#ThingsILiftWithMyVagina is more than just an Instagram photo series. It’s a source of inspiration. It’s a reminder of the potential ladies’ pussies can fulfill.

The photos are a collaboration of Kim Anami’s, a sex coach and vaginal weightlifter who uses artistic shots of her snatch lifting hefty objects in exotic locations.

For me, Anami’s pictures sparked a passion to empower my own pussy. So I set out on a quest for a tighter vagina — one that I hoped would become an action-packed, magical vaginal journey, just like Anami’s.

However, I couldn’t just pack up and set off to Cancun with a suitcase full of bohemian scarves. So I started with routine kegel exercises at my office desk, invisibly clenching up my coochie muscles to squeeze some exercise into my 9-5.

Then, I began ordering a few vagina tightening products — pills, creams, magic wands and other concoctions of chemicals that ultimately proved entirely useless (except for making it burn when I pee).

Finally, I found myself shopping for the ultimate tool to bring my twat-tightening ambitions to fulfillment: kegel weights.

After tightening products failed me and mid-workday workouts left me with no idea how much progress I was making, kegel weights offered the perfect solution. I couldn’t yet suspend a chandelier from my coochie, but I hoped the weights might be the instrument I needed to reach that goal.

Kegel weights are insertable doodads that keep your vagina working against gravity to hold the apparatus in place. In time, this weight-lifting will strengthen the pelvic floor muscles until you’ve got a pussy more powerful than Stone Cold Steve Austin.

The set I purchased comes with interchangeable weights to work your way up to the big leagues. A handy instruction packet explains how to progress through the increasing weights, and a little tube of lube lets you slip those bad boys up your coochie effortlessly.

However, Amazon product reviews had their fair share of warnings about how to use the weights properly. As one user explained,

1. While using these, do not try to attempt to slip out a fart (big or small). The only thing that will slip out is the weight…. right onto the ground.

2. Avoid running or jumping of any sort while weight is inserted. It will fly out of your underwear, out of your shorts and roll across the grass in your backyard.

3. Do not use these weights for the first time when family is in town and at your house for dinner. Grabbing your vagina every 5 minutes and saying, "Woah!" does not go over very well with some folks.

The instructions recommend 10-30 minutes for each exercise, so I’d pop em in before my morning shower, clamping down on my pussy muscles while I shampoo. It was undoubtedly uncomfortable, and the more I increased the weights, the more that awkward sensation grew. Imagine that every moment you weren’t actively clenching your butthole, a massive turd would escape. It feels a lot like that.

I was just beginning to notice improvements when one morning, I forgot the weights in the shower. My male roommate confronted me immediately, politely asking if I wouldn’t leave my anal beads behind the next time I bathed.

At this point, my entire vaginal exercise routine screeched to a halt. I’d discovered the most glaring flaw in depending on kegel weights to tighten up your pussy — you need privacy to use them, and you need to be careful about hiding your intimate instruments — or else risk an extremely embarrassing conversation about how you don’t shove them up your butthole, you only shove them up your vagina.

This is just one of the many shortcomings commonly associated with kegel weights. There’s also the typical complaints that the weights train your muscles to do the wrong things, make your vagina sore and make sex painful.

In the end, I wasn’t lifting tropical fruits from my jacked vagina on the shores of a secluded island. I returned to humble exercises at my work desk, occasionally taking a break from the office tedium to scroll through Instagram, and live vicariously through the uplifting pictures of Kim Anami, vaginal weightlifting’s poster child.