Kate Hackett
Remember how I wrote once that we don’t need to share everything on social media? …Yeah.
Vabbing is a mashup of “vagina” and “dabbing” and it’s a TikTok trend right now. God, I hate TikTok.
Vabbing involves dabbing vaginal secretions onto places you would normally dab (GET IT) perfume.
The idea is not “this is so gross and why am I sharing it” but, in fact, “surely men will love this and be attracted to it”.
The “theory” is that vaginal secretions contain pheromones and pheromones play a role in mating attraction. That may be true in animals, but there is not much research on exactly how much pheromones influence human attraction.
So did women as a collective sit back and think — you know, there’s not a lot of scientific literature on here and it seems a little ridiculous, so I’ll sit this out.
Nope.
Because some “influencer” shared their experience vabbing, now ALL of TikTok must participate.
Before we get into what a random TikToker is saying, let’s hear from an actual medical doctor, courtesy of BuzzFeed.
“There certainly isn’t much scientific written on this topic (i.e., placing vaginal secretions around the body), but using scents for biological purposes is certainly known among many species — a likely explanation would be pheromones,” Doctor Mary Jane Minkin, a gynecologist at the Yale School of Medicine, said.
She also said it is likely not hazardous to your health (at least there’s that), but to be very careful with touching areas near the eye. “If someone just had sex with someone who gave her an STI — such as gonorrhea or herpes — and she ended up placing her vaginal discharge on a mucous membrane (like it got near her eye, for example) — that could possibly spread it to the eye,” she said.
One TikToker, who amassed 3.9 million views on her video claimed, “I don’t know who needs to hear this, but vabbing works.”
She continued, “I got offered two free drinks at the pool, and then a guy literally came back and gave me this [luxury hair kit].” Sure you did.
She spoke with BuzzFeed and said, “I will be honest, I tried vabbing purely out of boredom — like, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“Since I’ve been newly single, I’ve been trying to pick up tips and tricks in this new dating world that we’re in.”
Her SCATHING EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE? Oh, hold onto your hat: One out of three times, this worked. As my dad would say, this is statistically insignificant. “I didn’t get much interaction the second time, but to be honest, I was, like, at a coffee shop with all women.”
“The third time, I was at the gym, sweaty,” she explained. “No makeup, just working out, and I’ve never had any men approach me at the gym like this.”
AND WOMEN WHO WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE AT THE GYM EVERYWHERE IMPLODED WITH RAGE.
“This man gets on the treadmill right next to me while I was doing lunges, and he asked me some question — he was just trying to break the ice and talk to me,” she elaborated.
“And so I took off my headphones and started talking to him, and then he asked me out.”
