Douching After Sex Hurts, Not Helps, Your Vagina

Dear Madame X,

After sex my friend always showers up there, to wash the sperm out (she’s also on the pill). She says that sperm stays in your body a long time and you need to make sure it has left. I’m worried that the water pressure would just push the sperm further up inside, making it more likely for her to get pregnant. So is this a good or a bad thing to do?

Concerned about Cleanliness

Dear Concerned about Cleanliness,

Your friend is right that sperm stays in your body for a long time; it can live five to seven days in there. However, no matter how hard she tries there is nothing she can do about it. Once it’s in there, it’s in there for good.

You can let your friend know that the fact that she’s on the pill means that sperm probably won’t actually be getting through into her reproductive tract. One of the ways the pill works, besides stopping ovulation, is by thickening the mucous around the cervix to prevent sperm from getting in.

You can also let her know that she is doing more harm than good with this douching of hers.

The sperm probably won’t be pushed further up like you said because the water won’t go into the part of the body where pregnancy happens anyways, the cervix stops this. But the vagina is very good at cleaning itself, that’s why women usually have some kind of discharge.

When you start messing with that and putting things up there like soaps, perfumes, and really anything else, it’s quite likely that the skin will be irritated. This will make her more susceptible to thrush/yeast infections, sexually transmitted infections, painful sex, swollen labia and vagina, and if she wears tampons this will further irritate her.

Tell you friend that she needs to stop panicking about the sperm. The pill and her normal bodily functions will  naturally do a good job of keeping her vagina healthy.

And if she’s concerned that the pill won’t work and that she might get pregnant and that’s why she does this, then tell her to go to her GP or a sexual health clinic because she should try and find a birth control that she is comfortable with. There’s no sense using the pill if she doesn’t like it or doesn’t trust it.

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