Viva La Vagina

Viva La Vagina

5 Myths of Pregnancy featuring Maya Benitez, MD

Menopause: Let’s talk about it! ft Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz

Yoni Steaming: My experience and feedback

The barriers that stop both men and women from talking and learning about female sexual health.
Female sexuality in a way that transcends race, culture, age and geography.
A safe engaging platform through art and medical expertise to normalize the concept of female sexual health.
A driving force of change in the way female sexual health is perceived.
Dr. Cara Quant and her panel of doctors discuss what female sexual function and dysfunction is. Speaking is Dr. Michael Krychman, an OB/GYN, sexual health specialist and expert in survivorship medicine.
Dr. Cara Quant and her panel of doctors discuss what female sexual issues aren’t discussed in the media. Speaking is Dr. Erica Marchand, a licensed psychologist specializing in couples therapy and sex therapy in Los Angeles.
Dr. Cara Quant and her panel of doctors discuss what is normal vs abnormal discharge during the Viva La Vulva Art Exhibition. Dr. Maya Benitez, Family Medicine doctor, discusses understanding vaginal discharge.
Dr. Cara Quant and her panel of doctors discuss how to talk to others about STDs during the Viva La Vulva Art Exhibition. Dr. Maya Benitez (Family Medicine doctor) and Dr. Michael Krychman (Sexual Health specialist) talk about how to bring up STDs and testing to a partner.
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Viva La Vulva is a movement created and organized by Internal Medicine physician, Dr. Cara Quant who noticed how men’s sexual issues are regularly discussed in the medical community, but women’s sexual health issues are often overlooked. “So many things can affect a woman’s sexual health throughout her life such as sexual abuse, pregnancy, stress, menopause, cultural ideals and often times the pain or lack of desire that happens as a result of these life events are not addressed.” says Dr. Quant. “Education is the key to overcoming.” She understands that the language of art can be used for education and as a means of healing. She brought together a diverse team of people with a shared vision to bring the idea of Viva La Vulva into reality.

