The first time I looked at my vagina, I was repulsed. Legs spread in a frog-like fashion, right hand equipped with a handheld mirror patterned with Disney Princess stickers and fingers poking at my labia in the most unsexual manner possible, I had never felt more concentrated in my 12 years of life. And, simultaneously, so unsatisfied with my findings.
Despite the euphemism of my vulva as a “blooming flower” that my sixth-grade science teacher had employed earlier that day, after pulling all the girls in my grade for our school district-mandated first-ever sex-ed talk, the thing I saw between my legs looked nothing like a beautiful peony. And it certainly did not look like the silicone replica my teacher had paraded around the room.
Of course, conversations around the appearance of our vulvas were not considered appropriate playground talk, and none of my friends—at least not until later high-school years—wanted to be the first to break the silent reverie around topics involving genitals, masturbation, or sex. Thus, the curiosity over how my labia looked slowly turned into an unconfirmed shame that I was the only weird one of the bunch—forever cursed without a plastic, pornstar pussy.
The Latin term for vulva (including the labia, clitoris, and pubic mound) is pudendum, derived from “to be ashamed.” Male genitalia has no equivalent term. The analysis drawn here is of the “duh” variety. Throughout history, women’s sexuality has been shadowed, and mentions of impurity were sins to be outcasted for. But even now, men masturbate three times more frequently than women in early adolescence, and across their lifetime, twice as many men will ever masturbate compared to women.
While boys spend the hormonal part of their early teenage years becoming comfortable touching their dicks and talking about their dicks, (and for some of them, being dicks,) girls do not become as friendly acquaintances with their vaginas. They don’t make jokes about their vulvas or their friends’ vulvas to each other. As a young girl growing up in the South, where having a sex-ed talk in the first place was already a cause for scandal, I certainly was not going to be the first to broach my questions on how vaginas are “supposed” to look, how mine looked, and if it was weird that the two images did not match.
Later, when I became curious enough to watch porn for the first time, I was soon dismayed to learn that the majority of the picture-perfect vaginas on my screen confirmed the basis of my embarrassment. Upon further research, there seemed to be a basis for my feelings. In 2013, researchers in Australia found a threefold increase in women requesting a labiaplasty (a cosmetic surgery on the vagina). This procedure has become the fastest-growing plastic surgery globally. If the other “genetically wronged” women of the world were chopping up their vulvas for insecurity’s sake (in what appeared to be an increasingly growing epidemic), was that not evidence enough that I harbored an objective flaw? And so, the shame built: a mixture of anxiety that my vagina was ugly and that any guy would automatically find it disgusting.
The first time someone went down on me, I was unjustifiably nervous that he would immediately pop back up and proclaim that I was no longer attractive to him. A quick spoiler alert: no such thing occurred. Now, years (and guys) later, I have learned that no partner seems to care at all.
Yet, male validation was not—and still is not—everything. Obviously, not everyone can see my vulva and judge me on first impressions, but I still felt like I was harboring a dirty secret, unbeknownst to everyone else. And despite the dissolution of any embarrassment with men related to how my body looked, the hidden fog around what a “normal” vagina looked like still seemed to elude me.
Like all good life revelations, the answer to my question came during a spring break trip. On one particular night, after dinner and one of those question-card games that are only fun when tipsy, two of my friends and I chanced upon the “vagina and shame” conversation. Induced by the mutual shame and curiosity surrounding the appearance of our vulvas, we collectively came up with the exciting and completely logical idea to compare our genitalia in the bathroom mirror together.
So there we stood: side by side, pants and skirts off, in all of our naked glory, looking at each others’ vulvas. The end result was mostly laughter at its absurdity but also, more importantly, the big realization that my vagina was not an oddity. Of course, no two vulvas look entirely alike. (Although, as a fun fact, one of my friends and I share a freakishly similar appearance.) But that was largely the point: there was no point worrying about something that had no standard—or at least not a standard the majority of vagina owners fit. And, as similarly true for most things, it was comforting to know I was not the only one who had ever experienced vagina-induced embarrassment.
If you have friends down to pursue a similar vulva-showing event, I highly recommend it. But even if you do not ever experience this bonding moment, take it from me that just like the rest of your body, there is truly no certain way that the most intimate parts of your physical appearance need to look.
Vagina Woolf is also known for A Pussy of One’s Own, To the Whorehouse, and Mrs. Dalloway (to the Clit).