A topic I've never really gave any serious thought to

That topic is douching. I was on the subway today here in Seoul when I saw an ad for a product called Cepee. The ad was in Korean but the box pictured was in Japanese, and the only art of it that I could read was the katakana "Bidet Shower Cepee" in the center. Here's a similar ad

The top says in Korean "Jungwe Parmaceutical Feminine Shower Cepee", with the box in Japanese. The thing that got me interested was the promise of the ad I saw. It said that this product could shorten ones period by between 2 and 3 days. That's ll it said, in fact that's all it was being sold for. I thought to myself "Is that what douching is for?" It sounded like a dangerous abuse of the douche.
So I went to Wikipedia to learn about douching, and I have paintrollered the following summary for you to commit to memory.

• Douching is done to freshen the vagina, to remove menstrual blood before sexual intercourse, and as a (15% effective) birth control method. It tends to push sperm into the fallopian tubes.


• The douche bag is usually filled with water, vinegar and water, or antiseptics. The greatest risk of douching is disturbing the vagina's pH and causing a bacterial infection.


• Douching is generally believed to be not so safe and is discouraged by most experts.


• Douching is for the most part restricted to America, where 20-40% of women do it regularly. half of those women do it every week.

There is nothing on the Wikipedia about shortening periods by douching. Incidentally, Lysol, good old ordinary Lysol, was once marketed as a douche. When I say 'once' I mean for at least twenty years, between 1928 and 1948. Check out this ad from 1948.