How Social Media Is Making Oral Sex Troublesome

By: Stefania Tibor

Sex and Love Columnist

Thanks to the popular app “TikTok”, young women across the country are starting to embody an irrational insecurity about their labias—and it’s toxic.

If you haven’t yet dabbled in the addictive, 30-60 second video entertainment app, consider yourself lucky that it has yet to have you under its spell. I downloaded the app begrudgingly, similarly to every Gen-Z/Millennial cusp-er, sure that it could never take the place of Vine, the first video entertainment app with 6 second looping clips.

But soon, watching other reluctant users, turned into peering at the cute dances which of course, turned into making my own TikToks regularly. The app is hilarious, ranging from hilarious stories, cute dances to popular songs, and various other trends that encourage us to divulge in our mental illness tales. But how innocently enjoyable is this app?

One of TikTok’s most interesting features is the amount of versatility the algorithm has. You can find yourself on a multitude of categories, including: “Alt” TikTok, “Straight” Tiktok, “Beans” Tiktok", and many others. The algorithm has succeeded in Vine in personalization, taking every like, every re-watch, every search pattern to customize your algorithm. But what happens when you find yourself tapping, searching, and watching when your mental health is declining?

I know I’ve seen it for myself, I see one video on my “For You” page, the main page of the app, of a skinny girl promoting insane restriction, I let myself like it as “motivation”, and next thing I know, my algorithm is filled with toxic diet culture. With that being said, it’s terrifying how much personal responsibility goes into keeping your algorithm clean from toxic content that promotes unhealthy living habits. Imagine how this can impact underaged users, especially when they watch content they know little to nothing about.

Being that my algorithm is filled with spirituality, vegan recipes, and indie music, I’m not too aware of the toxic videos that flood TikTok, thankfully. However, I have heard about a recent trend that has been deeply affecting many women on the app, primarily teenage girls. For the past almost two months, videos discussing whether girls have “innie” or “outtie” vaginas has been sweeping some algorithms, and here’s the problem with that.

This has created a very strange and completely unnecessary competition and insecurity over how a female’s labia looks. Videos have captions saying the most ridiculous things, including “Most of the girls with bunnies are acting like having an outie is so weird like girl where are ur coochie lips *broken heart emoji*.”

First and foremost, pitting women against each other for any reason is extremely toxic and encourages malice, insecurity, and anti-woman attitudes. When this begins to revolve around a woman’s physical makeup that they cannot control, this leads to a whole other level of insecurity.

Women are already put under so much pressure when it comes to their bodies, including their vaginas. We are constantly scrutinized to have clean shaven bodies, smooth skin, soft hair, perfect skin, and a vagina that smells like roses and looks like…?? Does anyone even know what the beauty standard is for your vaginas?

This pressure put on women is constantly leading to insecurities in the bedroom that perpetuate an inability to be intimate. I know for myself, receiving oral sex is unfortunately something that I have struggled with through my life. I’ll never forget the first time I experienced someone going down on me.

All throughout high school, I never went beyond making up. With certain individuals that I dated in high school, I felt comfortable enough with that individual to go farther, but my bodily insecurity was enough to keep me from ever letting the relationships progress sexually. I feared so many things; being seen naked, having someone experience an up-close view of my vagina, worrying it wouldn’t smell like roses and taste like candy, all of it. Soon before my graduation however, I decided to let myself experience receiving oral sex for the first time.

I knew the moment was approaching by the way I was texting my then boyfriend. I remember doing so much to prepare, I shaved, tried not to eat that week to magically lose weight, and consumed my body weight in pineapple juice. My system was flushed out and I was as prepared as I possibly could be. I hoped and prayed this would be enough to give me the mental confidence to enjoy the moment.

Unfortunately, as hard as I tried to bask in the moment, my mind was racing, worrying about what my boyfriend would think and say about my body. He was kind, trustworthy, and made me feel so good about myself, but the fear always crept into my mind. Since then, I’ve learned to love myself, appreciate my body, and know that my good hygiene, healthy diet, and hydration were all I could do to make my vagina clean and odor-free. This taught me to realize having a healthy body was more important than wondering if my vagina was in good enough shape to receive oral sex. But, 16 year-old me wouldn’t have known all that I know now, and I’m sure 16 year-olds on TikTok are in the same boat.

If TikTok existed back when I was in high school, I know for a fact my algorithm would be the perfect place to reflect all of my insecurities. I would totally question whether or not my vagina met the beauty standards of other teenagers on a social media app. Though I would normally encourage these creators to stop putting out toxic content, I think the true issue is the circulation of this content to begin with.

Though I love TikTok dearly, it does do an excellent job of reinforcing toxic content and spreading it like wildfire. In order to stop this content, we have to teach, not attack, the creators of it. We cannot stop educating young women on how putting their bodies under a microscope and pushing “hacks” and “tricks” to unrealistically alter yourself is where the problem begins and flourishes.