Know your Vulva Part 1- Introduction

This is going to be the first part in a series about knowing your vulva.  Men, you should listen up too, these are important issues whether you have one or not.

Women are taught from a very young age not to look at or touch their vulva.  Mother's slap us, teachers admonish us.  We are told that it is a dirty place and instructed to go and wash our hands.  I was told (when I'd left the hand mirror on the bathroom floor by mistake) that if you can't see something, you probably shouldn't be looking at it.

Some women grow up without knowing what their vulva even looks like.  Many others are ashamed, concerned about smell or think simply that it is ugly.  Some risk surgery to "correct" problems they believe exist because there is no one to talk to about whether this or that is "normal."

These problems can be exacerbated by being fat because body image issues often compound on each other.  Also, fat women are often "de-sexed" or are somehow considered less womanly or asexual because they are fat.  The shame surrounding being fat becomes entangled with the same surrounding the female genitals and the combination can be devastating.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to break down the problem, and it's solutions over several blog posts.  I think that this topic is too important to rush it, so I hope that you will all stay with me, I promise you will learn a lot!

Up next week:  The Name Game and Shame

~Mrs. Sprat