The vagina has been understudied, underreported, and misunderstood since the field of medicine deemed it important to separate broken hearts from body parts and put a name to an anomaly in the 1680s. Vagina. Genitalia. Your bits, beaver, pussy cat. A cherry to be popped; a slit to be snatched. From your two lips to God’s ears, the subject of mythology and misinformation, society has a tendency to be vague about vaginas, to lower their voices, and raise their eyebrows. To confine its legacy with cutesy nicknames and obscure allusions. But discomfort breeds disaster, and by burying that burden deep under the sand and attempting to dig around it, we’ve created a culture that bars people with vaginas from arming themselves with information about their bodies, partners from properly understanding vaginal pleasure centers, and doctors from devising long-term reproductive healthcare solutions.
We are all guilty of perpetuating the myth of the imperfect by judging ourselves and even others in an effort to evade the obvious or awkward. We are all unique, things change and sometimes vaginal health can be confusing. But that’s it. We are cool, complicated, and complete creatures, no less worthy or magnificent than a penis-clad counterpart.
