Vulva Love
⚡ ALL INFORMATION CLICK HERE 👈🏻👈🏻👈🏻
Vulva Love
Why Marvel's Karen Gillan Embraces Her Anxiety
Your New Must-Try: Sautéed Dandelion Toast
The Only Marathon Training Plan You'll Ever Need
Your June Horoscope: Communication Clarity
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Anna Medaris Miller
Anna Medaris Miller is a writer and editor in New York City who has years of experience reporting and writing on various health topics.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Should You Be Worried About A Plan B Ban?
9 Types Of Bug Bites You Shouldn’t Ignore
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
The Right Way To Do An Elimination Diet
What Is TikTok's Dangerous 'Blackout Challenge'?
Do Anti-Bloat Supplements Really Work?
What It's Like To Live With Ongoing Lyme Disease
'Sometimes Self-Care Means Discipline'
The 10 Best Air Purifiers, According To Doctors
10 Places To Buy Plan B Online That Deliver To You
'I’m An Abortion Doula And I Won't Stop Fighting'
Women's Health may earn commission from the links on this page, but we only feature products we believe in.
Why trust us?
Who wants a portrait of their lady parts?
Every day for the last year and a half, Hilde Atalanta has painted a picture of one vulva. At first, inspiration came from her imagination; then, from the internet; and, most recently, from women who send her photos of their goods.
For the Amsterdam-based illustrator who also paints full bodies and faces, vulvas are compelling portrait subjects. “You have some people who have big noses, some have small noses, but in all those standard sizes, you have a lot of these tiny differences in character—it’s the same with vulvas,” she says.
A vulva, by the way, is the name for the visible part of what most people just dub "vagina." It encompasses all the external parts of the female nether regions including the mons pubis (fatty patch perched atop your pubic bone), the labia (inner and outer lips framing the vaginal opening), the clitoris and its protective hood, and more.
Together, Atalanta's colorful sketches make up The Vulva Gallery , an Instagram phenomenon showcasing more than 550 vulva illustrations. Her gallery, she hopes, will help people celebrate their down-there diversity, whether or not they identify as women. “We seem to strive for some kind of normal or perfect, but normal doesn’t really exist, so every vulva is normal in its uniqueness,” she says.
So true. "Some are wrinkly, and some are really tout, and some sort of gape a little; some completely close up the entrance to the vagina, and all of that is variations of healthy and normal," says Lee Roosevelt, Ph.D., a midwife and clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing who just happens to see about 35 patients (and thus vulvas) per day.
Here's a sampling of some of Atalanta's awesome vulva illustrations, with expert commentary about what you're looking at, exactly. Full disclosure: After checking these out, you just may wind up deciding your vulva should be immortalized, too.
A post shared by The Vulva Gallery (@the.vulva.gallery) on Oct 30, 2016 at 11:41pm PDT
Researchers surveyed more than 3,000 U.S. women and found that 83.8 percent of them did at least some grooming, according to a 2016 JAMA Dermatology study . Young, white, and educated women, as well as women whose partners preferred it, were most likely to tend their gardens.
Perhaps that's why more women seem to be concerned about the size, shape, and color of their vulvas these days. "If you've got a forest, you can't see the rocks," says Lauren Streicher, M.D., an ob-gyn in Chicago and the medical director of the Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause at Northwestern University Memorial Hospital, "and now everyone's looking."
A post shared by The Vulva Gallery (@the.vulva.gallery) on Oct 3, 2017 at 7:30am PDT
Of course, not everyone's baring all. In her clinical practice, Roosevelt finds the bush is coming back. For some women, that's a good thing since it can mean avoiding shaving- and waxing-induced folliculitis (inflamed hair follicles), razor burn and other complications.
One study even found that the more frequently and completely folks groomed, the more likely they were to have STIs. (That may have to do with the little nicks hair removal can create in the skin, allowing bacteria and viruses to infect, but the study authors point out there's still no evidence that shaving causes the increased STI risk.)
While Roosevelt doesn't judge any grooming habits (or lack thereof), “the more we talk about vulva and its variations," she says, "the more accepting women are of their bodies and the more accepting they are of it in its natural state.”
A post shared by The Vulva Gallery (@the.vulva.gallery) on Jul 25, 2017 at 7:34am PDT
Do your labia minora hang low? Own it, advocates Atalanta, who started what turned into The Vulva Gallery after learning about the global rise in labiaplasties.
