No-nonsense unmentionables

As the title page advises, the book focuses not on respectable medical conditions such as diabetes, but on “life’s embarrassing problems”. Its concerns are the floppy, the spotty, the leaky, the smelly and the discharging. Hiccups, blushing, bad breath, snoring, shaky hands, and shyness are the only topics covered that don’t directly relate to breasts, bottoms, genitals, blemishes of skin and appendages, or urination. Surprisingly, even after 35 years of women’s magazines covering every aspect of sexual anatomy, function and disease, genital conditions still constitute the bulk of embarrassing health problems, at least according to Stearn.