Vulva Is Made for Sexual Consumption?



A few months ago I was tabling at an event organized by a friend of mine, where I was selling some of the crochet jewelry and accessories that I make, including crochet genitalia. A person was checking out the goods I had on display and the conversation we had went a little something like this:

- what are these
- why these are vulva pins
- oh...but why would you make them and sell them here? They are better off being in a porn shop or something...

- why do you say that?
- they are vaginas...

I was thankful for this persons comment and welcomed the short conversation we had, but I have noticed that in all the conversations I have had around my vulva pins, cis men - people who were born male and live their lives as men- have never failed to view the vulva pins as any thing more than a sexual representation of the female body. I have started to wonder, have female bodies been constructed for and understood through the male gaze? And have I been unknowingly participate in that gaze?

I am far from ashamed to admit that I watch a lot of pornography, and what I have noticed specifically about easily accessible mainstream heterosexual porn, that depicts penetrative sex between a man and a woman, is that these films are not free from voyeurism, male fantasy and sexual conquest. In her 1975 essay titled Visual Pleasure & Narrative Camera author Laura Mulvey, suggests the male gaze occurs when the camera draws the audience into the heterosexual mans point of view. Through voyeurism lingering on curves, body parts etc. she explains that this serves to frame the female body as an erotic object for sexual conquest to be dominated by both the character in the film and the audience. She goes on to explain that within male fantasy, seldom do we see the point of view of the female body/character.

I have been thinking about how point of view as explored by Laura Mulvey relates to the way that I have been making my vulva pins. Have I been perpetuating and reflecting a male gaze? When making them, I have chosen to physically position myself on my back, open my legs and use a mirror to see my vulva. But in reality, when in this position without a mirror, I can't actually see the entirely of my vulva. All I see is my clitoris, part of my labia minora and the top of my labia majora. In using a mirror I have shifted from reflecting my own personal gaze of my body and instead have served to reflect the gaze of someone looking at my vulva. Similar to the male gaze in mainstream pornography I have drawn my audience into a point of view that situates them as onlookers of my vulva pins. I believe this point of view can easily draw parallels between the fantasy or reality of heterosexual men's sexual position as voyeurs of the female body. In making my vulvas this way am I welcoming and participating in objectification? What do you think?

Vulva Uses a Dental Dam?

Lube, Vulva & Dental Dam!

Have you ever been to the dentist? You know when you have a cavity and they clip a rubber like sheet to your teeth and proceed to drill away at them? Well, that sheet is called a dental dam. In dentistry they are used to isolate the tooth with the cavity from the surrounding oral environment to provide a safer way of preventing bacteria inside the cavity from spreading while operating on it. In safer sex practices a dental dam works in the same way! This thin rectangular sheet of latex (or silicone) is used specifically as a barrier between one persons mouth and anothers vulva or anus during oral sex to reduce the chances of passing on a sexually transmitted infection (STI) through bodily fluids and skin to skin contact. 

Unpackaged Dental Dam

Oral sex which includes cunnilingus (eating pussy), fellatio (sucking dick) and anilingus/rimming (eating booty hole) is the action of pleasuring or stimulating the genitalia  using the mouth, lips, tongue, teeth or throat. If you have a super flexible spine you can do it to yourself (autofellatio or autocunnilingus), or for those who are not so malleable someone else can definitely help you out! Oral sex is classified as 'low risk activity' And what does that mean? Well, the term 'low risk' suggests that the chance of contracting an STI through this activity is significantly lower than other 'high risk activities' such as penetrative vaginal or anal sex. The terms 'high risk' and 'low risk' are a bit sticky for me and I don't use them often because I believe that it asserts that 'high risk activites' are wrong/bad/dangerous such as; barrier free sex (without condoms, dental dams etc.) or anal sex. Which I find to be very sex negative because it shames people for having the kind of sex that they are into. BUT personal politics aside, when giving and receiving oral sex it is possible to contract an STI. For example is possible to transmit oral herpes (cold sores HSV-1) to genitals (HSV-2) and the other way around through skin to skin contact. Through bodily fluids (such as blood, semen-including pre-cum, vaginal fluids, and anal fluids) it is quite circumstantial. Remember that an STI must be present in these fluids for it to be transmitted from one person to another. So if someone is giving oral sex and has cuts or open sores in their mouth and one (or all) of those fluids with an STI present comes in contact those sores/cuts there is a possibility that an STI can be transmitted. So what can we do? Well getting tested and knowing our + our partners HIV and STI status is one way, but sometimes that isn't an option. We could also get excited about using dental dams!