“Cutting away a body part that is so sensitive, a very important part of your erogenous zone, something so delicate, just because you are afraid that your partner might not like it really hit me,” she says. (She’s cool, by the way, with such surgeries for physical comfort or medical reasons.)
Women’s health experts concur: Labia minora that aren’t so, well, minor aren’t only totally normal; in Roosevelt’s words, “they’re these pretty little wings.”
A post shared by The Vulva Gallery (@the.vulva.gallery) on Mar 14, 2017 at 10:09am PDT
Just like one boob is often bigger than the other, one side of the labia minora can be longer than the other. Nothing to worry about, experts say, although when both sides are super long, some women can experience issues like discomfort biking, embarrassment wearing yoga pants, or trouble peeing straight.
"There are some theoretical health concerns," of long or asymmetrical labia minora, says Karen Horton, M.D., a plastic surgeon in San Francisco who specializes in female cosmetic and reconstructive surgery, including labiaplasties. "But in the medical community, it’s normal and natural."
A post shared by The Vulva Gallery (@the.vulva.gallery) on Oct 28, 2017 at 6:13am PDT
Roosevelt can make a good guess about a woman's BMI and age just based on the looks of her mons pubis—the patch beneath the pubes. "It may be rounder, it may be thinner, how far it extends down before the labia split varies," she says, but women with more body fat tend to have plumper patches.
Women who've gone through menopause, on the other hand, may find theirs slimming, thanks to hormonal changes. "After menopause, you loose fat in your external genitalia," Horton says. In Asia, fat grafting procedures to fluff that deflated pillow are trending, she adds.
A post shared by The Vulva Gallery (@the.vulva.gallery) on Sep 8, 2017 at 7:03am PDT
Vulvas don’t only differ in color person by person, but they often sport various shades in and of themselves. One of the most common patterns? Inner lips that are a shade—or 50 shades—deeper than the outer lips.
“A lot of women complain that their labia minora are too dark—they’re picturing these teeny little pink things,” Streicher says. But darker inner lips are totally normal.
Attempting to bleach them (or any part of your vulva) is a bad idea, Horton says. "Creams and lasers can create harm," like burns or increased sensitivity, she says. And some can even cause more pigment to form.
A post shared by The Vulva Gallery (@the.vulva.gallery) on Aug 21, 2017 at 7:00am PDT
This clit don't hide, and that's no big deal since the size and visibility of the clitoris varies as widely as the vulva's other parts, experts say. The clitoral hood can be large or small or in between, says Horton, who occasionally performs clitoral hood reduction surgeries.
"The hood is basically folds of drapery, and a lot of women feel like they have fold after fold after fold of skin there," she says. But none of that matters when it comes to pleasure, Roosevelt says.
Plus, most women’s clitorises look more or less the same during arousal, when it swells and emerges from under the hood. "There’s not sexual response difference in women who have a smaller clitoral hood," Roosevelt says.
A post shared by The Vulva Gallery (@the.vulva.gallery) on Dec 16, 2017 at 7:23am PST
Whether the idea of a below-the-belt piercing arouses you or makes you cringe, “as long as they’re done by safe, experienced, clean piercers, there’s absolutely no risk,” says Roosevelt, who’s had patients who’ve loved their piercings, and others who’ve wanted them removed.
The key is understanding your anatomy. If, for example, your clitoral hood—the bit that’s often pierced—has always been fiercely protected by your your labia, a jewel may be jarring, for better or worse. Some women, Roosevelt says, “don’t want their clitorises stimulated when they’re sitting in a meeting.”
As for this vulva owner: “I like how it shines and how it surprises everyone who sees it," she writes. "My vulva shines, I shine and this is an awesome feeling!”
*First Published: Jul 24, 2015, 10:05 pm CDT
Posted on Jul 24, 2015 Updated on May 28, 2021, 7:13 am CDT
Following rigorous competition and more than 130,000 voters, the World’s Most Beautiful Vagina Contest anointed a champion this week. It was a strange, difficult-to-gauge event—but that’s why organizers turned to scientists to tell us what it all means.
U.K. resident Nell, 27, won first place and $5,000 in the pageant with a vulva beauty ranking of 7.7 out of 10. Jenny, 23, of Bavaria, Germany, took second place with a 7.3; and Anita, 20, from Hungary, came in third. They each earned $2,500 and $1,250, respectively.