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Welcome to Ravishly, where we celebrate the mess of being human. A community for sharing what makes us tick, what ticks us off, plus pictures of our dogs (or cats – inclusivity is important). We laugh. We cry. We do it all together.
It’s beautiful. It’s part of you. Viva La Vagina!
This week my husband bought a new car; he named it Fergus. This week I took a class specifically designed for me to improve my relationship with my vagina; I named it Helen. It took me a couple of days to land on the name because the only one coming to mind was Sally — and I’d already named my uterus Sally (before she became medical waste).
This is week one in a four-week self-directed course called Viva la Vagina . Viva la Vagina is designed and executed by one very lovely Courtney Davis of Calgary, Alberta (Canada), where it was a balmy -10º C today.
No. NOPE. That’s not a temperature for humans.
Anyway. I stumbled on the class via a mutual Instagram friend. I asked you, our readers, if I should take the course; 100% of respondents said yes. So, here I am —naming my vagina.
I wouldn’t have considered my relationship with my vagina complicated or fraught with tension. I am sexually progressive. I am 43 so I’ve got plenty of experience with sex. I’ve had six babies. I am, for the most part, comfortable with my body.
But watching Courtney’s videos opened me up to some realities I hadn’t considered.
1. Is your relationship with your vagina complicated by past trauma or unmet expectations? (Yep.)
2. Are you honoring her sexually by waiting until she is well-lubricated with her self-made moisture? (Nope.)
3. Have you taken a good, long look at her. (I’m sorry, what?)
Had I even considered that I might be holding tension in my vagina as a result of years of painful sex? Was I angry with her for the complicated birth I had with my fifth child? What others ways do I subconsciously believe she has “let me down”?
The videos gave me a lot to consider intellectually, but the homework really changed the whole thing. It was what I would consider the most vital component of this first week: Yoni Gazing.
(For those of you not familiar with the term “yoni,” here you are .)
I postponed my yoni gaze for the first three days. The time didn’t present itself. I wasn’t alone. I was deprived of sleep or not in the proper state of mind.
I did not know what I would find. I was not sure I wanted to find it.
Yesterday, I got what my great-grandmother would have called a “bee in my bonnet,” and decided to give myself a good ol’ fashioned hot wax. I’m not a professional, but this isn’t my first coochie stripping rodeo . Armed with just enough knowledge and experience to NOT third-degree burn my labia minora, I set about the task.
Why do I see the bodies of other women as beautiful, but my own as lacking?
First the sides. An inch or two off the top (Why does pubic hair migrate up? WHAT IS IT LOOKING FOR ON MY STOMACH?). And finally the underside all the way back.
Even if my stomach wasn’t a curtain for my pubic hair , I wouldn’t be able to see what’s ALL the way down there because I’m neither a Chinese Acrobat nor my very limber six-year-old son. My full length mirror is connected to the wall with some kind of Herculean screws so I was going on pubic hair braille to decide where to spread the (hopefully-not-scalding) wax. I managed to do this mostly successfully except for the strands of hot wax that have since turned to cold wax and adhered themselves to every surface of my bathroom.
I’m not going to bullshit you because A. I think you probably relate (or will eventually), and B. I just don’t have it in me to try to make my vagina out to be some Georgia O’Keefe painting. I am 43; my vagina has wrinkles. Wrinkles. More than my face. My inner thighs are dense with dark stretch marks — the product, I’m sure, of many pregnancies and the physics of chafing. My labia minora are on the small side and mostly hidden, so at first glance I don’t know what might be waiting for me in there.
I wish I could say I saw Helen and immediate feelings of love and gratitude washed over me, but no. The feeling was more akin to terror. My god my husband has definitely SEEN THIS MESS. I’m not saying I hate Helen, I’m just saying I was NOT prepared for what the ravages of age were going to do to her.
Despite my initial discomfort, I sat with the feelings. I sat with my mirror on my bathroom floor. I sat with the shame I have around my body. I sat with my sexual history. The sexual trauma and over-sexualization I experienced as a child made me sexually knowledgeable and sexually repressed, simultaneously. I began to see her in a new light.
Courtney had suggested that, if we felt comfortable, we might consider pleasuring ourselves during the gazing session. And why not? I let my fingers explore the softness that is her. I questioned my held beliefs around body image.
Why is another woman’s body such an incredible expression of nature, but my own is a source of anxiety? Why do I see the bodies of other women as beautiful, but my own as lacking?
This all felt very unexpectedly transformative to me, so I talked to my partner. I explained the class videos and assignments. I told him all about the waxing circus I had engaged in earlier. I told him about the yoni gazing. But most importantly, I told him about the feelings I had. Because I trust him deeply with these tender thoughts, I was able to honestly share and ask him frankly, “What does my vagina look like to you?”
It’s beautiful. It’s part of you. It has given us amazing children. It has provided us both with lots of pleasure. It has taken me to the heights of ecstasy.
When we had talked all we could about my vagina (ahem, Helen), he laid me back and took a look. And then he gave me the best oral sex of my entire life.
But this is incredible, and I am serious as a heart attack. This all happened in the matter of a few days of starting this course. You should know that, because my college boyfriend was kind of a prick, I have some issues around oral sex that really make it hard for me to relax into it. But after talking about all of this material with my partner, I was able to release the anxiety and just enjoy the tenderness of the person I love the most. I was able to experience an ecstasy that prior to that evening had alluded me.
Bless you, Helen. I can’t wait for week two.
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Updated
26 January, 2020 - 18:12
ancient-origins
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Drome wrote on 29 January, 2020 - 01:53

