An entire industry has been created to deal with it. Countless women have been shamed by it. Innumerable comedians have made jokes about it. What, precisely, is “it”? The supposedly fishy smell of a woman’s vagina.

Being a lesbian, and probably having significantly more experience with vaginas (both mine and others) than your average straight guy (especially the advertising guys), I can promise you that, while everyone smells differently, no one smells naturally like fish. Some women smell musky, some women smell spicy, some like nothing more than cold potato soup.

Darlings, if your vagina smells even remotely like fishsticks, then you have a problem. To solve that problem, you do not need “feminine sprays” or “feminine washes.” Chances are good that you need an antibiotic. Most of the time, if a woman smells even the tiniest bit fishy, she has something like bacterial vaginosis or an infection of some kind. I am not a doctor (though I once was a sex educator) and I cannot diagnose you nor do I know all the possible vaginal infections a girl can have.

The vagina is a self-cleaning unit. Using douches or anything that you use internally is not good for it. Promise me that you’ll stop right this very second. Using a douche completely screws up the vaginal flora. Even WebMD will tell you that douching = bad. There are all kinds of problems that can result from a simple flush of the vagina.

So, loves, remember: if you smell any different than normal, go to your doctor. If your “normal” smell is slightly fishy, chances are good you’ve had some sort of low-level infection or there is something that is preventing your vagina’s self-cleaning cycle from working properly. For example, women used to douche regularly (weekly or more) and then it would take their bodies awhile to adjust when they stopped. Get it checked out.