Ever since I've been old enough to sneak copies of Teen Magazine at the middle school library, I've known that vaginas (sorry, "down theres") are mysterious, confusing places that need to be waxed, washed, wiped, and maintained lest all men run screaming away from you and you end up spending your life attachment parenting a series of rescue cats. As I matured and graduated to an entirely new level of man-obsessed stupidity in magazines, I gradually realized that while ladymags dispense plenty of advice on how vaginas should look, there's no real yardstick on how they should taste, or how a high achieving gal like me who just wants to have the tastiest snatch in town could go about getting it. Science must have some answers, right?


Before we go any further, and lest I be accused of perpetuating the "man pleasing" ethos that permeates grocery store women's mags, I'd like to point out that having a tasty vagina isn't necessarily strictly a man-pleasing move; it's more a politeness move. If you like someone enough to have sex with them, then you should like them enough to hope that they enjoy performing oral sex on you — man, woman, whatever. It's not retro to make an effort to please a romantic partner, but it is if they expect you to make an effort but excuse a lack of effort on their own part (it's not only sexist; it's rude). So, for the sake of argument, let's assume that you're trying to freshen up your vaginal bouquet at the same time the dude is giving his balls a thorough washing and contemplating the taste of his semen, or when your female partner is similarly contemplating how the rainbow tastes. Okay? Okay.

Vaginas (or vulvas, nerds) taste the way they taste because of a combination of factors — your body's natural sweaty smells plus the smell of whatever detergent you use on your underwear plus the smell of any soaps you use plus the smell of the your vagina's juices, so the obvious first step to having a fragrant, delicious pubic region would be to thoroughly wash and wear clean laundry that you wash in soap that doesn't contain dyes or fragrances that will clash with your body's natural scent. It might seem like a good idea to douche with Malibu Musk in order to get a nice tropical vibe going in your southern hemisphere, but that's, uh, not the case. Don't do that. Keep it gentle, keep it minimally fragrant. Try taking a bath, if you've got time. Cotton panties (or, if you hate the word panties, "skivvies" or "pantaloons") are better than less breathable fabrics, since your crotch is sort of like an armpit between your legs.


Keeping the outside part of your flower clean is the easy part, though. What's tough is managing the juices, which are in a state of giant, near constant bacterial war, a war in which giant armies are murdered or raised in a matter of hours. Women have pretty unique vaginal bacterial fingerprints, and thus unique tastes.

Surprisingly, not much research has been done on what a girl can do to alter the makeup of her vaginal secretions in a way that's reflected in the taste, and so most advice for making your vagina taste awesome is based on old wives' tales and anecdotes and hilariously misspelled Yahoo answers. During my informal snooping and asking around, I found pineapple mentioned frequently as vaginal taste aid. Apparently, it's high in sugars, and when you eat it, some internal mechanism sends tiny Magic School Buses to your stomach to cart away the sweet pineapple molecules straight to your vagina. Also recommended: apples, celery, yogurt, red grapes, cranberry juice, lots of water, mint, watermelon, strawberries. Basically, anything that grows that isn't smelly.

According to the anecdata, any food that can make you have weird farts, bad breath, or strong smelling pee should be avoided — beer, coffee, alcohol, asparagus, most dairy, onions, shallots, meat, and fish. And while smoking will make you cool, like cooler than you could ever manage on your own, smoking will make the taste of your body's juices turn sour. If you already smoke and are about to defensively insist that your juices taste like peach nectar, just imagine how scrumptious you'd taste if you kicked the habit.


It should be noted that none of these things (aside from proper personal hygiene) have been beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt proven to change your vagina's taste. And if you've got a serious problem with odor or taste, you should consider the fact that there could be an imbalance at play and what you need isn't a pineapple and some oral, but a doctor an some antibiotics.

Finally, if he's got his face buried in your crotch, he's probably not going to be put off if the taste he's experiencing isn't that of a donut or glass of fine whisky; your vagina is never going to taste like a fruit salad, and that's okay. Remember: if he wanted to have a sweet snack, he'd go get a damn smoothie rather than eat your pussy. Enjoy it, Lady MacGyver. You're delicious.



Image by Jim Cooke, pineapple photo via Alex Staroseltsev/Shutterstock.