This is one of my biggest pet peeves ever. None of my female friends ever talked about our vulvas and any time I heard anything growing up about vaginas or vulvas, it was always boys on the bus talking about “fishy” or “loose” vaginas.

Media/internet also takes part in it by making jokes about being a slut is akin to having a “loose” vagina and using words such as “roast beef” to indicate vulvas with longer labia minora as women who have had sex more. Also, I never knew that merkins (pubic wigs) are used by female actresses to cover themselves up for a nude scene and no one ever mentions it, I just thought they all naturally didn’t show anything and that I was the freak. Even looking up medical information on the internet, you often get pictures of flowers or fruit rather than a vulva.

Even romance novels will use words indicating a “neat and tidy” vulva and indicate that it should “taste like cream.” Let’s not even get started on porn actresses.

It is such bullshit and dangerous misinformation, no wonder labiaplasty cases are on the rise. I didn’t have sex until my mid twenties and you can sure believe that my vulva didn’t look the way media and the internet says vulvas are supposed to look. Growing up, my self-consciousness and negative feelings towards my vulva got so extreme that I literally would have rather had cancer than go to a gynecology office. It took a couple years of sex positive and female friendly sex education for me to feel even remotely ready to go to a gyn, and the first time I went, I cried for two days prior and the day of the exam. It took a full year of working with my partner to get comfortable being naked around him and accept that he wasn’t going to reject me because of my vulva’s appearance

Vulvas are wonderfully diverse in appearance and don’t let anyone ever tell you that the way your vulva looks is not normal or tell you what it should look like. If any guy or woman makes fun of your vulva, or is disgusted by it not looking like their pornified expectations, then you deserve better.

Now take a drink every time I write vulva.