The Grossest Tales Ever Told By Women On The Internet

There’s a chance you’ve been made aware, at some point in the last 24 hours, that Michelle Barrow’s gynecologist found a ball of cat hair in her vagina. Yes, the latest episode of xojane’s infamous “It Happened to Me” series is a real classic and it’s taking the internet by storm. But Barrow’s tale is only one in a long tradition of women sharing really really disgusting stories about their bodies on the internet.

Here’s some, and please share links to your favorites or your very own gross story in the comments!

Oh and just a quick reminder: almost every gross thing that happens during sex is totally normal, please don’t freak out.

1. The Pumpkin Seed Story, by Becky for Jezebel (2010)

This won Jezebel’s most disgusting story of all time contest, because it is disgusting. If you’ve ever considered living on a diet of just pumpkin seeds for any extended period of time, as I’m sure so many of us do, this will definitely change your mind.

2. What Lies Beneath (Her Fingernails), by Effing Dykes for Autostraddle (2010)

The very true story of what happens when a vagina meets rhinestone-studded fingernails. A real lesbian sex horror story.

3. Ten Days In The Life of A Tampon, by Moe for Jezebel (2008)

This is not the first or the last time I’ve recommended this article to the readers of this website. It’s the best story ever told on the internet.

4. My Menstruating Vagina Stunk Up the Office, or the Most Embarrassing Thing To Ever Happen to Me, Like Ever, by Mandy for xojane (2013)

I think the silver lining to tales such as this is that working in an office that is almost entirely female means you can send a group e-mail like “My underwear almost knocked me out with the smell of a super heavy period that came on strong and suddenly” and everybody will enjoy it.

5. Wetlands (excerpt), by Charlotte Roche for Grove Atlantic (2009)

This is fiction but it has to be based on reality because what on earth. Anyhow, I actually had the non-pleasure of reading this book because Sam Anderson asked me to, and OH BOI. Did you want to hear about hemorrhoids and anal sex? GOOD NEWS YOU CAN.

6. Leaving a Mooncup In Too Long: A Horror Story via The Glow (2014)

I think the headline sums up the content pretty accurately.

7. Your Embarrassing Lesbian Sex Stories, by Carolyn for Autostraddle (2012)

There’s a serious lack of mortifying moments online referencing lesbian sex. So we took care of that. Or, really… you took care of that.

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51 Comments

  2. I’ve been scarred for life when I read #2 years ago. I don’t know if I’m ready for all of this.

    ..I’ll obviously read them all tonight and regret it forever.

  4. Did y’all ever see Wetlands, the movie? It is so so good and soooo soooo gross. Like, seriously has one of the most cringeworthy scenes I’ve ever witnessed. But I love it for some reason.

      • It is intense, but I haven’t read the novel so I don’t know how it compares. It may be less intense. But yeah, the movie is great. It was one of my favorites of 2013, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, or even most people really. It started out funnier than I expected and then got sadder than I expected. But Carla Juri is such a joy to watch as the main character. So, I would say watch it if you think you’re up for it, but I don’t know your personal limit for grossness, so. Basically, you do you.

        • Ive not read the book but I love the movie. Watched it twice.
          It did start funny, and then get sad. Really pretty to watch too.

          Tbh I didn’t know it was a book. Now I will read it.

  5. Re: #4 – how the hell could she not detect the stench was coming from her own crotch?!

    I am far more grossed out by this lack of basic crotch awareness than any of the resultant odour.

    • I know it seems like that’s the kind of thing someone would notice. As a bloodhound who notices weird smells before anybody else does, I definitely do not hesitate to suggest that the scent originates from another human being in the room

    • Like those commercials say, nose blindness.
      You unconsciously get “use to” a smell and stop noticing it.

      Don’t believe me? Volunteer for litter pan cleaning duty at an animal shelter.
      The dry heave inducing smell of rotting proteins and fat that is cat shit will stop getting to you.
      Nose blindness, it is real thing with probable evolutionary purposes.

    • So embarrassing. But one time I kept noticing this smell, but it was just a whiff and I couldn’t track it. I even checked my shirt.

      I was grocery shopping with my husband and he’s like (really loudly) “WHAT IS THAT SMELL, YOU SMELL HORRIBLE.”

      Turns out my parent’s stinky pit bull had taken a nap on the shirt and when I moved a certain way the stench wafted out. The part of the shirt that I had smelled was fine, it was further down.

    • What I want to know is how she managed to go almost the whole day without going to the bathroom. I have to pee like constantly and it’s much much worse when I have my period. Does she have a bladder of steel?!

  7. The fingernails.

    Man.

    That haunted me forever.

