A survey done by feminine care products manufacturer Kotex revealed that a staggering six out of 10 Singaporean women polled are clueless about the number of openings they have down south.

The correct answer: three – the urethra, the vaginal canal and the anus.

The Kotex BodyLife IQ Study involved 1,800 women in Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Malaysia in April last year.

There were 302 respondents from Singapore. The respondents, who are between 16and 24 years old, had to answer 10 questions which tested their knowledge of women’s biology and myths associated with pregnancy, among other things.

In addition, in late 2008, Kotex also commissioned extensive interviews with women in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The results of the study were released late last month.

Sixty-three per cent of Singaporean women getting the orifice question wrong may be bad, but women in other countries fared worse. Overall, 82 per cent of all the women surveyed answered this question wrongly.

The first time I heard somebody (a classmate) talk about the number of ‘holes’ a woman has, it was when I was in secondary school. Mind you, and I wasn’t sure of the answer as well. I also didn’t know what a female vulva was until I went to sex school. My excuse could have been that I was in the arts stream all my life and consequently never attended a single anatomy class. Needless to say, I had a lot of catching up to do.

So this is very real, true and not so surprising. What is being done?