dear heather,
I’m scared to have sex because I haven’t popped my cherry yet and I’ve heard that it hurts. I wish I could pop it on my own, but every time I try to pop it with a tampon it doesn’t work. I can’t find my vaginal hole. What if people weren’t born with vaginal holes? What if I don’t have one?

“Popping your cherry” means breaking your hymen, which can happen many different ways. Sometimes it happens the first time you have sex, sometimes the fifth or the eight or the fifteenth. Sometimes it can break from tampons or masturbation. Some women aren’t even born with a hymen, and other women’s hymens wear away by the time they become sexually active. There’s no reason to try to “break” your hymen because you might not have one and if you do, it will wear away with time.

The hymen is just a thin lining, called a membrane, that covers the opening of the vagina. Many women don’t have a hymen by the time they become sexually active. The hymen usually wears away as a woman grows up. If it didn’t, how would our menses leave the body? Some women will have remnants of hymen tissue at least partially covering the vagina, and this is what can tear during sexual activity.

You say you have tried to break your hymen with tampons, so I’m going to assume you’ve had your period, in which case you do have a vaginal opening. If you haven’t had a period and you’re concerned that you don’t have a vaginal opening, I would recommend seeing a doctor.

take care,
heather

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