    It sucks to have such a visual brain. I can picture pretty much anything. Even when I REALLY REALLY REALLY DON’T WANT TO.

  8. I remember reading that finger nail story and almost made my want to heave. Something I have to be extra careful with as a trans person.

  9. I always have to read the infamous fingernails post every time it appears. Anyway brb, got to go cut my nails and change my tampon.

  10. Thank you for this entertaining marathon of grossness. :D

    I’ve said this before, but I love the Effing Dykes, and I read that blog voraciously when I was in the early stages of coming out to myself, and it taught me everything I needed to know about being a newbie lesbian while bringing a smile to my face. 90% of the stuff was hilarious, and the rest was heartwarming, like the story about her and her mom (called “Heart of Glass”).

  12. doing a dramatic reading of “what lies beneath her fingernails” to a group of baby gays was a highlight of rugby tour.

    joining the chorus of people who miss Effing Dykes!!

  13. I sent this article to my twin sister and she was ALREADY READING IT because we are truly connected in our appetite for horrifying vagina stories.

    Also there are so many haunting details but for some reason the things that are bugging me are 1) why didn’t that woman with the 10 day old tampon get rubber gloves instead of putting condoms on each of her fingers??? and 2) it’s very bold to continue sexy times after you realize you’ve had a menstrual cup inside you for 2 weeks and I respect that even though it was definitely a bad decision.

    Now I’m off to check my IUD strings to make sure there’s not anything weird attached to em

  14. Thanks for giving me new things to fear that I would have never thought of myself.

    (Good god, the fingernails.)

  16. Anybody else go on the knitting website Ravelry? One of the forums has an infamous poster whose sister (-in-law? half sister? not sure) put a perfume cap up her vagina in her teens as a sort of homemade cervical cap and it was up there for /years/ and didn’t get removed until she was married and trying to have kids. Her cervical tissue had grown around the cap and she essentially had to have her cervix sutured shut for the duration of her pregnancies.

    I wish I was making this up or that the story was made up.

    • Ah yes, the perfume cap story. It was her adopted sister; the OP mentioned being grateful that she wasn’t genetically related to her sister’s stupidity. Her sister shoved the perfume cap up and left it there for ten years before it was surgically removed. Worst part was this post: “[Her husband] never once in the 4 years they’ve been married asked her to remove it, or go see a doctor, etc. It was finally her freaking out that she couldn’t have kids that made her think it may be a good idea to go to a doctor. Even then, she didn’t tell him – the midwife at the clinic FOUND IT, and she played DUMB!!!!!!” No, actually the worst part is that their mother was very pro-active with comprehensive sex ed and frequently offered to help her daughters get birth control pills if and when desired.

      I found this article by searching “www.ravelry.com: perfume cap, pregnancy” in order to find the original thread. In related news, I’m heading back to ravelry to reread the that thread.

  17. Ah man all this takes me back to lunch period in high school when I had friends and people to talk to, but was still a bit too fucked up to properly conversate with normal humans and still was kind of sort of trying to push people away and enjoy their horror.
    Good times, awkward but good times.

  18. One time I had a cold, and I was in the late-stage “my sinuses are gross and my face hurts” part. I was taking a shower and huffling and snuffling in the steaminess in a vain attempt to dislodge some goo. Suddenly, this MASS THE SIZE OF A QUARTER came flying out of my nose. Of course, I had to pick it up and examine it… it looked like raw chicken, with a blood clot that looked like a vein. I had a momentary fear that maybe I had a tumor or had somehow snorted out part of my brain.

    My face felt much better after that.

  20. awesome I love gross stories! Mooncup stories tend to be pretty horrific, as much as I love them. I have one myself.. though it PALES in comparison to the 14-day-I-forgot-my-mooncup-in-my-vagina story. PALES. Still entertaining though..
    I was on a long international flight and was due to have my period around that time. I decided I did not want to risk making my cabin seat look like a crime scene, so i stuck ‘er up there pre-menstrually. About 5 hours later I’m at a connection flight airport (hong kong). i’ve got some time to kill, and figure i better check my cup. so i go in a notoriously narrow Asian bathroom stall with my rollie carry-on, whip out my latex gloves (you had latex gloves in your purse at an airport? security also gave me inquisitive, dubious stares of disapproval)… and i remove it. Fortunately, i was not yet on my period. the cup was half full with fragrant pussy juice, like a tiny steaming bowl of grits. Unfortunately, i lost my grip on the cup and it landed on my carry-on, pouring the aromatic liquid all over its back side. i managed to clean most it up with water and paper towels, but that didn’t stop my luggage from smelling like pussy all the way back home. Just thought i’d share that publicly :D

  23. I LOVE THIS! I’M SO HAPPY! If anyone ever wants to hear a so-i-shit-my-pants story, find me at A-Camp next year. It’s the greatest story I tell.

