Vagina, vagina, vagina. Discharge, discharge, discharge. Orgasm, orgasm, orgasm. Sorry, we just had to get it all out there in order to rid the world of the stigma that attaches all of the words relating to women’s sexual health. Because as silly as it might seem – they’re just words, right? – young women’s fear of saying them out loud has resulted in two thirds of them being too embarrassed to talk to their doctor about their ‘vagina’ or ‘orgasm’.
In a survey of 1,000 women done by Ovarian Cancer Action, it was found that more than half of young women would also feel self conscious about saying ‘discharge’ with 60% being too shy to use the word ‘labia’ in front of, you know, the medical health professional who’s meant to help them.
OK, we get that maybe we can use polite euphemisms to explain to our doctor what’s going on ‘down there’. But we shouldn’t really have to feel this shy about our own bodies? The study also found that a quarter of young women purposefully avoid going to the doctor because they don’t know the words to use to describe their own bodies.
How miserable is that? Meanwhile, reports The Telegraph, women aged 55-64 are four times more likely to go to the doctor about a sexual health issue (68% of them would go to the doctor for a gynaecological issue) than young women (17%).
What does it all mean? Maybe younger women are always more shy about all things to do with reproductive health, and we all eventually grow out of that coy stage. Maybe motherhood, for many women, changes their attitude to doctors and gentials.
It could just be that younger women, increasingly living more of their lives with the assistance of social media, are finding more comfort in Google than in actually going to the doctor, with 57% of them preferring to use the internet than their GP. But anyone who’s gone from Googling a stomach ache to self-diagnosing with all manner of terminal illnesses within a few clicks will know that if something’s really up, the internet is not the answer.
‘The reluctance to see a doctor for gynaecological issues is really worrying,’ says Katherine Taylor, acting chief executive of Ovarian Cancer action. ‘And, while many of us have turned to the internet for help, Googling symptoms is not a substitute for proper medical attention.’
From where we’re standing, there’s work to be done on both sides – doctors need to be that much more willing to speak to women about their problems, and assure them that they’re in a safe space when talking about their down-there, and, as for us young women, if something’s wrong, we really need to go to the doctor about it. Sure, we can learn the words for our body parts online, but what help is that if we can’t speak those words out loud while seeking help for our problems? Oh, and for blokes who think words for women’s parts are gross, grow up.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.