I open my laptop and click on the Zoom link. My heart is pounding in my chest, and I look up to check that my bedroom door is locked. Next to me, on the floor, sits a hand mirror and a tube of lube. I join the call and the faces of seven strangers pop up on my screen. "Now, we’re going to explore our vulvas," announces the host.
I begin to spiral, self-doubt clouding my anxious mind – why am I doing this? What am I expecting to gain from it? Shall I just slam my laptop down right now and forget that I ever even considered it?
This is Naomi Gale’s virtual ‘vagina workshop’ – a class she has been running monthly for a year. Gale is a healing coach who specialises in somatic therapy, an alternative practice that aims to align the mind and body. Through these classes, she works with participants to change their relationship with sex and their body. "I see spaces like mine as silent protests, in which those who enter the room claim back what is rightfully theirs," Gale explains.
Over the next three hours, through a combination of yoga, breathwork and journalling, I will be getting to know my intimate parts more, well, intimately, with the aim of rewriting my relationship with my vulva.
Vag, pussy, c**t, foof, tw*t, fanny… we all have a different name for it. And the patriarchy has weaponised these names into some of our culture’s worst insults. We’ve been told it’s smelly, ugly, not tight enough, too hairy, not hairy enough. We’ve been sold deodorisers and scented sanitary products. It’s no wonder that our relationships with our vulvas – the area that includes our labia, clitoris and the opening of the vagina – are a little complicated. In fact, in a recent Cosmopolitan poll, almost half (49%) of you said that you felt self-conscious about your vulva.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that girls aged 18 and younger want to go under the knife*. And, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the number of labiaplasties performed globally in 2019 reached a staggering 164,667, a 73.3% rise since 2015. Labiaplasty involves reshaping the labia minora – which are the folds of skin either side of the vaginal opening – or reducing the size or length.
So, what’s driving this increase? In our poll, 80% of you said that pornography affects how you feel about your vulva. And Julie Bowring, consultant gynaecologist in sexual and reproductive health at London Gynaecology agrees, "It is common to have asymmetry in the body and also in the vulva." But just one scroll down Pornhub’s homepage shows vulvas sorted into ‘outies’ – with descriptors including ‘meaty’ and ‘big’ – or ‘innies’, alongside adjectives such as ‘cute’ and ‘perfect’.
Labiaplasty is so closely linked to the sex industry that it’s often referred to as the ‘porn star’ procedure by parts of the media, perpetuating the idea that vulvas should be hairless, with symmetrical, neatly tucked labia. A 2021 survey by sanitary brand Callaly found that 40% of 16 to 24-year-olds and 37% of 25 to 34-year-olds wished they had ‘neat, symmetrical’ vulvas (and, heartbreakingly, that one in five people aged 16 to 24 have considered cutting or bleaching their vulva themselves). And it’s affecting our sex lives. Our poll revealed 92% of you feel there is an expectation to remove pubic hair before a hook-up. A 2019 study by vaginal health brand Vagisil found as many as two-thirds of millennial women have avoided intimacy due to anxiety around their vagina’s smell.
Cécile Gasnault, brand director of sex-toy company Smile Makers, and founder of the progressive sex-ed course Vulva Talks, explains that this buried shame feeds into the well-documented ‘orgasm gap’. "Vulva shame leads many young women to receive less oral sex than they give," she says. "The phallocentric approach to sex that makes penetration the epitome erases the vulva from the pleasure map. But as 70% of vulva owners need external stimulation to climax, this representation dismisses pleasure for female-bodied people."
It seems that with centuries – make that millennia – of women being encouraged to be quieter, smaller and take up less space, our genitals have been treated the same, causing us unnecessary embarrassment and shame, preventing us from having great sex.
Big vulva energy
Back on my Zoom call, I reflect on my own rollercoaster relationship with my vulva. Writing a vagina timeline, I look back on my first period, losing my virginity and my first smear test, and I realise how much the vulva shame I subliminally soaked up has had an impact on my body confidence. Having sex with the lights on was once my ultimate fear. How different might my love life have been if that hadn’t been the case?
Thankfully, help is on the way. A vulva positivity movement is surging on platforms such as TikTok, where creators such as @selfacceptancewithjess and @gabygabss are trying to destigmatise vulvas with more visible labia minora. There’s been a huge rise in demand for this content, too, with hashtags such as #outiegang hitting 39.8 million views and #vagtok with 224.4 million views at time of writing.
