Vaginas

A Flower By Any Other Name

"The Origin of the World" Gustave Courbet, 1866.

The vagina is an amazing piece of fleshy architecture designed to stretch and dilate wide enough to push out heads the size of cantaloupes. It’s an amazing creation, a reminder that no matter how much we dress up we are not much different than the rest of the animal kingdom. Almost all mammals have a vagina, except for kangaroos who have three. Dolphins have the most complex vaginas with enough folds for Flipper to lose her car keys in. The human vagina is a masterstroke of female reproduction, complex with folds of labia, inner and outer, that serves as inspiration for artists like Georgia O'Keeffe who can transform a landscape escarpment into a pastel wonderland.

Technically, vagina just means passageway. It’s the canal connecting the vulva to the uterus. The outer parts we see is better called the vulva, or pussy for those who don’t like v’s and prefer s’s (vagina enthusiasts are very particular about the alphabet). The word vagina has come to represent female genitalia in general. Australians like to call it the vaj because they shorten all words— barbecue become barbie, U-turns become yooees and Australians become ozzies— they’re happy to shorten vaj’s but never their penises.

Obstetricians, gynecologists and midwives once kept the mysteries of the vagina to themselves, even away from their patients. It was once considered quite rude to observe one’s own vagina, especially by good girls who see God more often than their birth canal.

Vaginas have been in the news a lot lately. It started with Gwyneth Paltrow going where few men dare to tread— her own vagina. The popular actress developed GOOP, a niche wellness brand focusing on the vagina, and thousands of vaginal entrepreneurs followed her in. There have always been douches, special pastes and fumigators, but the wellness industry has pushed it to the next level, creating a demand to treat vaginas as well as the Queen’s pet Corgi.

For far too long, the vagina has been neglected. Now there are vulva balms, vibrating massagers and vaginal health coaches ready to come to the rescue when needed. Special gels and moisturizers are marketed, to be applied to the vagina liberally and often. With UTIs, STDs, and bacterial vaginosis running rampant, the vagina has never offered such a great opportunity to make a small fortune.

The vagina has never looked better. Once there was only edible undies, now there’s special underwear to reduce intimacy anxiety, underwear to reduce pelvic pain, underwear to boost your vagina’s self-esteem— issues which could be resolved by becoming a nudist and not wearing any underwear at all. Vaginas are self-cleaning which means most of these products are unnecessary and possibly dangerous to one’s health, don’t ask the FDA as they refuse to weigh in and too busy spreading measles.

Women can be prickly when it comes to their vaginas. Taught to keep their knees together by ruler-rapping nuns and well-meaning grandmothers, inhibitions go out the window while giving birth. Pregnant women don’t mind if the doctor, a floor of nurses and the passing janitor get a good long look. Moms don’t give a damn in the delivery room, but afterwards many see their cooches as too sacred to be revealed, except to those they truly love. Vaginas don’t care, if they had their way they would be marching down High Street proudly singing, “If I could teach the world to sing…”

With the U.S. Surgeon General now a penile enlargement doctor, it’s important for our genitals to look as sharp as our Botoxed faces. Women unhappy with their vaginas are resorting to labioplasty, cosmetic reconstruction of overly stretched-out vaginas. Women like Marjorie Taylor Greene are said to have a condition known as Arbys, which sounds delicious, but is apparently the equivalent of calling a man shorty.

Guys from a mile away can spot an exposed vagina. While casually man-spreading while shaping some pottery, a line will form at the porch full of passing admirers, always helpful with a compliment on the subtle contours of the artistic piece. Occasionally at a nude beach there will be a woman getting the full sunlight treatment. This position, laying out with splayed legs as seen on trucker flaps, is known as perineum sunning and is said to boost energy by stimulating nerves and blood vessels. It certainly stimulates those passing by.

Like a can of tuna, once opened vaginas have a hard time closing. Legs wide-open is the natural state for giving birth, having sex and visiting the gynecologist— not necessarily in that order. For the same reason vaginas love standing above subway ventilation shafts, vaginas prefer to be exposed to the air. Spreading the legs is liberating and feels good, so I’m told. It seems cruel and unnecessary to not let the vagina soar in the open like a box kite in the wind.

Women tease men that they can’t find their clitoris, it’s unfortunate men can’t tease them back. Vaginas remain a mystery to men despite thousands of hours examining them on their home computer. Vaginas are hidden, like a sniper in the bush. Go to a museum and the painted nudes look bare, just an empty spot with no indication of what was there. Artists are like magicians making vaginas disappear. There are exceptions of course, Courbet might have taken an entire summer to complete his masterpiece, “The Origin of the World.” Rodin wasn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty, tackling the elusive subject with the creation of a headless statue that has the accuracy of a medical teaching device.

In the days before waxing became popular, the vagina could be cloaked in a fur so thick as to resemble a beaver pelt. Shaved, the groin area gives the impression of a plastic Barbie doll. Women often get very creative with their pubic hair— little hearts, airport runways, top hats— like the flowery decoration on top of a vagina cake.

Most would love to be associated with anything as beautiful as a vagina, but alas, that is not the case. There are a lot of fuck’n twats walking around disrespecting and abusing vaginas. A certain felon made headlines by saying he liked to grab women by the pussy, then saying they let him do it, claiming it a right of famous men throughout history. A lot of women voted for the pervert, no doubt calling their own vaginas snatches and showing that not all cunts are men.

Like most mammals, vaginas were designed to be entered from the rear. The missionaries invented sex from the front and, since nobody likes arguing with a Jesuit about vaginas, most go about it face to face. From behind, the vagina is upside down and more revealing, it has been said.

For those who study vaginas, they are as varied as fingerprints. They’ve never hurt anyone, never committed a crime. They are a wonderful part of anatomy and should be revealed as often as possible. They can scare people when kept in the dark, like cat burglars behind ski masks, but the vagina is full of life and nothing but goodness and not scary at all. Not only should women share their vaginas whenever they can, they should go even farther. When visiting a nude beach, women shouldn’t walk around like they’re clenching a marble in their cheeks, but help people understand their vagina’s powerful truths and spread their legs wide and let their vagina wings fly.