AUTHOR: CHARLOTTE WHITTLE
PUBLISHED: 11TH JUNE 2020
[FOLLOW CHARLOTTE ON INSTA HERE]
Did you know that what you probably refer to as your vagina is in fact, your vulva? Your vulva is everything external, everything you can see, and your vagina is the passage/tube (it is not a hole) to your cervix and uterus (also known as your womb). When you talk about shaving your vagina, you really mean, shaving your vulva. If you shaved your vagina, you would be sticking a razor inside your vagina and shaving your endometrium. How excruciating does that sound?
The vulva includes your vaginal opening, labia minora, labia majora, your clitoris, your clitoral hood, urethral opening, vestibule, perineum, anus, and your mons pubis. To deconstruct this, your labia are the lips to your vulva and are folds of skin. Your vestibule surrounds the opening of the vagina. Your perineum is the area extending from beneath the vulva to the anus, and your mons pubis is the rounded area above the clitoris that is covered in pubic hair.
Mistaking the vulva for the vagina is like mistaking your knee for your elbow, or perhaps a better analogy is that it is like mistaking your lips as your gums. Having only recently been enlightened, I have been sharing this revolutionary information with anyone who will hear it. Not only have I noticed some women squirm at the words, ‘vagina’ and ‘vulva’ as if I have summoned maggots just by uttering them, but further, I have not been met by a single “well, obviously” or “yeah, I already knew that”. Every response has been one of shock, confusion, or disbelief.
So, why is that? Why can’t 60% of women identify their vulva? Why are women so uneducated on their anatomy? Why doesn’t this happen to men?
If you take it back to the beginning, it is our parents, surely? Our parents teach us everything, but it was probably our mothers who taught us that our private parts, flowers, peaches, front bottoms and a load of other ridiculous names, was our vagina – I say ‘was’ because I am hoping that you will now refer to your vulva correctly. Or perhaps, we did not hear it until school, until sex education began, or maybe it was revealed to us in the playground like another swear word. I was lucky enough to have not only a very good education but a good sex education (the irony being that while I was educated thoroughly on what sex is, on contraception, on consent, and on STIs, I was still misinformed about my vulva and not to mention, I did not know I had a clitoris until I was sixteen).
From my research, and my experience, I have observed that the vulva is pretty much excluded from sex education. Children cover the reproductive system in biology, where the male reproductive system and male genitals are neatly packed into one diagram. The penis and the testicles, a tidy triad to focus on. For females, the reproductive system diagrams illustrate the uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, ovaries, endometrium, and the vagina. And then… the vulva is a separate diagram. I have concluded that we must - people must - be shown the vulva in sex education: they fail to correct that you should not be calling your vulva, your vagina. I have no memory of seeing a diagram of a vulva, but I do remember watching a twenty-minute video about wet dreams, and I do remember being given a dildo and putting a chocolate flavoured condom on it. I remember feeling quite proud of myself. I had my ears pricked in every sex education lesson, lecture, video. My sex drive started when I was young, and this was juicy information with a low risk of being exposed for the horny teenager I was. The fact of the matter is, teachers are not only unequipped to teach sex education, but they also mistake their own vulva for their vagina, or worse, they do not have one at all.
Perhaps we have adopted the word ‘vagina’ because of a – shock – heterosexual, patriarchal, plot. The vagina is supposedly the reverse of the penis, its match, if you will. The vagina is the only part of the female anatomy that is relevant to the penis and therefore it is the only important part, therefore, it is the only part that needs to be discussed. In fact, let’s just replace the vulva with the vagina so that the whole of the external genitalia is relevant to the penis. I’m not sure. I could be reaching but it is plausible and unsurprising. It makes sense. The power of the male ego. It is even more terrifying than the clitoris and dare I say, bone marrow.
Why is bone marrow terrifying? Because recent studies have found that female bone marrow can replace sperm, meaning that the male species may no longer be needed for reproduction, and are consequently and evolutionarily, useless. As for the clitoris, well… first of all, it has twice as many nerve endings as the penis. And secondly, if men did not see it as a threat, clitorectomies (a type of female genital mutilation where they remove or cut the clitoris) would not exist. If you still do not believe me, the clitoris was not included in Gray’s Anatomy (the definitive medical textbook and a crucial source, which doctors relied on globally, since 1858) until 1901, only to be removed in 1947 and then included again some editions later. The female genitals are not only seen as irrelevant but threatening.
