I Didn't Know My Vagina Did That

We’ve all been told to pick up a hand mirror and study our vagina, right? This way we can get to know it and understand ourselves more intimately. But a mirror won’t show you where and what the Bartholin’s glands do for you and your sex life.

- Jessica Sorensen

I was giggling-high on morphine on a hospital bed in Thailand, while a pleasant Thai man was speaking to me in broken English, and positioned between my open-wide legs with a stern face and a scalpel in his hand.

Let me just state, for the record, that he was a doctor and he was situated there for medical reasons, as for one solid week prior to this dubious circumstance I now found myself in, I had been walking with a hobble, sitting down on my left cheek only, and not having sex – not to mention enduring serious agony from an unknown cause.

It was only the day before that I learned I had a Bartholin’s gland abscess. A million questions raced through my mind, but the first and foremost: ‘A Bartholin what?’ And then a close second: ‘… An abscess … like, in my vagina?’

To answer the above questions is Cape Town gynaecologist and endoscopic surgeon Dr Natalia Novikova.

‘The Bartholin’s glands are situated around the opening of the vagina, inside the small lips, and are ideally located to produce lubrication for sex,’ she says.

Okay, so they aren’t in the vagina per se, but still…

Many women do not know that Bartholin’s glands even exist in their bodies, let alone know their function. There is one on each side of the vaginal opening. They are approximately 2- to 2.5cm-long ducts, which open on the surface of the vulva, secreting relatively minute, but necessary amounts of fluid to moisten both the lips and the opening of the vagina. This ensures that any contact with the sensitive area is comfortable.

‘The opening of the vagina is the most narrow part of the whole organ. This is why lubrication for penetration is so important, and the glands assist with that naturally,’ says Natalia.