Four Things About Women All Guys Should Know

Dear men,
Someday, if you’re lucky, you might have a wife or girlfriend.* And there’s a lot you don’t know. Hell, you’ve barely found the clitoris.

Ignorance is a huge turn-off. How can a lady ever trust you to kill her spiders if you’re still terrified and confused by the dry cottonwads that inhabit women’s vaginas when your dick isn’t in there?

But don’t worry- there’s hope. The “ladies” of the Avenue have taken it upon ourselves to tell you all about those special troubles that your girlfriend is too polite to inform you of, such as brassiere struggles and daily ooze. Now maybe your future partner won’t be ashamed of you, and you can add “Acting Empathetic” to your list of Strategies To Pick Up Biddies At Da Club. You’re welcome!

Sincerely,
SherWoman Ave

1) Boobs, Bras, And Underwire
There’s actually evidence that underwire is descended from a medieval torture device meant to slowly crack the ribcage and peel it open to expose a beating heart.** Honestly, whose brilliant idea was it to have razor-sharp metal mere inches from your vital organs? If I puncture a lung, can I sue Nordstrom for the medical bills? Can eHow please make a tutorial on fashioning emergency underwire-shanks, for dark alleys at night?

Other than potentially being lethal, bras serve three main purposes:

a) support. As you may know, when an endowed lady goes for a run or walks down stairs, inertia does horrible things to the baby-jugs. And on the wrong day, bouncing boobs can hurt. A good bra is primarily a successful memo to The Ladies: “Hey girls! The rest of the body’s moving laterally, not vertically. You’re invited.”

b) coverage in the cold. You know what we mean.

c) getting things for free. Ok, sometimes we feel guilty capitalizing on the patriarchy. But if you’re not going to help me close the pay gap, or perceive me as a capable pre-med student, I want a free goddamn G&T.

2) Vagina Struggles
We know that you guys like to play with your dingalings even while not aroused, but the coochie is a different story. Its natural state and being aroused are, in fact, quite similar to the untrained eye – and we’re pretty sure most guys don’t understand that it’s just a mucusy thing. You know how even if you’re not salivating, your mouth is always wet? Same with the va-jay-jay. It’s not just dry down there when you’re not having sex or not on your period. Sometimes egg-white-looking stuff goops out during the day.

We’re not just telling you this to gross you out (if we wanted to do that, we’d invite you to sample your own semen in its salty goodness.) Don’t mistake The Daily Ooze for being turned on–it gets real uncomfortable, real fast. In addition to having no good way to gently tell your man the truth (“Don’t take it personally, but the basement didn’t flood the moment you took off your shirt”), but The Daily Ooze is NOT enough lubrication for the daggering you’re tryna do. Foreplay, guys.

3) Sucking In Your Stomach
For photos! For cute guys! For that day after you procrastin-Ate your way through several dining hall cookies and a bag of tortilla chips and a Klondike® and suddenly muffintop is a horrible reality! Ladies will twist themselves into all sorts of unnatural contortions to ensure that no matter how beer-bloated we look in person, we’ll be some sort of hourglass on Facebook. In the words of our writer Charlotte Clunt, “I’ve actually just become really good at not breathing in public. Like, ever.”

The lesson here, fellas, is that girls have managed to come up with an IRL photoshop, which is DAMN impressive. Never again shall you question your girl’s incessant nagging about finding the right angle and lighting for this insta photo, because she has been raised since grade 2 to understand her best features and angles in a selfie. Why?  So we look good. For free stuff. See point 2c.

4) The Period
Sorry, dudes. We hate it too. And though you have to deal with us being crazy, we have to deal with bloating, cramps, headaches, nausea, cramps, weird cravings, boob soreness, messes, cramps, weight fluctuations, mood swings, turning down sex, and more cramps.

Here are some necessary facts about tampons:

– No, they don’t turn us on. We’re bloated and bleeding and we smell funny. There is nothing sexy about inserting a small dry wad of cotton to plug your weeping vagina.

– Once it’s in, we generally can’t feel it. It’s not like walking around being pleasured with a dick in there all day. So don’t worry, guys, we’ll never replace you with tampons – tampons can’t administer cunnilingus, open jars, and kill centipedes.

– Periods aren’t five days of a continuous, predictable flow. So knowing when to change tampons is actually really difficult. Generally, we try to aim for a tampon’s maximum “saturation point,” but that can’t always be done, since you can’t really feel it in there. If you take it out too early, and the tampon’s dry, it hurts like a motherfucker. If you wait for too long, tampons leak and shit gets messy.

As for period panties (the ugly but comfy pairs that only come out of the drawers when blood comes out of your vagina,) let’s just say that no menstruating female has ever gone to Victoria’s Secret armed with her paycheck and the intention of purchasing a pair of brand new, sexy, lacy underwear to leak all over. No, the universal uniform for crossing the Red Sea is a faded four-year-old pair of granny panties with the unflattering elastic that makes a lady’s butt pooch out the bottom.

Never judge your girlfriend when she has some vaguely granny-esque pair of panties on. For one: mood swings are a socially acceptable reason to tampon-sodomize every orifice on your body if you’re looking at her the wrong way. And secondly, remember that time you wore the same pair of boxer-briefs for three days and just flipped them inside out? Don’t judge, you animal.

-SherWoman Ave

*This article is heteronormative. We’re sorry. We acknowledge that if you’re a gay woman you already know all this, and if you’re a gay man you probably don’t care.
**There is no evidence whatsoever