Recently, Reddit user u/pragmail124 asked the people of r/AskReddit which biological fact they didn't know about people with different anatomy until recently. Here are some of the most-upvoted responses from people about vaginas:
1. "Vaginas secrete a fluid which can bleach underwear."
"It can actually put holes in underwear over enough time."
2. "People who can get pregnant or have periods have the greatest propensity for iron deficiency/anemia because of pregnancy and periods. It's not that other people can't get it too, but usually it's linked to another underlying condition."
3. "Period poops are real — many people poop a LOT on the first day of their period. Like, a lot."
4. "I knew every slang word for the vagina as a kid, but only learned the word vagina when I was 13 years old."
5. "I didn’t know, until 10 years ago, that the menstrual pad is stuck on the underwear. I thought that you stuck it tight on the vagina like a bandaid. I’m 39 and I’ve been married 13 years."
"Haha God, can you imagine a way to make a period worse than to have to rip off bandages from your vagina multiple times a day?"
6. "Boobs can lactate without their owner being pregnant."
7. "I never knew that CHUNKS came out during periods. I knew it was like thicker blood. I never thought it was like solid chunks of uterine wall, though."
8. "I didn't know that the labia didn't have any sort of mobility. I had this idea that when people with vaginas go to pee, the lips would sort of... open."
"Like the demogorgon???"
9. "This is nuts. Brace yourself. Fallopian tubes are not connected to the ovaries. They hover above them. If the ovary on one side stops working, the fallopian tube on that side will slowly reach over to the ovary on the other side."
10. "Some periods are so painful that they register in the 9s and 10s on a hospital pain scale — which is to say pain so severe that it induces vomiting or just outright unconsciousness."
11. "I thought after the baby came out, the belly immediately deflated."
12. "Many people poop while giving birth. Huge dumps that empty the entire contents of the colon. My OB explained it like rolling a bowling ball along a tube of toothpaste."
13. "I, ashamedly, did not realise until my early 30s that tampons don't go in the urethra, they go in the vagina. And you pee out of the urethra, not the vagina."
14. "It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I figured out that pads and tampons were two very, very different things..."
15. "Growing up Mormon, I had no idea a clit was a thing."
16. "The placenta comes from the fertilised egg, not the uterus, and it's basically an organ of the foetus that biologically hijacks any tissue it touches. Uteruses (uteri?) evolved to handle this exchange and then shrug it off as necessary, hence the whole bit about the lining of the uterus shedding during the period. That's like its sacrificial anode it builds up to keep the placenta from killing it."
17. "Newborn babies can have minor vaginal bleeding due to the drop-off of their parent's oestrogen once they leave the womb. It's called a false period."
"I'm a 43-year-old woman, never had kids. I had no idea about this. I don't know why, but to me this is one of the most shocking things on this thread. That's wild!"
"Two of my children had them. Nobody fucking warned me. Suddenly my newborn started bleeding from the vagina and I panicked like a bastard."
Thanks to u/pragmail124 and r/AskReddit for having this discussion.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.