Let’s Get the “V Words” Straight!

At the risk of sounding really bitchy, I am going to reveal that a huge pet peeve of mine is how the human race in general is so uneducated about female sexual organs.  Ah, taking a big breath, and taking some responsibility:  I wonder how I and others have joined together in an unspoken agreement to devalue female sexuality so much that many of us don’t even know what the sexual parts are called?  While that is a huge question which I can (and will) blog about for hours, today my focus is on taking one action step to start to change that reality- a little education about female sexual anatomy.

Yes, there is a part of female sexual anantomy that starts with the letter v.  It’s vagina.  I’m sure we’ve all noticed more vagina talk over the years- well, in this part of the world anyway.  The Vagina Monologues, for instance.  There was a time in the not so distant past when even saying the word “vagina” caused people to gasp.  And now we have so many cute little names for it, like “va-jay-jay”, for instance.  (Not my favorite, really.  To me, that’s just another way of women trying to be less embarrassed about saying the name of our own sexual organs.)  In a twisted way, I have to admit, we’ve made progress.  And, it’s time for more progress!

Here’s a new “v word” for you:  vulva.  I’ve been observing that even media that is supposedly progressive is still calling all of women’s sexual organs a vagina.  There’s really quite a distinction  between a vulva and a vagina.  A vagina is the tube that runs from its opening (just above a woman’s anus when lying down) to the cervix (the doorway of the uterus).  It has two purposes- sexual intercourse and childbirth.  The vulva is everything else.  The vulva is the name for the sum of the more visible parts of a woman’s sexual organs.  It’s all the parts that can be seen from the outside.  When these so-called progressive groups start talking about how women’s vaginas are so different from each other, what they’re really talking about are women’s vulvas.

And the purpose of a vulva is to give women sexual pleasure.  In all of male and female anatomy, the vulva is the only part of the body with the sole purpose of giving pleasure.  One way women can start taking their power back in this patriarchal world is by enjoying our bodies more.  And a good place to start with that for women- and men- is to have words with which to talk about these pleasure parts known collectively as the vulva.  There are many parts to a woman’s vulva, and they all have the potential to give sexual pleasure, including but not limited to, the clitoris.

That’s a start.  I have so much more I want to say about ways a woman can derive pleasure from her vulva, that I’m saving the detailed description for next week.  And, also I just wanted to keep you in a little suspense!  😉