Other than perhaps CBD oil, no other substance has received more headlines claiming super-healing powers than coconut oil. Dermatologists swear by its moisturizing powers, and health gurus proclaim its superiority to other oils in the kitchen. We know it’s excellent on your dry elbows and your sweet potatoes, but is it also good for your vagina?
While there are no current studies on using it specifically on the vaginal skin, women’s health professionals have found it effective for treating several kinds of vaginal issues:
Vaginal dryness. Commonly caused by menopause, breast feeding, stress, chronic infections, and medications, vaginal dryness can make intercourse painful. The easiest solution? Lubrication, and one of the best lubricants is coconut oil (yes, the same coconut oil that you use for cooking). Massaging a small amount into the vaginal opening before intercourse can reduce friction and pain (you can also reapply the oil after intercourse if you have burning or soreness afterward).
In additional to vaginal uses, coconut oil also is recommended by my lactation consultant for nipple soreness. My athlete patients also use coconut oil on their nipples to prevent chaffing.
While studies on coconut oil are sparse when it comes to the vagina, the dermatology data is reassuring, and the risk of using it is almost nonexistent. So, if you are dealing with vaginal dryness or other vulvar issues then coconut oil may help.
When turned on, the vagina naturally releases lubricants from multiple places to make sex more comfortable and safer.
There are two sets of glands that both expel fluids.
The Bartholin’s glands (named after the Danish anatomist who researched them) will excrete a lube like fluid that will help to make things slippery and very comfortable during sex. When foreplay gets you “tuned on” these will help to make things slick and wet. I can often tell during my “tantric foreplay” when things are ready for advanced simulation by the fluid that is visible on the outside of the vagina. Some women have more fluid than others but pretty much once it is present the vagina is prepped and ready for some attention. The glands are located just below the vagina opening.
The Skene’s glands on the other hand are located just inside and below the urethra (where you pee) and they can discharge a fluid (known as squirt or female ejaculation) which can be very slight or like a water fountain. Different amounts for different women. Most women who expel the fluids from this area report having the most intense orgasms during the event.
I have heard that about 33 percent of women produce the fluid (ejaculate) nearly every time they orgasm, and another 33 percent have never experienced it but can and the last 33 percent never have it happen in their lifetime. I don’t agree – I think that all women can experience this, it just takes the right stimulation and the willingness to allow it to occur. What I mean by that is many women have had the sensation that they were about to pee during sex or stimulation, so they held back or stopped themselves from letting go. Feeling they would be embarrassed if that happened during sex. Some have probably stopped themselves so many times that they have trained themselves to not allow it to occur. It is completely natural, and every woman should experience this at some point.
I always advise my visitors to pee before the session – if they feel like they are about to pee during stimulation – they know that they just did, so it is not that. I encourage them to push and allow it to happen. I have had tremendous success with this approach and have experienced everything from a small trickle to a full-on soaking experience.
The theory is that this discharge of fluids has antimicrobial properties which can protect against urinary tract infections. Basically, wash away bacteria. In India the word for this fluid is Amrita – meaning nectar of the gods.
Some women get a blockage of one of the glands which can develop into a Bartholin cyst. A bump the size of a pee or as large as walnut just under the skin of the labia. When I do my tantric massage, I always try to include the labia lips to gently stroke that area where the Bartholin glands are located under the skin. It is not known if this massaging actively has any clear health benefit but I know that it feels good from the reaction I get. I assume light rubbing there would help the flow and therein possibly avoid blockage.
The research is thin, but anecdotal experience suggests that the right dose and delivery method can make a positive difference for some people.
To learn more about cannabis and sex we turned to several experts, including a gynecologist who has surveyed women about their marijuana use.
The bottom line: It’s hard to say with certainty that cannabis will increase desire or improve your sex life, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the right dose of cannabis can make a woman’s orgasms more satisfying and increase sex drive. This is in part because cannabis can enhance the senses and also alleviate some of the symptoms that inhibit desire, like anxiety, sleeplessness or pain.
Lifestyle is a word used to describe people’s day to day activities, as above the definition taken from Oxford languages. But what are these lifestyles really?
Although a broad definition we can break the word down into several categories.
Adventuristic Lifestyle
Hedonistic Lifestyle
Individualistic Lifestyle
Promethean Lifestyle
ADVENTURISTIC LIFESTYLE
This tends to be characterised by new experiences. You tend to be constantly on the hunt for something new, whether doing or seeing new things. An adventuristic lifestyle is a continuous chain of surprises and learning experiences, you are ever pushing to experience and learn something about yourself and the world.
HEDONISTIC LIFESTYLE
This is more on the pleasurable side of life, you are all about the pleasures, let it be simple or big that is the drive of this lifestyle. Mainly characterized by hedonism (the pursuit of pleasure, self-indulgence), the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life.
INDIVIDUALISTIC LIFESTYLE
As the name suggests this lifestyle is driven by one’s individuality, favouring the individual needs over those of groups.
PROMETHEAN LIFESTYLE
Taken from Prometheus, a Titan from Greek Mythology. The Lifestyle denotes one who is boldly creative or defiantly original in behavior or actions. Those that dawn this lifestyle, live to be extraordinary as they choose not to pursue the life the same way others do.
If there was one thing Gillian knew, it was that she did not want a hole punch anywhere near her genitals.
So when, in 2018, a gynecologist recommended a vulval biopsy to check for signs of cancer, she hesitated. The doctor suspected that the whitish speck of skin that Gillian had found next to her clitoris was lichen sclerosus, a skin condition that is usually benign. To Gillian, a registered nurse, taking a chunk out of her most sensitive body part sounded a bit extreme.
But in the end she consented. He was a doctor; she was a nurse. She assumed he was the authority on this part of the body. “I never worked in OB-GYN before,” said Gillian, who asked to be identified by her first name to protect her privacy. “I was pretty clueless.”