Etsy Sellers Are Convincing Women to Put Ground-Up Wasp Nests in Their Vaginas
The world is full of people who want to sell women things to put in their vaginas, and apparently the world is also full of women who do not think that is a crock of shit, and are positively desperate to shove weird folk remedies up their vaginas to solve a host of mostly imaginary problems and real problems that would quickly go away if they just stopped putting butterfly wings and maple syrup inside their vaginas. First, a woman sold “womb detox pearls” that were little bags of herbs that promised to “detox” your vagina, but really just gave everyone itchy, inflamed vaginas. Then Gwyneth Paltrow sold $66 jade eggs that promised to detox vaginas and make them younger and stronger. Now people on Etsy are selling ground-up wasp nests as vaginal suppositories, and the gynecologists of the world are saying, “No, no, no!”
According to The Daily Mail, sellers on Etsy are trading in oak gall balls, which are tiny little nests that happen when wasps lay eggs on tree leaves. The eggs turn into wasps and the wasps hatch, leaving behind a hopefully empty little sphere that looks like a fancy chocolate truffle that got old and dusty.
The sellers claim that these wasp balls should be ground up into a paste and inserted into the vagina to increase tightness and remove bad odors. Another seller said the oak gall balls should be used to heal the inside of the vagina after childbirth, and that it could be ground up and used as a poultice on episiotomy cuts or the tears that sometimes happen after vaginal delivery.
Holy shit, ouch.
One seller did warn that using oak gall balls would hurt like hell, but said that was just how you know it is working.
Gynecologist Dr. Jen Gunter does not recommend that her patients apply burning poultices to childbirth wounds.
“Here’s a pro-tip, if something burns when you apply it to the vagina, it is generally bad for the vagina,” Dr. Gunter wrote on her website.
Also, a lot of these sellers seem to be emphasizing the use of oak galls to make vaginas tighter, better-smelling, and to fix “excessive” discharge. But vaginas aren’t generally the right sizes and there’s nothing a person can put in there to make it “tighter,” and they’re not supposed to be dry and sterile. It’s not supposed to be like the cardboard tube from inside a roll of toilet paper. If there is a problem, go see a doctor. Don’t try putting wasp nests in your vagina, or the next time you see the doctor she will tell you to stop doing that, and then she will have to spend the rest of her life trying not to tell people the story of the time she had a patient who stuffed wasp nests in her vagina.
(Image: iStockPhoto / SKatzenberger)