How can we safely practice safer oral sex with a dental dam?
1. Ask your partner if they are into you going down on them, if they say yes proceed to step 2
2. Check the expiry date if it is still within the date open the package!

3. Spread some lube on one side of the dental dam, this will make sure it sticks better on the vulva or anus and it is more pleasurable for the person receiving! Note: Use water based lube! It won't deteriorate the latex! Also unless your into eating lube, the side without the lube should be facing you.

Dental Dam w/ Lube

4. With two hands stretch lubed dental dam over vulva or anus. Note: I folded the dam in the image below for sizing purposes, do not fold yours

Dental Dam Stretched Over Vulva

4. Enjoy! and eat to your partners content! Note: One side one use! Try not reuse or flip over the same dental dam, throw it away after one use, grab another one and repeat!

Dental dams are kind of hard to come by for a variety of reasons, and if you find yourself without them you can try these options as alternative solutions and use them in the same way as a regular dental dam;

1. NON-MICROWAVABLE saran wrap. The microwavable type is not suggested because they have tiny holes in the them that fluids can seep through and that defeats the purpose of it being used as a safer sex barrier.
2. Cutting an external condom into a dental dam. Without unrolling it, use a pair of scissors to snip off the tip. Cut the side of condom. Unroll! You should have a ready to use sheet of latex!

3. Cutting a latex glove into a dental dam. With a pair of scissors cut the four fingers off the top of the glove. Then cut down the side of the glove - leaving the thumb intact. You can use the thumb to insert your tongue or finger into your partner!

You can always prepare your barriers in advance and store them somewhere where they won't get damaged by heat, pierced by other objects, or get covered in dirt or dust. For example in a Ziploc bag!

Working safer sex barriers into our sex life can be challenging for different reasons, not everyone has the space or safety to negotiate the use of barriers, some people might not know how to use them, or sometimes for personal or religious reasons barriers are just not for everyone. Their use is highly dependent on personal preference and beliefs, social realities, issues around access to barriers and so on. So wherever and however you are situated, do what is right for you and always prioritize your safety first - whatever that may look like. Furthermore, don't worry about barriers being unsexy! You can use all kinds of barriers as a chance to get kinky with safer sex! You can try role playing and maybe be a sexy nurse/doctor coming to treat a patient(s) that has been very naughty? Do what works for you, work within your personal boundaries, stay safe, and have fun!

Questions or concerns? Don't worry! Just send me an email and I'll respond as I can!

Vulva Is Racialized

I wrote this earlier this year and decided to re-post it here on this blog: 

"Ew!"

"So F***ING COOL!"
"What is that?"

"Why would you make this?"

Why would i make this...? I have been making crochet genitalia pins for a while and giving them to my friends as gifts, as well as rocking my own. I have been presented with varied reactions from both friends and strangers. It is not so much the question that bothers me, but the tone in which the question is asked. There is a lot of disgust and hostility, but ultimately interest. I was recently at a symposium where we spoke about how different vulva's and internal genitalia can look and how in text books they are presented as uniform; symmetrical labia, hairless, and cut off from the rest of the body. So that night I came home and looked up diagrams of vulva's. When I tried to look for diagrams that show vulva's that belong to bodies colour, guess what? Surprise (not surprise) I found none! Now you might think, well a vulva is a vulva...right? Yes and no. Sure I've got genitalia and you have genitalia too, but historically bodies have been presented through race (racialization) and through that aesthetic differences have been assumed to justify many historical events that books don't often tell us about. So let us take a few steps back and look at the well known hottentot venus exhibition of Saartjie Baartman, a relative of the Khoikhoi ethnic group born in 1789 in the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.

In 1735, Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) divided humans into four racially classified subspecies: Homo sapien americancus (Amerindians), europaeus 

