88 | SEPTEMBER 2019 Illustration | NATHALIE BATES
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Here I am, writing you a letter, and yet
I can’t look at you. Not straight on. You’re
tucked away, out of sight, underneath, in
my pants. Maybe that’s where our problems
started – if I could see you, easily and
clearly, that would be one thing, but I can’t,
so it’s another thing. Something else entirely.
When I was young, I called you a ‘little
bottom’. Most other people my age said
‘front bottom’ and some of them, just
a couple, said ‘vagina’, which struck me
as embarrassing. That word was rude,
I suspected. Now I know, all these years
later, that it wasn’t. It was just more
accurate. Or almost. The muscular tube
is the vagina, isn’t it? And everything else- the pubic mound and the labia and the
clitoris and the urethral and vaginal
openings – is the vulva. Most of the time,
when I call you a vagina, I mean a vulva –
and it matters, this mistake. It might seem
like a harmless error, but how will we get
past the taboo around you, the stigma
that still surrounds women’s genitals, if
we don’t call you what you are? So, let’s
be clear from now on: a ‘vagina’ is inside
the body and a ‘vulva’ is outside.
I suppose I was always encouraged to
ignore you. When little girls put their
hands in their pants, parents pull them
out quickly. There’s a squeamish but joyful
acceptance that boys will be interested in
their own genitals; with girls, it’s generally
frowned upon. Even after periods began
and pangs of arousal arrived, my friends
and I were discouraged from seeking too
intimate a relationship with our vulvas.
You’re miraculous, of course, where life
begins – but instead of being directed
towards marvel, to celebrate you or even
just plod along with a quiet admiration for
how you do what you were made to do,
we’re led to be ashamed. Ashamed of how
you smell and look. Of what you want and
need. I didn’t know enough about you for
far too long. Well into my teens, I was
ignorant. Of course, I looked, and, of course,
I touched – and, of course, I consulted the
An open
bookdictionary and encyclopedia for
anatomical descriptions, looking
up the words to describe what
I was discovering. Of course, I
talked to other girls, and, of
course, I was curious. But my
curiosity wasn’t met with open
conversations or matter-of-fact
information. Any mention of
you and adults would change
the subject or blush and laugh.
When it came to you, I hit a
wall. Even when you caused
me pain, when I passed out in
the bathroom because of my
period. Even when I sensed
(correctly, it turned out)
that my hymen would be a
hindrance to sex. Even then,
I faced a lack of information.I’d been told that a hymen was like a pierceable
sheet covering you that would break the first time
I had sex (if not before through the use of tampons or
strenuous exercise); I’d been told that a hymen was a
tool that measured virginity. But that’s not the truth, not
really; because the hymen is usually more like a ring of
tissue rather than a covering and it differs from woman
to woman, girl to girl. Some girls don’t have hymens;
some have hymens so thick and stubborn that they need
medical intervention. When everyone pretends that every
vagina, every vulva, every hymen – every body – is the
same, we deceive girls and women, misleading them
and prioritising cultural myths over their wellbeing.
Even now, I’m not sure I really get you, not for want of
trying. When I talk to the doctor about you, I often leave
feeling confused. When sex and periods and you hurt,
I feel ignored and overlooked. You’re still a mystery to
me; there’s so much I don’t know about you because
there is so much they – the doctors and scientists and
experts – don’t know about you. They only recently
started researching you in earnest – the full size andAs part of Hearst UK’s Big Book
Awards 2019, WH crowned Vagina: A
Re-Education as our read of the year.
So, naturally, we asked the winning author,
Lynn Enright, to pen a letter to hers...