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What’s in your Vulva?
Teaching women about the most intimate parts of their bodies was a hallmark of the feminist health movement of the 1970s. Our Bodies, Ourselves, published in 1970, signaled the beginning, encouraging women to know what was happening both in the gynecologist’s office and in the bedroom. It was 1983 when I was reaping the benefits of this up close and personal approach to my own body and the bodies of several other women.
The cervical cap instructional session turned out to be one of the most formative experiences of my life. It taught me several things that I never would have truly believed otherwise. The most important lesson was that everyone’s body looks different. In this group that I had the privilege to observe, some women had large labia; some had small; some had a visible clitoris; some women had shaved; others hadn’t. And all these women had sexual experiences with men apparently, because they all were at this gathering to obtain birth control. Their private parts—in fact, their entire bodies—were ALL alright, even desirable to somebody!
The realization that everyone’s body was different went beyond what their labia looked like. These women were young, old (from my mid-20s perspective), thin, fat, homely, pretty. . . . all kinds of women who didn’t want to get pregnant and who were taking matters into their own hands, taking charge of their own sexuality and their own bodies. The entire experience was weird (I’m not going to lie), but exhilarating.
Self-health is power!
I am convinced that if more women had the opportunity to see other women’s labia and vaginas, we might stem the rising tide of cosmetic vaginal surgeries. Labia reduction and vaginal rejuvenation, as these procedures are broadly called, are the fastest expanding area of cosmetic surgery. In fact, an entire discipline, called cosmeto-gynecology, has evolved to accommodate (and convince) the increasing numbers of women who believe there is something wrong with the way their labia are shaped. Some people are making a lot of money off of women’s growing insecurities. How do these women know their labia are not “normal,” when, most likely, they have no idea of the wide range of what normal actually is? Heterosexual women typically do not have the opportunity to scrutinize other women’s genitals.
http://nursingclio.org/2013/05/13/whats-in-your-vulva/
The cervical cap instructional session turned out to be one of the most formative experiences of my life. It taught me several things that I never would have truly believed otherwise. The most important lesson was that everyone’s body looks different. In this group that I had the privilege to observe, some women had large labia; some had small; some had a visible clitoris; some women had shaved; others hadn’t. And all these women had sexual experiences with men apparently, because they all were at this gathering to obtain birth control. Their private parts—in fact, their entire bodies—were ALL alright, even desirable to somebody!
The realization that everyone’s body was different went beyond what their labia looked like. These women were young, old (from my mid-20s perspective), thin, fat, homely, pretty. . . . all kinds of women who didn’t want to get pregnant and who were taking matters into their own hands, taking charge of their own sexuality and their own bodies. The entire experience was weird (I’m not going to lie), but exhilarating.
Self-health is power!
I am convinced that if more women had the opportunity to see other women’s labia and vaginas, we might stem the rising tide of cosmetic vaginal surgeries. Labia reduction and vaginal rejuvenation, as these procedures are broadly called, are the fastest expanding area of cosmetic surgery. In fact, an entire discipline, called cosmeto-gynecology, has evolved to accommodate (and convince) the increasing numbers of women who believe there is something wrong with the way their labia are shaped. Some people are making a lot of money off of women’s growing insecurities. How do these women know their labia are not “normal,” when, most likely, they have no idea of the wide range of what normal actually is? Heterosexual women typically do not have the opportunity to scrutinize other women’s genitals.
http://nursingclio.org/2013/05/13/whats-in-your-vulva/
4 replies
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I've always thought of that book as 'the mystery book' because I have no absolutely no idea how it ended up in my grandmother's house.
I grew up with my grandparents. My grandfather was retired by the time I was born and my grandmother wasn't too far behind him.
Somehow a copy of "Our Bodies, Our Selves" ended up on a book shelf in our house in the early 70s.
There is no way either of my grandparents read that book (it looked as it hadn't even been opened when I came across it one day) and I really can't believe that either of them would have bought it. It will always remains a mystery since I never had a chance to ask my grandmother about where the heck it came from before she died many years ago.
I guess I was about 13 at the time and I can remember that every week when she would head out of the house to go play bingo I would grab the book off the shelf and sit on the bathroom floor with the door shut reading every word of it and looking at all the photos and diagrams.
LOL
