Whatever you call music coming from your undercarriage, it’s likely you hardly ever talk about the magic of air escaping from your vagina. Few of us do.
As loudly as our vaginas like to proclaim their existence (usually right in the middle of a really hot/romantic moment), we’re all a bit shy about acknowledging the existence of the queef.
We don’t talk about vagina farts. We don’t bring them up with our friends and partners. There’s no established method for dealing with them.
Usually with this kind of thing, I’d just accept it’s just a minor part of our sexual experience that’s just not that important to discuss.
I’d figure that we don’t talk about vagina farts because they just exist, we all know they exist, and we’re all happy coexisting in our knowledge that someone, somewhere, may be experiencing a vagina fart right at this very moment.
But recently I’ve heard a few people (yes, these people are mostly people who do not have a vagina) repeating some very strange beliefs about queefs.
I’ve heard guys say that vagina farts only happen to women with ‘large’ vaginas or longer labia. I’ve heard queefs connected with ideas of ‘looseness’, which in turn gets connected to how much sex the person with the vagina has had.
That’s all nonsense. And the fact that there are people who still think vagina farts are a sign of the shape or size of someone’s vagina, or a reflection of their sex lives, is proof that we really do need to have a chat about the essence of the queef – if only so that never again will a person with a vagina have to feel ashamed of a noise their body makes during sex.
Oh, and so that no one will continue to spread complete nonsense about vagina farts being any indication of someone’s sexuality.
So. Let’s get into it.
What causes vagina farts?
First off, vagina farts are not in any way caused by having a vagina that’s larger, or looser. It’s also nothing to do with the size of your labia.
Everyone with a vagina is capable of having a vagina fart, loads of people have them, and having one shouldn’t make you worry about your vagina or your body or anything else.
It’s totally normal and healthy.
As Professor Janice Rymer, spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, explained to metro.co.uk: ‘Vaginal flatulence is caused when air is pushed inside the vagina.
‘This can happen during sex or other sex acts by a penis, a finger or a sex toy. A deep thrust or body movement can cause the air to be released.
‘The air is also expelled as the vagina returns to its pre-aroused state.’
That’s why you’ll often experience vagina farts during faster sex and doggy style, when air is quickly getting pushed inside the vagina, or after you’ve finished having sex and are lying there in your post-sex joy.
Professor Rymer adds: ‘Vaginal flatulence can also happen during a pelvic exam, when women insert a female condom, menstrual cup or tampon, or during exercise.’
What’s the deal with the silence around vagina farts?
Flick through a magazine filled with sex tips, watch a sex scene on TV, or watch porn, and you’re unlikely to hear any queefs (or mentions of queefs).
They tend to only be used – very rarely – in comedies, set up as this strange, gross thing about women’s bodies.
The problems with the majority of these comic moments is that they’re rarely meant to be funny from the perspective of the person who’s actually experiencing the vagina fart – they’re just an awkward moment for their sexual partner, or a way to make a woman’s sexuality feel ‘weird’ or unattractive.
Even that’s rare. Most of the time queefs remain seen as ‘disgusting’, while farts – as a neutral, not inherently female thing – can be funny in a non-threatening way.
Until the new Ghostbusters, that is.
The film opened with a vagina fart joke. It was glorious. We applauded. MIC referred to the moment as ‘starting a convo about the last taboo in women’s sexuality’. Bravo.
In mainstream porn, the world where so many other sexual taboos are laid bare, queefs are still mostly silenced.
There’s the occasional queef-centric video, sure. But in mainstream porn moments – even those that aim for a more amateur, natural feel – queefs aren’t seen or heard.
And yes, if you were wondering (as I was), queefs do happen during porn-filming. They just get edited out.
A representative from Brazzers told us: ‘Regarding your question on queefs, they do occur on set, however they do not pose an issue when filming.
‘Most of the talent are fine with it, if anything it might add a little comedic relief to the shoot.
‘In post production queef sounds are often removed, not because they are unpleasant, more so because they can break the mood of the fantasy.
‘Figure if Leo would have burped while holding Kate on the bow of Cameron’s Titanic, it just might break the magic of the moment.’
How’s everyone dealing with vagina farts when they come up?
Because there’s so little mention of vagina farts in popular culture, no-one’s ever really established a go-to approach for everyone to use.
There are no few queef-related tips in magazines. No observable lessons. No mention in sex ed (which would have been handy, if only to prepare us for the first time it happened).
We were all left to navigate the world of the queef alone.
Kate, 23 (all names are changed, as not everyone fancies having their fart-related experiences on the internet forever) told us that when she had her first vagina fart, she had no clue what was going on.
‘I was 16, heard a noise mid-sex, and could feel that it wasn’t a “normal” fart. I didn’t know what to say so just inwardly cringed as we kept going. The guy definitely heard it. It was all a bit uncomfortable.’
Amy felt similarly awkward.
‘I was 17 and in the stage where I thought nothing embarrassing should happen in sex,’ she says. ‘I just ignored it and cringed when I thought of it.’
Emma, meanwhile, first encountered queefs when she was around ten.
‘I was in my friend’s house and she seemed to have an ability to purposely do it or something. She said it was a fanny fart and we laughed uncontrollably.’
Emma actually went on to have a really great attitude towards fanny farts as a result, telling us she hasn’t ‘heard anything bad’ about queefs and doesn’t ‘feel uncomfortable when it happens’ because she’s comfortable with her long-term boyfriend.
Good for her.
There tend to be three common reaction routes to go down when a vagina fart occurs: laughter, embarrassment, or mentioning that it’s a queef, not a regular fart.
‘If it does happen I used to ignore it and be super embarrassed and pretend it didn’t happen,’ said Amy.
‘But now I guess we would just laugh.’
The clarification that it’s a vagina fart, not a regular fart, seems to be important to a lot of people.
Whenever they happen to me, I always find myself awkwardly saying ‘…that was my vagina’, just to be clear that the noise they heard wasn’t actually an embarrassing bodily function, but just a part of sex.
I usually follow that up with ‘sorry’, mind you, which is a terrible habit I’m really trying to put a stop to.
‘If it was a new relationship I maybe would be a little embarrassed,’ says Emma. ‘Mainly because I wouldn’t want them to think it was actual flatulence – because that’s a bit more gross.’
Which is all totally reasonable. It makes sense that we’d want it to be clear that we’re not actually farting (which feels embarrassing), it’s just that our vagina is letting out some trapped air.
It’d be nice if whoever we’re having sex with would be able to figure that out on their own, mind you.
How *should* we be reacting to vagina farts?
People, there’s really no right way to react to vagina farts.
Laugh if you’re having the kind of sex that can descend into giggles. Mention ‘yup, that’s my vagina’ if you feel the need. Ignore it if you’re comfortable.
That’s all fine.
There is a wrong way to deal with fanny farts, though.
We need to stop letting our vagina farts make us cringe to our very core. We don’t need to justify them, explain them (unless your partner doesn’t understand vagina farts, in which case feel free to give them a quick lesson later), or apologise for them.
Oh, and everyone, please never spread any more nonsense about vagina farts being ‘gross’, a sign of a large vagina, or something that reflects on a person’s sexual experience. It’s all bullsh*t.
Queefs are loud, they won’t be silenced, and we might as well all just start chatting about them, whether it’s telling your friends that glorious story about that time you were having a really romantic sex session and let out the loudest, wettest queef midway through some kind of wheelbarrow-esque position, or just reassuring people that vagina farts are totally normal and okay.
Queefs are here. They exist. And we need to talk about them.
