Like other parts of your body, keeping your sex organs and anus clean is essential. Regular washing with water is usually enough. Remember your skin in the genital area is very sensitive and too much soap may cause irritation.

For girls it is particularly important to maintain high levels of hygiene during your periods. Wash carefully with warm water to remove traces of blood. Change sanitary napkins or tampons at regular intervals to prevent odours and infections.

Both boys and girls have a foreskin. In boys it is the thick fold of skin that moves back over the head of the penis. In girls, the foreskin is much smaller, over the head of the clitoris. Tight foreskin cannot move making it difficult to keep the head clean, which can cause infections.

Boys collect a white substance called smegma under the foreskin. This combines with urine and semen and sometimes gets infected, causing a red and irritated foreskin. Girls can have similar complaints but less noticeable. In either case, it becomes difficult and painful to have sexual intercourse.

Increasingly, and perhaps for reasons of hygiene, circumcision of boys is becoming quite common (outside of religious compulsions). This involves the removal of foreskin by a simple medical procedure, and is usually done in early childhood.

While on the subject of hygiene, it is equally important that you visit your doctor at the first sign of any discomfort in the genitals - after all, prevention is always better than cure!

Also Check out: All about the "Love Bugs"