Gabriella Scaringe (@gabygabss) launched the vulva-positive underwear brand Cherri in 2019. Using her TikTok platform to highlight the movement, she has since garnered more than 587,000 followers. "I realised when people were resonating with my authenticity and openness that I wasn’t the only one who struggled with insecurities," she says. "People tell me they always thought their bodies were abnormal until watching my videos. I’ve even had people tell me that they’ve cancelled their labiaplasty appointments after trying [Cherri]. They realised that they didn’t need to alter their bodies to fit into underwear because [it] should be made to fit them."
Meanwhile, Canesten, the women’s intimate health brand, has collaborated with the PSHE Association to provide teachers with optional lesson plans. The aim? To educate 11 to 18-year-olds on genital health, with accurate, diverse and non-sexualised portrayals of vulvas, pubic hair and discharge. TV shows are fighting back, too. We’ve seen Aimee Gibbs on Netflix’s Sex Education look at an educational model of a vulva and say, ‘Erm, my vagina doesn’t look like this. One of my lip bits is longer than the other.’ And there have even been vulva worship workshops on Too Hot To Handle (a show with otherwise fairly rigid beauty ideals).
Vulvas are incredibly unique, Bowring explains, just like all other parts of our body. "The vulva and the labia vary hugely in size and appearance from woman to woman." Just as our eyes, ears or breasts aren’t the same size, the lips of our labia are unlikely to be identical, too.
Florence Schechter, founder and director of the Vagina Museum, says that vulva beauty standards differ around the world. Take pubic hair, for instance. "In the West, your vulva is to be fully shaved or very trim, [with] small labia – everything really small. But in East Asia (particularly South Korea), the fashion is to be as hairy as possible. You can even get pubic hair transplants," Schechter says.
But it takes time to adjust. As the broader body positivity movement has taught us, it’s not always easy to suddenly ignore long-worn societal beauty standards at the flick of a switch. "It’s a lot of pressure to put on people to go from ‘everyone should wax their vulva’ to going all natural and feeling comfortable with it," Gasnault says. "Maybe instead of just saying ‘love yourself’, try to understand why you’re feeling this way, and what the cause of shame is and to deconstruct that," Gasnault suggests.
She advises focusing on getting to a place where you feel confident enough to put your own pleasure first. "Masturbation is a valuable practice to explore your pleasure and validate your desires," she says. "Through this, you can realise how much pleasure your body is capable of feeling and that will help to raise the bar for your partnered experiences." Or, if you’re in the mood for it, she also recommends watching ‘ethical pornography’, which often displays more diverse bodies.
Bowring reiterates that there is no right shape or size of labia, which can change during your various life stages. "Having labia that stick out is not abnormal and women should be reassured by this," she says. And while we can all strive to ensure that insecurities don’t inhibit our ability to enjoy great sex, it’s important to talk to your GP first if they do – particularly if there’s any frequent physical pain or discomfort. But Bowring adds, "There should be very few genuine symptoms arising from the elongated or enlarged labia, and women should be managed in a multidisciplinary manner before surgery is considered."
Living shame-free
As the workshop draws to a close, Gale encourages us to lube up and explore our vulvas (off-camera – it wasn’t that kind of class), guiding us through what to feel. It was an intense experience initially, but as I gradually relaxed, I felt more comfortable with my body and with embracing its individuality.
In some ways, it’s disappointing that these classes even have to exist, that any of us feel a sense of shame or guilt around something that’s so powerful, so unique and so inherently ours. "It’s very easy to fall into the trap of saying, ‘The only way to fight shame is to learn to love yourself’," Schechter says, "when actually the problem is not that you don’t love yourself. The problem is that we live in a society that tells us not to love ourselves." But there is a potential solution that we could all act on. "A great thing to do is to strive to live shame-free yourself, which will radiate and help others do the same," she says. Amen to that.
Chloe Bowen is Cosmopolitan UK’s former Features Intern. She holds undergraduate and masters degrees in journalism, and ever since joining the Cosmo team, Chloe writes about everything from sex and dating to mental health, culture, body image and books. In her spare time, she’s likely to be cooking up tasty vegan food, in a yoga class, binge-watching crime documentaries or going on long walks with an over-priced oat milk flat white.
