Strong Verbs Are Just Better

I was going to make a post warning you all not to band-aid cotton wool balls soaked in undiluted dettol to your skin, because while this *may* disinfect the wound or infection in question, it will also kill off all the surrounding skin and give you a lovely flaming red infection all around.

But instead, I'm going to direct you to this distressing post at Scribal Terror. I quote:

Throughout Indonesia, a majority of women regularly engage in a number of practices to "clean," "dry," "tighten," or "deodorize" their vaginas. These practices derive from longstanding traditions designed to achieve conformity with expectations about the appearance, function, and sexual performance of the vagina. These are rooted in a widespread belief that "tight sex" or "dry sex"-vaginal intercourse without any or with minimal lubrication in the vagina-is more pleasurable for men and gender norms that require women to "please" men. . . .

Among the Javanese and Sundanese, and many other ethnic groups, a bride is prepared for the nuptials by a professional wedding dresser ( tukang pais ). There is no standard way of preparation, but jamu is typically used to reduce vaginal odors and any "excessive" secretions. Occasionally, the dresser will advise the bride to undergo a special pre-wedding beauty treatment. At a beauty salon or spa, the bride might have her vagina "smoked," by sitting on a chair with a whole in the middle over a charcoal fire on which special herbs are placed to create a fragrant steam.

Because of the common belief that sexual pleasure, especially men's sexual pleasure, relies on friction, married women are often anxious about having an "excessively moist" vagina. A large proportion of women wash the outer genitalia with a betel leaf solution, purported to clean and dry the vagina, when they practice the routine washing cebok . Betel leaf solution is now commercially packed in the form of moistened tissues or liquid soaps and shampoos. Many women have also started using Jamu Sari Rapat (literarily means the essence of tightness ) or other jamu products that promise to tighten and dry the vagina. . . .

Um, WTF? I get the 'tightness' thing, but *dryness*? Surely that would chafe the man in question, too?