I came across this post called Vulva Owners Unite!. It was in the Daily Californian by a woman named Taylor Romine . From what I can tell, she has fairly recently taken over the Sex on Tuesday column, and come on, you know I can't resist a fuck-yeah title like Vulva Owners Unite!
She begins with
"I have something embarrassing to admit. I am 21 years old, sleep with women and regularly write about sex — but I didn’t find my clitoris until recently."And she ends with
"This is a call to action to all vulva owners out there: Explore yourself. Look at your vagina in a mirror, figure out which pieces are which, and make sure you understand what the fuck is going on. If I, the infamous sinner and sexual deviant — the Sex on Tuesday columnist whose printed exploits weave Reddit threads longer than a fuckboy’s attention span — doesn’t know where her clitoris is, there might be a problem."Now in between those statements she points out that she masturbates and that she felt fairly well educated, but that somehow the actual location and look of the thing got past her somehow. It's a good read, and you should check it out. Now let me, real quick, just discuss the 3 things that I think are most important about her piece...
1 Hell yeah! We need more honesty like hers.
Hers is not an uncommon story. I've had more than one smart, college educated, grown friend ask me where their clitoris was. Imagine how many more women are never quite sure, but are too embarrassed to ask someone. I think I may have told this story before, but although I had masturbated by grinding myself against pillows and stuffed animals since almost before I can remember and prided myself on my openness and education regarding my body and sexual things, I too had a mind-blowing clit realization. I realized one day after I was in my 20's that my clit was not where my pee came out of. I had always thought it had. In fact I had pushed boys hands away from it because it kinda stung when they touched it. I assumed it stung because it's my flippin pee hole, and touching your pee hole would sting, right? However, the real problem was that they were just too rough and too direct. Think of all that good clit petting I missed out on because my proper education was lacking, and the un-proper education like porn, movies, and jokes failed me too.
Confusion about our genital anatomy is not uncommon by any means (there was even an Orange is the New Black episode about it), but we all feel like grade A idiots when we realize how confused we really were. That's some bullshit right there, though. Our culture sets us up to fail in this regard, and we're the ones feeling like dumb-asses? Hell no. We oughta feel smart as shit and lucky as all get out when we break through the bubble of our crap education. That's not an embarrassment, it's a triumph, and the more we ladies speak honestly about this, the more we'll realize our failings aren't personal ignorance. It's the result of large-scale, all-encompassing cultural bullshit that needs to be changed.
2 I second her call to action. Get that mirror. do some exploring. Chances are good that you're still coming from a background of a shitty sex ed; that you'll continue to be bombarded with incorrect, confusing information online; and that you're bound to only find terribly unhelpful diagrams of our junk...So...you honestly might still get some surprises later on. But, hey, even if you've been using the wrong names for your anatomy, at least you'll be familiar with your own lady-junk and know what feels like what down there - and that's a darn good start.
3 She's correct - there is a problem. Boys know what needs to be rubbed to induce orgasms, where their pee comes from, what basically all that stuff is called, and where it is located down there. They can collect knowledge about that pretty easily through a combination of formal education and insinuations and depictions out there in the cultural.
Now, I know all their stuff is just more 'out there' than ours, but come on, it's not the Bermuda Triangle down there. As much as people would like to make lady parts out as wildly diverse and wholly mysterious, it's just not that hard to figure out. The look can be pretty different from one vulva to the other, but they all have the same parts and those parts all have the same basic capabilities. That women are not easily able to figure this stuff out from formal education and cultural clues the way boys do, means we need to change things. I'm not saying it will be easy to do that, but I am saying it needs to be done. And frankly, if one really thinks about this situation, it's absolutely appalling that it's our normal. Men and women both suffer because of this.
So, I am fully and completely with Taylor here - Vulva Owners Unite! Be pissed off that we have these kinds of basic revelations when we are too old to be having them. Speak about it so other women know it's not just them, and be loud so that people begin to see the scale of the problem and realize that this goes beyond individual ignorance. It is bigger and deeper than that.
Respect.
Being honest to other women about our own experiences is the first and most important step in identifying the problems that we as women (and not as individuals) face. The kind of stuff Ms. Taylor Romine spoke about takes bravery and a sense that this is important territory. She did good work here, and so she goes right on the Orgasm Equality Allies List. Keep on speaking truth during the rest of your Sex on Tuesday reign and beyond!
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