wrong.
In closing, please stop doing these crazy things to your vagina. I literally do not think my own bits can take it.