Cucumbers have many uses. Well, actually, just one: eating.

Or so we thought. It turns out that there is a viral craze known as the 'cucumber cleanse' that involves sticking one up your lady parts - if, of course, you have lady parts available to you - and giving it a good old twist.

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This has been claimed to result in a myriad of health benefits, from 'resetting your PH balance' (I never realised that my PH balance was out, but OK...) to leaving you smelling fresh, which I'll take to mean smelling like cucumber. And guess what? Science says it's A BAD IDEA.



The craze has been going around on YouTube and Instagram for a while and there are, of course, instructional videos to make sure that you're fully informed when it comes to sticking a cucumber where the sun don't shine.

"So how do you cleanse your vajayjay?" writes blogger Gigi Dowell in a long Facebook post on the subject.

"If you didn't know, a natural cleaner and one of the tools you can use for restoring pH to your yoni is a peeled organic cucumber. The same can be done with cleansing the throat and the mouth. Using a peeled cucumber, you can clean your mouth and throat of any bacteria or viruses.

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"You can also use it to help start the stimulation of your G-spot to work on understanding your body and having stronger orgasms! Perfect for women withholding from sex to keep the energy flowing.

"I'm going to show you this goddess practice to make sure that you are in optimum vajajay health AND how to sculpt it for your pleasure!! Ya'll ready?"

She then includes a link to the video. Don't worry, I've watched it, so you don't have to. Worryingly, so have 72,000 other people.

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Naturally, medical professionals are somewhat sceptical about sticking anything up your vagina that shouldn't be there, and one such scientist is Dr Jen Gunter.

She's already well known for debunking much of the nonsense on Gweneth Paltrow's Goop website and had a fair bit to say about the cucumber cleanse.

"In what seems like post #323 explaining that vaginas don't need cleaning I present the cucumber vagina cleanse," she wrote.

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"Apparently some women are peeling cucumbers inserting them vaginally and then twisting them around for up to 20 minutes to refresh or cleanse or flush or something.

"This isn't just a weird Facebook thing one person did once. I Googled 'cucumber vagina cleanse' (God help me, I did) and WAS HORRIFIED. There are even videos but I'm not giving them the traffic. If you want to watch you are on your own.

"If you have a vagina you should definitely not do this. VAGINAS ARE NOT DIRTY. That is in capitals because I am yelling.

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"This idea that some kind of vaginal cleansing is required, be it a peeled cucumber or the 'feminine washes' sold at drugstores, is misogyny dressed up as health care and I am having none of it. Vaginas are not dirty. ATTEMPTS AT 'CLEANING' THE VAGINA ACTUALLY DAMAGE THE VAGINA."

It goes on at great length, so I'll leave it to Jen Gunter to sum up: "Keep the cucumbers out of your vaginas ladies, whether for cleaning or masturbation. Vaginas are a great self-contained ecosystem and do not need any additional support from vaginal vegetables to stay healthy.