  24. This reminds me of the time at rug y training when one of our student nurses got the giggles due to the prolapse theyd seen earlier that day. And then proceeded to tell the whole team including the two male coaches. Training stopped for a whole ten minutes as the other nurses/doctors piped up with their gross gynae stories. The coaches never recovered. It was a great bonding experience. Loved it.

    • Like the time I found a decomposing mouse while I was doing a PV on a poor psychotic lady, who, needless to say had a ripper of a vaginal infection.
      I still wonder if she thought she was giving it a nice warm home.

  25. I had a tampon horror moment as a teen – in a moment of absent-mindedness I’d put a second tampon over the first and continued changing the bottom one out thereafter.

    I’m not sure how I discovered the missing one – I think I might have been trying to masturbate when I realised it was stuck way, way up.

    After some blind groping, I manged to pull it out and it was green.

    Another time I put one in that was clearly too strong for my period (not something that happens often as they’re usually heavy) and it fused to my vagina meaning that I had to pull it out bit by bit.

    I’m always paranoid that people can smell my vagina or my shoes but whenever I ask people they say no.

    I’m not sure if it’s my paranoia, my hyper sensitivity to smell or that people are polite/notice less and that there’s actually some people out there who think I stink.

  26. Does anyone remember too_much_info / TMIchix on Livejournal? I learned more about the human body and its processes there than I ever did in health class.

    Also, sometimes I want to reference “poopin’ shoes” and nobody knows what the hell.

  27. None of those were as gross as the story of a gyno finding tons of baby cockroaches in a patient’s cooch. The lady fell asleep with whip cream on her (waiting to surprise her partner) and a bug slipped inside to lay some eggs. Her pain was from roaches eating her. Ah, the circle of life.

  28. These stories are such a (horrifying) treat! Thank you for collecting them all in one place for me to peruse at length.

    Also, I am so glad for the open invite to share our own grossness, BECAUSE…..

    One time a couple years ago, my (recently engaged!) gf (now wife <3 ) and I were flying back to Chicago from a sunny, happy xmas vacay and New Years holiday spent in San Diego, and I got food poisoning. Like, germinating all day in your gut, like "I feel kind of vaguely nauseous" all day, and then by evening time you're just like "FUCK I WANT TO THROW UP to get rid of this awfulness". Anyways, I finally barfed on the airplane, inside the minuscule shoebox diorama of an airplane bathroom, and spent at least 30 mins but what felt like FOREVER cleaning my vomit out of all the little crevices* and corners in the bathroom, using the toilet seat covers, Kleenex, whatever the fuck was in there. Also, my feet. Having just left San Diego, I was still clad in sandals, so there's barf on my feet and ankles, and inside my bra because of course I was wearing a fun, casual off-the shoulder shirt and leggings. Anyways, I finally get back out of the bathroom, much to my fellow passengers' delight, and hunker down next to my boo for the rest of the flight, which also felt like FOREVER. (Sidenote: this being New Years Day, I think almost everyone on the plane assumed that I was some hungover ass hat barfing in the bathroom, and not the blameless victim of bad BBQ that I was.)

    *at first I mistyped that as "cervixes" LOL

    Of course because it was Chicago circa January 2013 (a.k.a the fucking POLAR VORTEX), our plane sat on the runway in miserable snow and ice for 2 hours, then we sat at baggage claim for another 3-4 hrs waiting for luggage. Seriously, the sun was about to come up when we finally got in a cab and started making our way home. No trouble on the ride home, we hit the door, I disrobe, shower, and fall in a sick pile of sickness. End of story…..

    Flash forward 1-2 weeks later, wherein my darling, stalwart, life partner is trimming my toenails. (This is a reg thing as I hate cutting my toenails, and will gladly pay for a pedi so that someone else will cut them. Or my wife does it for me often and unflinchingly, because TRUELOVE.) She cuts off the first one and gags a little, and then I smell something that's like the smell of old feet but 100x worse, and she says, "Oh my god. I think there's barf under your toenails." :-O Dutiful and loving wife that she is, she cuts ALL 10 of my barfy, nasty toenails like a goddam trooper, and STILL agreed to marry me 8 months later. <3 <3 <3

  30. Oh God, I don’t think I’ll ever wear a tampon again. How can you not feel it, though?! Oh God! I can be so absent minded at times, and I could totally see myself doing that! Is there an official name for this phobia?

  32. One time, I asked my friend to pee into a zip loc baggy for a drug test I was sure to fail. I then proceeded to walk around with pee stuffed into my boots for an entire day. Miraculously the bag did not break. *This has been an ad for Zip Loc*

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