I was ashamed of what I found in my knickers until I learned the truth

‘Oh gross, what’s that?’

I looked over at the guy I was dating, who was haphazardly cleaning his room (but somehow making more of a mess), and saw him holding up a pair of my underwear.

There was nothing exciting about them – they were plain black briefs from M&S.

But there was something on them that seemed unusual. Something that I’d hidden from people for years. Something I thought made me disgusting.

There was a bleached stain where my vulva sat, and it was created by my vagina.

He threw the underwear across the room and looked back at me, slowly wiping his hand on his side.

We stared at each other in silence. I panicked. What should I say?

‘It’s nothing, I don’t know.’

I grew bright red, picked up my underwear and left the house. As you can imagine, the relationship didn’t last long – and neither did my patience with men.

For years, because my vagina bleached my underwear, I believed I was unclean or that there was something wrong with me ‘down below’.

Because my family never talked about bodies, puberty or sex education, I didn’t know what it meant.

It started around the time I hit puberty and my body started to change. I grew hair all over my body, my nose grew out of my face and I had a underwear-bleaching vagina – I felt disgusting.

I was convinced that it kept happening because I didn’t know how to clean myself. But, it wasn’t until years later that I realised that there was nothing wrong with my vagina, or my underwear. 

Growing up in, and post, the Margaret Thatcher era, where Victorian style family values were paramount, and sex education was ignored, no one talked to me about my vagina.

The one afternoon at school we had allocated to sex education had us separated into two rooms: for the boys and girls. It mostly just contained two hours worth of giggling.

As the years went by, the internet came into existence and I taught myself a lot of what I know now. I learnt how to use a tampon, what STIs are, what a UTI is (which I learnt after seeing blood in my urine), and eventually both myself and doctors came to understand my endometriosis.

Yet, for years, I still felt like I didn’t know enough. It felt like my vagina was an unknown chasm that held wizardly powers that I should never question. That I’d never truly know or understand that it was just the way things were.

I would throw away my underwear in shame whenever they became stained and never spoke about it.

Then around 10 years ago, I came across an article that explained bleached underwear.

When I read it, I made sure no one was there. I’d spent my whole life embarrassed about vaginas – most people are.

Whether you own one or not, the odds are you will throw bleached underwear across the room in disgust.

Usually, it’s because there’s a lack of education about what these beautiful self cleaning orifices do. For example, many will hear the words ‘vaginal discharge’ and squirm.

But, most of the time, vaginal discharge is a good thing, and it turns out that it’s what bleached my underwear.

In fact, the article told me that it made me extra clean – that I was the cleanest and healthiest I could have been.

It just meant that my vaginal discharge had a high acidity and bleached the dye of the fabric of my pants – making my vagina an efficient cleaner.

Now, I had to re-read the article because I was not a chemistry girlie, and had to re-absorb the periodic table and relearn pH levels, but I was ready (as always) for my deep dive into vaginas.

To put it into perspective, tap water is around 7pH usually, and anything below that is considered acidic. A healthy vaginal pH balance falls anywhere between 3.8 and 4.5 – and mine was pretty acidic and healthy.

When you think about it, bleach is a cleaning agent that disinfects, so why was I – and many others – so disgusted by it?

We’ve been told not to talk about our vaginas – or ask questions. It’s only later in life that I’m learning how powerful and important they are.

The only problem is that buying underwear has become an expensive pastime for me – I’m a sustainable fashion enthusiast, so I end up spending a significant amount of money on what my vagina will ultimately decide needs a tie dye pattern.

But I’ve come to realise that our vaginas are powerful, strong and self-cleaning. And bleach on your underwear is nothing to be ashamed of – it means that your vagina is working really hard, so give a little appreciation.

Stop feeling shame and allow it to do its job.

But, be mindful and listen to your body, because vaginal discharge will also tell you if something is wrong – with discoloration or smells. Go see your doctor if that happens, as it could be an infection.

The last thing you should be though, is afraid and disgusted.

And if someone throws your underwear in disgust, let them know that they’ll have to go find another vagina to enjoy because yours is closed for cleaning and they’re no longer on the guestlist for the reopening.

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