(Europeans), asiaticus (Asians), and afer (Africans) (Hamilton, 2008). Later, anthropologist Jonathan Marks attributed traits and behaviours to these subspecies, calling the afer “black, impassive, lazy. Hair kinked. Skin Silky. Nose flat. Lips thick. Women with genital flap; breasts large. Crafty, slow, foolish. Anoints himself with grease. Ruled by caprice.” (Hamilton, 2008). Another example of this is the French scientist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) who also based his findings on the taxonomy of Homo sapiens and depicted theafer as “marked by a black complexion, crisped or woolly hair, compressed cranium and a flat nose. The projection of the lower parts of the face, and the thick lips, evidently approximate it to the monkey tribe; the hordes of utter barbarianism.” (Hamilton, 2008). From this established approach to race in academia in the eighteenth century, there is an acknowledgement and acceptance to the validity of the racialization of traits and the hierarchy based off of it. The Hottentot Venus exhibit recreated and brought these ideas throughout Europe, it specifically reinforced and reflected race based on the social hierarchies that existed. The presentation and representation of black bodies in contrast to white ones placed emphasis on differences, and more specifically differences of physical anatomy. The anthropological rhetoric represented the Hottentot as primitive, inferior, secular and uncivilized  and from this made distinct connections between the Hottentot and animals. Labeling black bodies as primitive attributed animal characteristics to them, such as animalistic instincts of reproduction  “…Buffon stated that this animal-like sexual appetite went so far as to lead black women to copulate with apes” (Gilman, 1985). Academic travelers went further as to say that the black woman also show external signs of being primitive, from “Steatopygia a protruding buttocks resulting from the accumulation of fat, and what was then called the “hottentot apron” the elongated labia of the genitalia” (Moudileno, 2009) (see fig.1). Saarjtie Baartman’s exhibit relied heavily on the discourse created by academic and scientific elites. These assumptions  presented as fact romanticized ideas about non-white populations, and constructed a false identity that according to Gareth Knapman (2008) pushed non-white populations to a status below that of white Europeans. By labelling these populations as animals, an ideology of inferiority became common thought.

fig 1 the external genitalia of the Hottentot Venus, standing upright

200 years later and this is the only image of the genitalia of a black African woman?! So when someone asks me why I made this I tell them that I am serving to represent my own genitalia, sexuality and ultimately myself. And of course I'm gonna make a pin and make sure its all up in your face. Additionally I love making people feel uncomfortable...for a good reason though! I believe that when we are the most uncomfortable is when we are in a space to absorb knowledge and have conversations that we might not otherwise have. We must keep in mind that knowledge and academia are never depoliticized spaces and they are entirely selective, meaning there is choice in what is included or excluded given the political and economic climate...think of it like the news, there is always another part of the story we don't hear and we have to be critical and ask why. Knowledge as a form of power is inaccessible for a variety of reasons and it has always been used as a tool of inclusion and exclusion....but that's a whole other conversation! It's hilarious to me when it falls on the ground, and someone will be like "oh, you dropped something!" they go to pick it up for me, but immediately hesitate and retreat once they see what it is. I always say "Ooups, I dropped my vulva!" smile and walk away. Sometimes you have to laugh or cry at the realities of this world. Both are viable options. 

Vulva Is Ugly

I was talking with some new friends of mine about our genitalia and one of them said 
'ugghh mine is ugly, it's all stretched out because I had a baby...' I hesitated with my response, feeling uncomfortable and unsure of what to say. Then I finally responded 'oh please! no way! All genitalia is beautiful...!' but I wasn't sure I even believed what I had said. I was not sure why I felt so uneasy about the answer I had given her. 

A number of months ago a friend sent me a text saying: 
U kno wat? I've got a really pretty vulva. Ppl I've fucked told me, so I looked myself and I think so too!
I responded:
LOL!That's amazing! I love when ppl love their vulvas!

I felt a strange sense of ease in agreeing with her about beauty, because we are supposed to love our bodies, it's normal. Right? These two separate conversations got me thinking about my own genitalia, and you know what? It is ugly and I don't always feel comfortable engaging with it. I was fooling myself writing all these wonderful words to describe some imagined flawlessness about my body, that I really didn't believe. It is discolored, my labia minora are two different sizes, and even worse sometimes its aroma catches me off guard like '...shit is that me?', sometime its itchy, has sores and bumps. Not cute. And you know what? I am learning (reaaalll slowly) to be cool with it being ugly. Mainstream narratives of self-love make me feel like I have to love myself in a very specific, kind of glazed over way. I have to learn to ignore my uglies and convince myself that they are in fact beautiful. Or else something is wrong with me. When I do not love myself at all times I am somehow deluded by false media representations, misguided and have a distorted view of reality. I need help. But nah, a more robust narrative of self love needs to be present and locating it in the many many ways that we are taught to feel undesirable/unworthy.

Coming into self love happens in so many different ways, whether in the reality of ascribing gender to genitalia, coming from body and gender dysphoria that can make our relationship to our genitals really fucking hard, for aesthetic reasons that suggest genitals should be and look a certain way, the locating of honor and worth to sex and genitals, navigating the realities of HIV/STI stigma or whatever else, thinking that beautiful=good and ugly=bad is a super narrow framing of self love that totally ignores the contexts that influence the complexities how we live in our bodies. However we work towards finding a sense of solidarity, peace and love with our bodies is always real and always valid. We should all be allowed to experience our bodies as we naturally do and have supportive spaces to talk about those realities - the hard, the wondrous, the pleasure and so on. To my friend who thinks their vulva is ugly, I am sorry for trying to convince you otherwise. Don't worry I am right there with you. Your vulva is ugly, my genitalia is ugly and it is what it is. Why not hold space to honour all the ways we feel about our bodies instead?

