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Instructions for maintaining a happy vagina.

My friend Alannis told me that I have the most hypersensitive vagina ever. Perhaps I do. Indeed, while I have never had an STD, there always seems to be something wrong with it. But I can’t be sure if this is in fact due to hypersensitivity or bad luck. In any case, I would like to provide you with a list of behaviors to avoid in order to spare yourself of the ailments that have plagued my crotch.

Things Never to Do to Your Vagina:

1. Do not accept a Brazilian wax for less than twenty dollars. In fact, better make it less than fifty. My older, wiser friend Melissa informed me long ago that I would doubtlessly pick up an infection if I continued to frequent “Main Attraction,” the semi-seedy Vietnamese nail/waxing salon in Venice. But I refused to listen. Yea, though I had my reservations when my friend Caroline introduced me to the eighteen-dollar Brazilian, but the ladies who waxed left me a landing strip so trim and pristine. I was convinced I’d found the diamond in the rough.

Until I got staff of the vagina. It started off as an itch. Then it turned into a series of painful sores. I spent finals week waddling in agony in zero-degree weather. With the help of sulfa drugs, the infection healed in a month. Caroline, however, was not so lucky. The sulfa drugs made her break out in hives, so she discontinued use and let the staff run its course. The course ran six festering months, and for two weeks she could not leave her bed. When she peed she had to assume a kung-fu-like squat in order not to cry out in agony.

Spas will charge you for a reason. They charge you now so you don’t sue them later. They change the wax between customers. They don’t double dip. They have been trained to rip your hair out properly. If your life calls for a hairless vagina, you’re far better off coughing up the extra mula.

1. Be wary of what clean your crotch with/use as lube. Herbal Essences and Cetaphil will fill your oven with sourdough before you can say Monistat.

1. Do not get carried away with aquatic masturbation. In twelfth grade, I found that my vagina frequently burned for no apparent reason. I had the doctor check it out. Days later I received a call from a giggling secretary, who informed me that I had an infection. It was not sexually transmitted. “It comes from using jacuzzi jets and detachable shower heads,” she said.

1. Do not think you can sleep for three hours after experiencing a new penis without peeing and get away with it. I spent Valentine’s Day searching for 100% cranberry juice (which is amazingly difficult to locate) so as to cure my urethral burning home remedy style. But I eventually caved and went to the health center to acquire antibiotics.

1. Do not receive oral sex within twenty-four hours of a gynecological exam. Or, if you must (and sometimes you must) keep this in mind. Last summer I tested positive for gonorrhea. My Beverly Hills doctor told me to come in for another test, because gonorrhea was “really not something you see among the upper-middle classes.” I told her I had been in Italy and that I was almost certain I’d fucked below my class, but she insisted she test me again. To my relief, the second test came back negative. Dr. Weinberg and I came to the conclusion that someone else’s spit tested positive for gonorrhea.

Convincing yourself that you have an STD can be a beneficial exercise. You fully realize the dangers of unprotected decisions, and if you find out you’re clean, your gratitude just might motivate you to make better decisions in the future. But if you would rather spare yourself the stress, you might want to shower before your pap.

1. Do your best to avoid wearing bike shorts after rough sex. I know this is sometimes unavoidable; I played a bike-short requiring role (Aphrodite) in a one-act my sophomore year and came down with so treacherous of a yeast infection that the health center doctor felt the need to drop the terms “genital warts” and “herpes.” She said I had “a lot of raw hamburger meat down there” and that I should come back if I developed cauliflower-shaped warts and/or pus-filled sores. (I did not, for the record.)

1. Do your best to wear bike shorts before rough sex, particularly on a long bike ride. I rode for miles in American Apparel leggings sans undies or an extra layer of any kind. If you commit a similar error, do not prolong the painful healing process of your bike-blistered labia with rough sex. Or any sex, for that matter.

Maybe you all have vaginas of steel. Or maybe Alannis just has better luck and a boyfriend so kind to vaginas he’s practically a lesbian. But I pray that those of you who need it will take this advice to heart and save yourself from the misfortunes that have afflicted my nether region.