I must be getting old - this is a new one on me "Vabbing", well not on me literally
The things people do..... I wonder if its OK to ask a lady if she's vabbed at work or in a social setting?
The disgust over ‘vabbing’ is just another way to demonise women’s bodies
Another day, another bizarre thing women need to do with their vagina. If it’s not steaming the poor thing, it’s hoisting a jade egg inside it. Or spending unnecessary amounts of money on an overpriced douching product – not realising that vaginas are, in fact, self-cleansing – and possibly giving yourself an infection in the process. Maybe you’ve even tried putting a clove of garlic up there. Or a sprig of parsely.
But hold onto your herbs, because there’s something new for you to try: “vabbing”. The term itself is a portmanteau that, put simply, means vaginal dabbing. According to TikTok, where the trend has recently gone viral, the idea is that women are using their bodily fluids as perfume in order to attract others. Yes, really.
In one of the first videos detailing the trend – which has since been deleted – TikTok user and influencer Mandy Lee hailed vabbing as the latest dating hack for women, purporting that it helped her to land dates. "I swear if you vab you will attract people, like a date, [or a one-night stand. Or you’ll just get free drinks all night," she said in the clip, which quickly racked up more than 1.5 million views.
In another video with more than 850,000 views – posted by a user who goes by @palesamoon – one woman recalls a first date with a man who “couldn’t keep his hands” off her. “But I kind of understood,” she says, “because I was doing an experiment that night [...] I decided to use my coochie juice as, like, perfume.” There are now thousands of other videos discussing the practice on the platform, with the hashtag #vabbingperfume acquiring more than 12.9 million views to date.
Like with all TikTok trends, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when – or how – this one began. But some have traced it back to a podcast episode from 2018 hosted by comedians Carly Aquilino and Emma Willman, in which a listener revealed that she had started using her own fluids as fragrance.
The practice was also given as a handy tip for single women in sexologist Shan Boodram’s 2019 book, The Game of Desire. “If copulins [chemicals secreted by the vagina] are used as perfume, then it will attract anyone traditionally attracted to women with vulvas,” Boodram wrote.
The science behind this is questionable, to say the least. Based on pheromones – the idea that scent plays an integral role in sexual attraction – it’s a highly contested concept that has been under-researched and widely misunderstood ever since it was first identified in 1959.
“Bodily secretions such as vaginal fluids contain pheromones that can convey a range of information about a person, including their genetic makeups,” explain Dr Andrea Wahling and Dr Alexandra James of La Trobe University. “In the animal kingdom, different pheromones can do different things, such as incite a behavioural response. While pheromones play an important role in how animals communicate with each other, research is divided as to whether pheromones play a significant role in sexual and romantic compatibility for humans.”
More.... https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/vabbing-meaning-tiktok-vagina-pheromones-b2137828.html