Vulva Has Discharge

I am a total self diagnoser. I am hypersensitive about changes in my body and as soon as I notice anything new or different I hop on the Internet and try to figure out what is going on. Especially with vaginal discharge. Discharge is the fluids produced by the cervical glands (cervix is at the top of the vaginal canal, like cap!) that keep the vagina clean and moist. So there is no need to use any kinds of soaps, perfumes or douching mechanisms. Those things are not always the vaginas friend and can easily set it off balance and irritate it. When I notice changes in the consistency (how it feels or its texture), smell, colour or quantity of my discharge that are uncommon to me I get into a bit of a panic. In a feverish search for some relevant information I typed in 'Vaginal Discharge' on goolge search and this is what came up. A lot of the information available doesn't ease my fears because there is a lot of talk of what is and isn't 'normal'. What I find to be normal for my discharge is often labelled as 'abnormal' and this is messy, scary and often confusing language. Regularly my discharge is far from odourless and white/clear. Sometimes it is stringy, thick, it can be thin, it always has an aroma, when it dries on clothes it can look yellow, it can darken in colour or it is straight up cloudy...so does this mean that I have reason to worry???

If we assume that there is a standard 'normal' or 'abnormal' discharge we should also ask how realistic this standard is, and what is it really being judged upon? While I can not for sure answer that question, I do know that vaginal discharge is different at different times of the month depending on how our body works. For example, if someone has a menstrual cycle, are pregnant, ovulating or breastfeeding their discharge will vary in quantity, amount, colour and texture as a result. And if someone is pre or post menopausal changes in the amount discharge is largely attributed to hormonal fluctuations. Or if someone does not have a cervix, for reasons not limited to a hysterectomy [his-tur-EK-tuh-mee] (removing of the uterus, but can also include the fallopian tubes, ovaries and cervix) this may also affect a persons discharge. If we are on antibiotics, taking medication, birth control, or are turned on sexually these can all contribute to changes in discharge. The list really does go on! So you see, these generalized assumptions on what is and isn't 'normal' discharge doesn't account for the particular circumstances of our bodies.
But! There is always a but! There can be changes in discharge accompanied with specific symptoms such as;
- Fishy smell
- Pain in abdomen
- Itching, burning, redness, or inflammation of vagina/vulva
- Vaginal pain after or during penetrative (something entering the vagina) sex
- Increased need to pee
- Rash or soreness
In such circumstances it is suggested that you check in with your doctor (if you have one) cause they could be signs of an existing Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI), vaginal infection or other complications. Remember that some people can be asymptomatic (show no signs or symptoms) of having an STI, so trying to get tested regularly is one of the ways in making sure one is not present in the body.

Yellow Frothy Discharge
ex. Trichomoniasis

Bloody Discharge
ex. Non-menstrual Bleeding

Green Discharge
ex. Gonorrhea

White Clumpy Cottage
Cheese Like Discharge
ex. Yeast Infection

Dark Brown Spotting
ex. Shedding of Endomitiral
Tissues

Grey Watery Discharge
W/ Fishy Smell
ex. Bacterial Vaginosis

A lot of the information online does not make the distinction between changes of worry which are accompanied by distinct symptoms, and the natural state of our individual discharge. So I think that getting to know vaginal secretions is totally a way of understanding, knowing and personalizing what 'normal' is. Go Ask Alice offers some really body friendly advice on the topic as well. Personally, I have started to practice a self-check every now and then, where I stick my fingers into my vagina and seriously just smell, feel and taste my discharge. And if anyone has ever gone down on you, well, now you know exactly what you've been missing! By doing this I can know whether or not there have been any changes and I can easily become very familiar with my discharge. For example, I know when I don't drink enough water my aroma changes, when I eat to many sweet things it thickens and closer to my period it darkens! So instead of frantically searching the Internet for answers that often scare me beyond belief or tell me I am not normal, I can now work on developing my own sense of normalcy to ease my sense of panic. I would also like to acknowledge that not everyone has or can access a doctor and this can cause issues in establishing a continuum of care, and tracking medical history. So if you find yourself without a doctor, this can also be a really affordable and easy way to take your health into your own hands...or fingers!