The contest was sponsored by Brian Sloan, who is also the manufacturer of the Autoblow 2 . It’s known as “the first truly realistic alternative to traditional pleasure products for men,” according to the its website .
These winners will also be flown out to Los Angeles, where their vulvas will be 3D-scanned to later be reproduced for the Autoblow device.
Sloan contracted a group of data scientists to analyze the contest’s findings for their scientific implications. The data was then compiled in “ The Vulva Paper .”
If you’re a visual learner, you can view photo examples of each class here .
The Vulva Paper’s website says scientists “used the contest data to assess the diversity in vulval morphology and voters’ preference for different morphologies.” A total of 182 women participated in the contest; 110 entries were examined for the study (if measurements could not be taken from the photo, the entry was not considered).
The scientists viewed each entry on a 15-inch computer screen, zooming in “until the genitalia were easily measured using a screen ruler,” read the paper .
They measured labia majora length, labia minora length, and clitoral hood length.
Finally, the scientists rated the complexity of the labia minora; they used the three categories of rugosity (smooth, moderate, marked) to do so. To prevent vaginal bias, the same person also conducted all of these measurements. The scientists later used this research to classify the contest’s entries into six different categories of “vulval morphology.”
A chart detailing the six classes is included below:
As far as methodology is concerned, a random assortment of entries was sent to each voter, who was then asked to rate the vulva pictured on a scale from 1 to 10. These voters were only able to rank one photo at a time, but could also vote on an unlimited number of entries. The scientists compiled 2,766,671 ratings from 134,707 contest voters.
“To reduce individual biases, we centered each voter’s ratings using their mean and standard deviation. This allowed us to reflect the preferences of voters on the same scale,” read the study .
According to the paper , each voter rated 21 photos, on average. Each vulva also received 15,285 votes, on average.
The study also found that “roughly 51% of voters preferred the first two classes of non-protruding, simple labia. The other 49% favored the four more complex vulva classes.”
“As expected from the rankings that we saw at the country and local levels, Class 1 vulvas are preferred over the others more often. But the combined percentages of voters who preferred more complex classes of vulvas far outweighed those who preferred the simplest style.”
The winners’ photos, however, were not included in the study—having been among the participants whose photos were not able to be considered. Moreover, the “doggy style” posture featured in these entries made it difficult for the scientists to complete the necessary measurements.
“Indeed, pictures depicting contest entrants in a doggy style position obtained ratings 2 points higher on average (p <0.001) than others. Other features, like piercings in the clitoral hood, didn’t affect the ratings,” read the study .
So basically, the “doggy style” photos generated “influential excitement” among the contest’s voters—an important competitive advantage for all future entrants to consider.
Photo via mislav-marohnic /Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)
‘I had the minion menu and i had diarrhea for 4 days’: IHOP customers find raw chicken in their Minions meal
‘That whole thing seemed incorrect’: TikToker says ‘rude-ass’ piercer ruined experience for her
‘Because their money was actually worth something’: Worker’s video about being burnt out at 25 when parents worked 9-5 for life sparks debate
‘I would just leave and never talk to my mom again’: Mom makes 18-year-old sign lease to ‘rent a room,’ sparking debate
Applicators
Mists & Creams
pH Test Strips
Suppositories
Supplements
Teas
All My [pH]eels
Boric Life
Boric Life Plus
Balanced Goods
Daily Flora
In My [pH]eels
Intimist
Light Sleeper
Phresh & Clean
Tea Tree Oil
The Helper
Teas
Vagisoft
Flora Balance
Odor
pH Balance
All Your Parts
Gut
Vagina
Boric Life
Intimist
Tea Tree
Vagisoft
BY CATEGORY
Applicators
Mists & Creams
pH Test Strips
Suppositories
Supplements
Teas
BY PRODUCT
All My [pH]eels
Boric Life
Boric Life Plus
Balanced Goods
Daily Flora
In My [pH]eels
Intimist
Light Sleeper
Phresh & Clean
Tea Tree Oil
The Helper
Teas
Vagisoft
BY BENEFIT
Flora Balance
Odor
pH Balance
BY BODY PART
All Your Parts
Gut
Vagina
MOST POPULAR
Boric Life
Intimist
Tea Tree
Vagisoft
Whole Body Love
Vagina Love
Gut Love
Period Love
Immune Love
Talk
Shemale Cock Fucking
Little Sister Fuck Story
Passionate Sex Vids