The Little Book of Vaginas: Everything You Need to Know

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Science is not exactly my thing. Since it’s also not Naomi’s thing, we apparently have one thing in common. The only difference is that she will insist on writing about science, and while I am not perfect, I try my best to avoid talking out of my ass as often as humanly possible. So I will keep the talk about science brief so that I don’t end up looking like an idiot, and quote a neuroscientist’s response to Naomi’s belief that dopamine is the ultimate feminist chemical in the female brain: Labia minora: The labia minora are skinfolds that are just inside the labia majora.In some people, the labia minora extends past the labia majora. Overall, I learnt quite a lot in the first two parts of the book. For example the chapter on “The Traumatised Vagina” was interesting and I can 100% agree with her statement that rape and other forms of sexual assault should be understood not only as a form of forced sex, but also as an injury to the brain and body, considering the vagina-mind connection and the unbelievable amount of PTSD one would be forced to live with.

Later, a BBC report about girls as young as nine seeking labiaplasty – surgery that involves the lips of the vagina being shortened or reshaped – because they were distressed by its appearance, had Laura reaching for her camera again. “The idea that girls and young women think their vagina is ugly and want to change how it looks is just wrong, and sad.”

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Sexual violence is a real and serious problem, and I found the descriptions of sexual violence survivors offensive at times, because of how sincerely Wolf believes her premise that the connection between the vagina and the brain is so profound that damaging the vagina (specifically) is a shorthand way of subjugating and disempowering women. This narrative doesn't leave a lot of room for healing or overcoming wounds left by sexual violence, instead creating a dynamic that leaves sexually assault victims hamstringed by their victimization.

Part of the reason I continue to perform in pornography is that it allows me to experience the beauty of sharing my sexuality with others, and using this privileged and empowered position to show that diverse sexual responses, desires, and expressions can be sexy - whether it's made visible through myself in terms of white cream, female ejaculation, fisting, pubic hair, gender play, etc… or from that of what I share of my fellow sex-positive peers. The personal is political, professional, and powerful. I was afraid of penises my whole life. First I wanted to have one. Then I entered puberty and my breasts grew, and I knew there was no way I was going to be a boy. Then I was hurt by penises. I was molested by my father and I had teenage interactions with boys who put pressure on me.

Buuut no, apparently women can only reach orgasm (life-changing orgasm that is) if a man spends 15 minutes staring into our vagina while calling us “beautiful”, or as the author thinks they should say (in fact lie if they have to), “the most beautiful woman in the world”. If the outer lips are short, they may not meet and may expose the inner lips more prominently. Inner lips Even though she refers to it as the hardest part of the project, Laura believes including so many of these harrowing experiences adds to the impact of her message – because there is no singular female experience. Labia majora: The labia majora are the fleshy outer folds of protective skin located on each side of the vaginal opening. They cover and protect the more delicate external genital organs. "Labia" is the Latin word for lips. The labia majora is often referred to as the outer lips.

For example, she clearly has no understanding of what a "control group" is but continuously refers to "control group" where there are no obvious controls (or where there wasn't even an experiment).Another Netflix original, Sex Education (2019) – which also follows a group of teenagers coping with the trials and joys of their changing bodies – covers topics including sexually transmitted diseases, masturbation, sex, and leaked nudes. When I initially started this I was immediately fascinated and ultimately just content someone was throwing facts about the vagina at me. Facts that I’ve only just discovered because no one talks about them, and facts that actually make sense to me - from women’s neural wiring to the autonomic nervous system (ANS). She accounts to the differences in female sexual response that is honestly very validating to hear, considering women are often told fat lies about how and how not to orgasm, what’s right and wrong with the orgasm, etc - often told by their sexual partners who got their so called “facts” from porn. In her conclusion she tells the story of seeing a forest fire near Petra (while vacationing in Greece). While watching the fire she realized that "the original sin did not, as the Judeo-Christian tradition has it, originate in human sexuality. Our species' original sin was in deviating from our earliest tradition of reverence for the feminine and for female sexuality".