In a recent TikTok shared by Doctor Karan Rajan, the doctor Stitched another app user’s video showing some elastic bands on a table.
“What you think happens to the vagina after sex,” one caption read, showing a looser band; “what actually happens,” the second picture was captioned, showing an unmoving band being prodded (well, then).
Dr. Rajan followed the other creator’s video with a sort-of debunk; “the vagina does stretch after sex, but it also does a factory reset to return to default settings,” he shared.
What’s going on?
The walls of the vagina are made from muscle tissue that’s “highly elastic,” the doctor says.
That’s why the orifice can withstand sex and childbirth without becoming, you know, a yawning chasm. It simply “returns to baseline afterwards, like a spring.”
If you sort of already knew about the elastic muscle tube fact before, though, you might be surprised as I was to learn that there’s another factor in the vagina’s rebounding ability ― rugae.
These are small folds in the vagina “which allow it to stretch and expand like an organic accordion,” Dr. Rajan says.
That’s why “there is no correlation between the number of partners and vaginal looseness,” he added.
In fact, all perceived vaginal laxity is just that ― a perception, he explains. The “pelvic floor muscles and the muscles around the vagina” influence its grip far more.
Even a vaginal wall torn by childbirth will usually “regain most of its elasticity,” the doctor said.
People had thoughts in the comments
“The manosphere won’t like this,” one commenter joked (spoiler alert; I read the rest of the comments so you don’t have to, and this TikTok user was correct).
Others, who had had multiple children or were in their 60s, said that yep, this video was correct.
Still more were surprised to learn they’d never been taught about the “organic accordion” of it all (I’m with you there).
The more you know...