Fishy, hairy, saggy, ugly… we’ve internalised a whole lot of vulva shame over the years, from a whole lot of sources. But can it be undone?
I open my laptop and click on the Zoom link. My heart is pounding in my chest, and I look up to check that my bedroom door is locked. Next to me, on the floor, sits a hand mirror and a tube of lube. I join the call and the faces of seven strangers pop up on my screen. ‘Now, we’re going to explore our vulvas,’ announces the host.
I begin to spiral, self-doubt clouding my anxious mind – why am I doing this? What am I expecting to gain from it? Shall I just slam my laptop down right now and forget that I ever even considered it?
This is Naomi Gale’s virtual ‘vagina workshop’ – aclass she has been running monthly for a year. Gale is a healing coach who specialises in somatic therapy, an alternative practice that aims to align the mind and body. Through these classes, she works with participants to change their relationship with sex and their body. ‘I see spaces like mine as silent protests, in which those who enter the room claim back what is rightfully theirs,’ Gale explains. Over the next three hours, through a combination of yoga, breathwork and journalling, I will be getting to know my intimate parts more, well, intimately, with the aim of rewriting my relationship with my vulva.
Vag, pussy, c**t, foof, tw*t, fanny… we all have a different name for it. And the patriarchy has weaponised these names into some of our culture’s worst insults. We’ve been told it’s smelly, ugly, not tight enough, too hairy, not hairy enough. We’ve been sold deodorisers and scented sanitary products. It’s no wonder that our relationships with our vulvas – the area that includes our labia, clitoris and the opening of the vagina – are… a little complicated. In fact, in a recent Cosmopolitan poll, almost half (49%) of you said that you felt selfconscious about your vulva.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that girls aged 18 and younger want to go under the knife*. And, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the number of labiaplasties performed globally in 2019 reached a staggering 164,667, a 73.3% rise since 2015. Labiaplasty involves reshaping the labia minora – which are the folds of skin either side of the vaginal opening – or reducing the size or length.
So, what’s driving this increase? In our poll, 80% of you said that pornography affects how you feel about your vulva. And Julie Bowring, consultant gynaecologist in sexual and reproductive health at London Gynaecology agrees, ‘It is common to have asymmetry in the body and also in the vulva.’ But just one scroll down Pornhub’s homepa
