We recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us the most ridiculous assumptions they've ever heard about the female body. Here are some of the wildest responses.
1.
"I've had multiple cis male friends of mine have the misconception that the vagina is an opening on the front of crotch area, right around where the penis would be if the individual had a penis. They didn't believe the clit existed, just a vast hole. Apparently this is a decently common misconception. Go American healthcare system!"
2.
"I was told by another girl in high school that when nuns take their vows in the Catholic church, their menstrual cycles immediately stop for life because they will not be having children."
3.
"I was told by a bloke on Facebook that the blood clots you get while on your period are due to poor hygiene."
4.
"One of my exes didn't know ejaculating in a girl is what caused pregnancy. He said it only worked if you 'really meant it'."
5.
"My periods were late, and me and the boyfriend were worried because we use mainly condoms for contraception. He told me to just get my period on time the next month. He was shocked when I told him I don't really get to control when it comes."
6.
"'If your fallopian tubes are in your neck that really means you shouldn't be giving oral unless a condom is involved, right?' Welp. That would be the case, BUT THEY AREN'T IN YOUR NECK BRO."
7.
"So I was talking to this friend of mine in school and she probably believed her whole life that you could only get pregnant once, and then you'll just have to wait to see if if you'll get one, two or more children. She thought that once you got pregnant, there were one, two or more single seeds in your body and these will determine how many children you'd get over the years."
8.
"When I was about 16, a friend asked our Chemistry teacher if she could use the bathroom. He kept refusing, until she eventually said she thought she’d come on her period and needed to put a tampon in. He still refused and demanded to know why she hadn’t put a tampon in before class, saying that she was old enough to know when she’d come on by now. According to him, a woman’s period came on the exact same day, at the same time each month. It blows my mind that this guy was a *science* teacher."
9.
"I had a boyfriend who thought that, after giving birth, the vagina stayed that stretched out. Like, it was literally just baby-sized for the rest of your life."
10.
"I had a boyfriend who asked if it 'felt good' putting a tampon in. He legit thought you could orgasm from it."
11.
"When I was pregnant, in the early stages my brother thought the foetus could travel around my body via 'little tubes'. This came to light when he asked me if I can ever feel it kicking by my knee."
12.
"When I was in high school, this guy in my Science class overheard my friend and I talking about shaving and he immediately interrupted 'Why are you guys talking about that? Women don’t have to shave because they don’t grow hair'. All we could do was blink at the sheer stupidity but then another girl replied 'Yeah, and I bet you think girls don’t poop either..'. He just stared in horror."
13.
"One time I told my best friend that I was on my period and suddenly he had this confused look on his face and he asked 'Isn't it the 13th today?' I was like 'Umm yeah??'. He actually thought all girls get their periods on a specific date of the month, I laughed for about five minutes while he was still looking at me confused."
14.
"I had a female friend tell me once that she was afraid she wouldn't be able to get pregnant because she couldn't orgasm from vaginal penetration. She thought she and her husband needed to climax simultaneously for conception to occur."
– Aletheia Rose Knights via Facebook
15.
"As a phone sex operator, I've found that a huge misconception among guys is that having sex with men with larger penises stretches the vagina (guys will start a fantasy by saying that their wife/girlfriend felt 'loose', and then go into a story about how she cheated with someone much bigger). Seriously...that's not how it works! I've had a baby. Does that mean my vagina is permanently 8-10 inches wide? No. The vaginal canal is made of muscle tissue, not Play-Doh."
– Amy Gabriel via Facebook
16.
"I was talking to my friend about cutting my hair and I said I would cut a little extra, because my hair grows VERY fast, then he said, 'but a girl's hair doesn't grow back!' and three other people agreed with him, AND THEY WERE DEAD SERIOUS. It took me ten minutes to convince them that, like their hair, ours grows back too."
– Anmol Duggal via Facebook
17.
"I had a FEMALE friend refuse to use tampons because she "didn't want anything in her uterus". Completely didn't realise the cervix was a thing. Just thought the vagina went straight up to the uterus."
– Megan Durham via Facebook
18.
"Former coworker of mine said it was fine that her boyfriend came in her because afterward she would just 'pee it all out.' My other coworker (who was pregnant) and I just stared at her in complete silence."
– Breton Stailey via Facebook
19.
"When I took a mandatory health class (of sorts) in high school, one of the girls in my class insisted that the older the mother, the uglier the child would be."
– Claire Alexandra Brown via Facebook
20.
"In the bed watching a typical period commercial notating the various heaviness of women's flows and absorbency levels of products. And my husband started to mansplain to the TV under his breath that pad sizes correlated to the 'vagina size'!!!"
21.
"I’m an open and out lesbian, so it goes with the story. I worked with this girl a few years ago, and I got my period by surprise. I asked her for a tampon, and she was extremely confused. Her response to my question was, 'I thought lesbians didn’t get periods.'"
22.
"In middle school, the school nurse told our class that girls didn’t need to wear pads or tampons while sleeping since there wouldn’t be enough blood flow while laying horizontal."
23.
"My ex-boyfriend didn’t understand that a period was an actual 'flow' and he was even more horrified to learn that women walk around with tampons still inside of them. He thought that you just had to go in the bathroom every couple of hours, put in a tampon, and then immediately pull it out."
24.
"My high school health class teacher (who was a burly PE teaching dude normally) said if you have anal sex, the sperm will swim through a woman's tubes from the butt to the uterus and bam, pregnant. The digestive system is apparently magically connected to the reproductive system in a woman's body."
– Kadamony
25.
"I was told 'it's not real blood, it's just blood-coloured'. Women couldn't survive losing that much actual blood each month. You would all be too sickly to function'."
26.
"I met a guy who said that 'women can control when they get pregnant by accepting or denying the sperm'."
27.
"I’ve heard, and continue to hear, people (mainly guys) say that an 'outie' vulva (labia minora peeks out of the labia majora) means the woman has slept with a ton of guys, while women with an 'innie' vulva (labia minora is 'tucked in' the labia majora) are more 'pure' and have had less partners. That’s bullshit. They really need to address this in sex-ed class because so many women are self conscious of how their vulva looks."
28.
"That women must have to top up their bath water, 'because, you know, it gets sucked up inside you'."