The Exciting Things You Learn While Volunteering at a Women's Clinic

First of all: there are men out there who will water down their urine in order to offer their wives “proof” they didn’t give them chlamydia.

• You can order Ephedrine online (but don’t).
• Dental dams smell good, taste like nothing, and are fun to play with by stretching over your face and sticking your tongue out at people — that’s pretty much the only use they get.
• Here’s the most effective safe sex demonstration of all time: pull a condom over your head to demonstrate that girls should never fall for the “it doesn’t fit” excuse.
• Piña Colada is the best lube flavor.
• Texturized condoms are more popular than regular condoms.
• Kimonos are the most popular condom brand.
• Lifestyles are the most common condom brand.
• Gay men use female condoms for anal sex. You can put it in up to 4 hours before you have sex; just make sure you take out the ring on the inside of the condom.
• UTIs and yeast infections are more prevalent in the winter.
• Positive chlamydia and gonorrhea results go up by about 30% in San Francisco after Burning Man.
• The most exciting moment of a volunteer’s training is the first time she conducts a positive pregnancy test.
• Women have tried to induce spontaneous abortions using parsley and Vitamin C.
• Millennial women cope impressively well when they find out they have HPV. Older women do not take the news as easily.
• It’s not cool for volunteers to steal clinic supplies — especially XL condoms.
• The “pull out method” is an acceptable form of pregnancy prevention, but it’s still considered unprotected sex.
• Abstinence is 0 to 100% effective.
• Don’t freak out when you’re called into the counseling room after your rapid oral HIV test; all patients are, due to a privacy policy.
• If your boyfriend doesn’t want to accompany you to your IUD insertion appointment you should cancel the appointment, and then you should dump him.
• Dr. Bronner’s soap is bad for your vagina’s natural flora and best used for your dishes.
• No one likes the IUD model/demonstration.
• Your vagus nerve passes through your cervix and that’s why some women pass out when they get IUD insertions.
• Sometimes girls and women experience hot flashes after getting a Mirena IUD due to low hormone levels.
• Yaz/Yasmin can cause muscle weakness and cramps due to changes in Potassium levels. But that doesn’t mean you need to join a class action lawsuit if you’re not feeling up to going to the gym.
• Everyone loves the Beyonce Pandora station.

Luiza Savin has been volunteering in women’s reproductive health for two years in the Bay Area. She spends a lot of time talking to women about birth control options, UTI symptoms and vaginal flora.