28 July, 2019 - 14:00
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In September 2019, a French ad for feminine hygiene products featuring taboo-breaking representations of vulvas and menstruation sparked controversy . Yet in a cultural context in France, phallic symbols rarely cause a fuss. What explains this difference in treatment?
Images of male genitalia in art and advertising rarely cause a stir – we’re used to them. Male statues have been flaunting their (fairly realistic) penises in public parks for centuries, and Perrier often centers its ads on phallic-shaped bottles .
In contrast, vulval symbols are conspicuous by their absence. No wonder, then, that the Nana brand’s “Viva la Vulva” campaign is causing a stir. The phallus is seen as a powerful image, whereas the vulva is upsetting to many. But this has not always been the case.
In the third millennium BC, the Sumerians, inhabitants of present-day Iraq, worshipped the goddess Ishtar . Poetic texts refer to the goddess’ wet vulva, fertilized by the sperm of her mortal husband, Dumuzi, the shepherd king.
The goddess addresses her lover as follows :
Who will plow my high field? Who will plow my wet ground? As for me, the young woman, who will plow my vulva? Who will station the ox there?
Detail of ancient Mesopotamian so-called "Ishtar Vase", terracotta with cut, molded, and painted decoration, from Larsa, early 2nd millennium BC. ( Public Domain )
The oxen pulling the plow refer to the king’s phallus; the vulva represents the ground to be sown. Ishtar’s royal lover answers, “I, Dumuzi the King, will plow your vulva.” At fever pitch of excitement, the goddess cries, “Then plow my vulva, man of my heart!”
They make love, and when Dumuzi ejaculates, plants are seeded all around and begin to grow. The vulva plays a positive role in this story; it is complementary to the phallus, equally necessary to the fertilization of the land.
In ancient Egypt, the vulva was seen as a source of happiness and regeneration. The sun god Ra was the source of light on Earth, but he sometimes showed signs of weakness, endangering all of humankind. Fortunately, the beautiful goddess Hathor had the bright idea of undressing in front of him and showing her vulva. Ra laughed joyfully at the sight and recovered all his dazzle . A valuable vulva indeed…
Hathor, bronze statuette, 8th century BC. ( Brooklyn Museum )
The vulva fell out of favor in the ancient Greek and Roman world. Artists often depicted the phallus, but the vulva is almost nowhere to be seen. Gods and heroes flaunt their penises, but goddesses tend to be robed; even when nude, like Aphrodite , they have perfectly smooth pubic triangles, with no clitoris or labia. The vulva was lost to censorship.
By contrast, the phallus – phallos in Greek or fascinus in Latin – was revered. Believed to have magical powers, it was exhibited and worshipped as an idol capable of protecting the city and its inhabitants from harm, and putting thieves and intruders to flight.
Hic habitat Felicitas , ‘Here dwells happiness,’ terracotta relief, 1st century AD. ( Archeological Museum, Naples )
This is why the Athenians held the annual Dionysia festival, where a solemn procession of citizens called phallophoroi carried giant carved wooden phalluses. Erect penises made of wood or clay were also installed on street corners and at the entrances to stores and houses.
A sign found over the entrance of a bakery in Pompeii shows a fascinus , framed by an inscription proclaiming “Here dwells happiness” ( Hic habitat felicitas ). Phallic scarecrows were thought to be apotropaic (able to ward off evil), and Greeks and Romans wore bronze penis-shaped pendants. In all these different forms, the phallus was always synonymous with strength, happiness and prosperity.
In Greek art, depictions of the vulva – believed to boost female fertility – are only found on objects intended for women.
Statuettes of pregnant women touching their vulvas have been found in Egypt. Other figurines of vulva-women, found in Asia Minor, were probably worn by pregnant women as protective amulets. The ethnologist and psychoanalyst Georges Devereux associated these headless figurines, whose faces are engraved on their bellies, with the myth of the priestess Baubo, who showed her vulva to Demeter to distract the goddess from her grief at the loss of her daughter.
Like Ra in the Egyptian story of Hathor, Demeter reacted by laughing–but Baubo showed her vulva as a gesture of female solidarity, with no erotic intention.
Figurine of a vulva-woman known as Baubo, terracotta, Priene, Asia Minor, 4th century AD. ( Reddit )
The denigration of the vulva outside the female sphere is illustrated by the birth of the goddess Athena , who was growing in Zeus’ skull. One day, Zeus had such a headache that he begged the god Hephaestus to split open his skull with a hammer and chisel. Hephaestus complied, carving out a sort of improvised vulva .
The goddess Athena, in full armor, sprang out from this crack – so the lord of the gods was able to give birth to his daughter, proving the vulva’s worthlessness. This myth is a fantasy of male birth-giving – procreation in which the vulva plays no part.
But the most hostile ancient representations of the vulva are found in Latin texts. Roman authors imagined nymphomaniac characters; women gripped by uncontrollable sexual frenzy. One such example is Messalina , wife of the emperor Claudius (reigned AD 41-54). After her death, she became the heroine of a sinister legend portraying her as sexually insatiable .
The poet Juvenal described her orgiastic behavior in his Satires , recounting how the young empress left the splendor of the palace under cover of night, venturing out in secret to gratify her lust in a sordid Roman brothel (Juvénal, Satires VI, 116-130).
All night long, Messalina took lover after lover, only stopping when the brothel closed its doors. She returned to the palace with her “taut sex still burning” ( adhuc ardens rigidae tentigine vulva
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