Once a lawyer stood up to test Jesus with this question, "Master, what shall I do to receive eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law? How does it read?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind; also your neighbor as yourself." Jesus said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this and you will live."

But wishing to justify himself he said to Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus answered, "A certain man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho fell in with robbers who after stripping and beating him went away, leaving him half dead. Now it happened that a certain priest was going by the same road, but when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

"In the same way a Levite, when he came to the place, looked at the man and passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, travelling along, came near to where the man was, and when he saw him he was filled with pity. He came to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine. Then he set him on his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two pieces of money and gave them to the inn-keeper, saying, 'Take care of him, and whatever more you spend I will pay you when I return.'

"Which of these three do you think proved neighbor to the man who fell in with robbers?" He said, "The man who took pity on him." Jesus said to him, "Then go and do likewise."

*****. Coochie. Nether regions. Honey pot. ***** flytrap. Whatever you want to call it — and you definitely want to call it one of those things — about half of us are working with some version of one. Just like fingerprints, though, each vagina is different. They might come with various sizes, shapes, medical conditions and menstrual difficulties. These are their stories. Or at least, a tiny selection of their stories, drawn from a pool of anonymous staff members at The Pitt News.

1. Short and sweet
The first time I ever went to the gynecologist, I sobbed into my hands in front of the kind doctor at Planned Parenthood. Despite all of my trying, I couldn’t relax enough for her to insert the speculum — a metal device shaped like a duckbill that allows doctors to perform examinations — into my vagina without pain. I joke now to my friends that some higher power blessed me with great *****, but cursed me by making it too small. It wasn’t funny that day.

“And you’ve been sexually active before?” she asked in a gentle tone of voice.

Through my tears, I nodded.

Two years and zero gynecologists appointments later, I’m hooking up with a guy who is, for lack of a better word, a bit better endowed than anyone I’ve dated in the past. And we can’t make it work, like, at all.

“Sorry,” I said. “The distance between my vagina and my cervix is shorter than normal, according to my doctor.”

He didn’t say anything for a long minute.

“Yeah,” he said. “I could tell.”

2. Endometriosis? More like END ME, SIS
At 16, I almost passed out in dance class. I remember standing in my dance studio, and having to double over in pain, missing a whole 16-count set of choreography because I suddenly felt the strongest pain in my lower abdomen. My mom took me to our family doctor, who suspected it was my milk allergy acting up.

“Make sure you’re checking the labels on ALL the food you eat,” Dr. Chen told me.

At 17, my periods came whenever they wanted, and with the highest level of pain I had ever experienced. I had just started dating my first boyfriend. When I asked my mom if I could see a gynecologist to deal with these issues, she thought I was lying.

“You don’t have to make up fake symptoms just so you can get on birth control. I know you just want to have sex,” she told me.

At 19, I underwent blood tests, ultrasounds, pill changes, heating pads, pain relieving medications and still, nothing. So they changed my birth control pill again.

“This one should fix the problems,” the gynecologist told me.

At 20, I left blood all over his sheets. Embarrassed and in pain yet again, I walked to my car and drove back to my apartment.

“Dude, never have sex again,” my roommate told me.

At 22, I decided just to go to another gynecologist. Surely a second opinion would fix my problems. On my first visit, the doctor performed an endometrial biopsy. He numbed my vagina during the procedure. “It wasn’t that bad,” I thought to myself as I drove home. I fell asleep on my couch after the appointment, but woke up as soon as the novocaine wore off, feeling more pain than I’d ever thought possible. “Oh, it is that bad,” I told myself.