There is a damaging focus on the vagina as the most active and important aspect of the vulva, causing the hymen and the clitoris in particular, to be dismissed. Penis-in-vagina sex is at the forefront of sex education and while the teaching of avoiding UTIs, STIs, and consent are vital lessons, it should not take away from women learning about their vulvas. It should not mean that women cannot identify their vulvas, and it should certainly not allow for other types of sex, oral or anal, to be painted as inferior or reduced to as one of the “bases”.
Reading other articles on this matter, a common theme that appeared was comfort. Specifically, that women are more comfortable with ‘fanny’ or ‘pussy’, but these words still translate as vagina. Some articles even suggested that people are more comfortable with vagina, over vulva, but I personally think that vulva is a much nicer word, linguistically. Vulva is smooth and gentle; your mouth moves in two soft openings. I believe women do not use ‘vulva’ because they feel unclear about what the vulva is, and they are worried about getting it wrong.
The sad but also brilliant thing is, that the internet has all the answers but because of how taboo the vagina is and because so few people realise they are using that noun incorrectly, people don’t do any research. Typing vagina into google, you receive some excellent information about the vagina and the vulva, especially surrounding the notion of normality. If people are now learning from the internet, I think they would be better informed than they would be from sex education, from their friends, and potentially from their parents. When I was young and learning about sex, I did not think about my vulva or vagina. I did not think there was much to know, much to see. My vagina seemed to bisect into two relevant functions: my period and sex. Because of my privilege – and by this I mean, that I am a white, cisgender woman who has not experienced female genital mutilation (FGM), sexual assault, any STIs or even had a UTI – I have had a straightforward, uncomplicated relationship with my vulva and vagina. However, after reading multiple books and articles, I believe that the position of the vagina and vulva in society and in the world, is vitally important. The experiences of the trans community, of people with intersex characteristics, such as MRKH where you have an underdeveloped or completely absent womb and vagina, of women who experience hysterectomies, FGM, and so much more need to be heard. We worry about its smell, shape, size, about shaving or waxing or keeping it natural, about how tight or loose it is, about how it looks after birth, and we need to inspire confidence and acceptance. The vagina and the vulva are essential to sex education, not only so women can understand their body, but so they can learn to eradicate taboos around women who see ugliness, disease, incompletion, or trauma when they see their vagina and vulva. And it is not just girls who need to learn about this - it is everyone.
The last topic I want to discuss is porn. Porn seems to be mostly considered comically at school and is frequently denied because people feel so uncomfortable or even guilty about porn that it slivers into conversations via jokes. Gail Dines, a major anti-porn advocate, found that in one study the average age boys are first exposed to porn is eleven, therefore the notion that porn is generally ignored and not considered seriously is baffling. Something else Dines talks about is the effect porn has on boys who watch it at such a young age, specifically, how they frequently struggle with intimacy. Porn is often how young people learn about sex. Something that is not meant to be realistic, neither educational; something that is not meant for any eyes who are under eighteen. Porn needs to be talked about openly and without judgment in sex education because it can be highly damaging for young people.
Porn has also created and skewed a global image of a “normal vagina”, which consists of a very neat vulva where the labia minora is not visible (an “inny” or a “neat vagina” it has been called colloquially, as opposed to an “outy” or a “messy vagina”). An increasingly popular cosmetic surgery, labiaplasty, aims to make the vulva more symmetrical and cuts the labia minora. This procedure can be quite dangerous and lead to many problems with difficulty urinating, discomfort, swelling, bleeding, and much more. Like most insecurities, it will not be fixed by this surgery. Normality cannot be applied to vulvas. They are like snowflakes; every single one is different, unique, and beautiful, and it is this message that needs to be carried into the classroom.
It is time for the conversations to change. It is time for schools to take responsibilities and understand the impact that openness and acceptance can have on the lives of the individuals they are teaching. The sex education taught at school is exclusive and narrow-minded. Begin to dismantle taboos. Catch up to where the world is now. Teach children to know, love, and understand their bodies before you teach them to know someone else’s body.
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