Read My Lips (2 page)

We wrote
Read My Lips
because we wanted to write the kind of book that we wish we had come across earlier in our lives. It has a little bit of everything, including information about the parts of the vulva, health issues, sex, pubic hairstyles, periods, smell, taste, appearance, GYN exams, genital self-image, orgasms, feminine-hygiene products, and art. It also uses crafting, a traditionally female form of expression, to engage in the somewhat subversive act of celebrating and exploring issues related to the often contested territory of vulvas and vaginas.

We hope that you will enjoy and embrace our labor of v-love for what it is: a celebration of and an education about the vulva and vagina. We hope that you laugh while you read this book and also that you walk away from each chapter feeling as though you’ve learned something new. We hope, too, that your reading inspires you to love and respect your vulva and vagina (or those of a partner or friend) as the beautiful, powerful, and sometimes magical places that they can be.

• 1 •

Meet the Vulva

Like love, the vulva is a many-splendored thing. In addition to quite literally serving as the window to a baby’s world during vaginal birth, women’s genitals are also often a source of pleasure, stimulation, and orgasmic release. Although women who look at, touch, and appreciate their vulvas and vaginas may be particularly well situated to experience genital pleasure, women who have never seen or touched their genitals can start exploring at any time (well, almost any time; it’s wise and considerate of others to wait until you’re alone or with a partner rather than try this at work, on public transportation, or at the grocery store).

That said, vulvas have a complicated history. There are reasons why some women may feel uncomfortable or unfamiliar with this part of their own bodies. Although some people in certain cultures have done or continue to do harmful things to women’s genitals, the vulva has long been revered, adored, and even worshipped by many people and in many societies.
^1
,
2
We’re here to tell you why, how, and in what interesting ways this has been done, including a story about the time we took to the famous Las Vegas Strip with Vanessa dressed in a self-made and way larger-than-life vulva costume while Debby conducted on-camera interviews with adult women and men of all ages about vulvas.
³

V-CRAFT: DIY VULVA COSTUME

In September 2009, when Vanessa and Debby walked up and down the Las Vegas Strip with Vanessa dressed as a giant vulva,
³
we got so many great reactions to our experiment (check out our video podcasts on our web site—readmylipsthebook.tumblr.com—to see how people responded to us). We didn’t know what would happen: Would people look at us funny? Would they laugh? Would we get arrested for a public vulva display? We truly had no idea.

Although a few people thought Vanessa was dressed as a
Star Wars
character, many people knew exactly what she was—and they were thrilled. One man, a professional poker player from Japan—said that she was dressed as “the best thing in the world,” which warmed our hearts.

Here’s how to create your own vulva costume:

What You’ll Need

• two pairs of tights (can be any color)
  
• four sheets (can be from the same set or different sets)
  
• some scissors
  
• a vulvariffic attitude
  

What to Do

1. Stuff the sheets into the legs of the two pairs of tights. One sheet goes in each leg.
   
2. Knead the sheet-filled tights to bunch the labia any way you like. Remember: labia can be any shape or size, and they are rarely ever symmetrical.
   
3. If you would like to bring your hair through the tights (so as to resemble pubic hair once it is on), use scissors to cut one or more small holes in the crotch of the pantyhose. Cut the hole before the tights are on your head, or you run the risk of accidentally cutting yourself. Always be careful when holding scissors near real or fake genitals!
   
4. Slip the crotch area of the tights over your head—almost so that it looks like a bald wig—and slip your hair through the holes, if desired.
   
5. Once both pairs are on over your head, tie the toes of the tights down around your waist or wherever they fall so that the labia stay together.
   
6. Your head is the clitoris, so smile and be proud!
   

For more specifics, check out our DIY Vulva Costume video on our web site.

Vulva newbies will probably want to read this book two or three times, as their new knowledge about women’s genitals soaks in. However, even the most seasoned, well-versed vulvalucionaries will find new facts about women’s genitals in these pages as they’re informed by the latest and greatest recent discoveries about women’s vulvas and vaginas. And who doesn’t need a new vulva craft project? (You’ll find at least one craft project nestled in each chapter.) First, though, let’s get acquainted with the vulva so that we can begin our adventure together with a shared sense of knowledge.

WHAT’S A VULVA?

If you guessed a car, we understand why; this is a common misperception given how close “vulva” and “Volvo” sound. However, the term “vulva” actually refers to the parts of a woman’s genitals that can be seen from the outside: the mons pubis, clitoral hood, clitoris, labia majora, labia minora, and the introitus, also called the vaginal opening (the gateway to the vagina). If you’re not sure what all these parts are or what they do, don’t worry—you’ll soon find out. Many women lack familiarity with their vulva parts. We certainly didn’t always know a lot about vulvas, but we’re happy that we learned about them so that we can spread the word to other women and men. Case in point: years ago, when Debby was a graduate student at Indiana University (IU), she was tossing a Frisbee with her teammates from the Calamity Janes (IU’s ultimate Frisbee club team) and talking about her sex-education work and what it was like to teach human sexuality classes to college students when one of her teammates asked her where the clitoris is located. Because Debby was standing in the middle of a grassy field without a textbook, diagram, or chalk-board in sight to use as a visual aid, she was forced to improvise.

People should learn what the vulva is. In the common mind, the vulva is called vagina. I spoke about this to an educated woman who was confused about the distinction between vulva and vagina. I had to get out an anatomy book to convince her. In another incident I had occasion to talk to a sex therapist. She admitted being guilty of referring to the vulva as vagina. The word vagina is now used freely. I heard Robin Williams on a TV show refer to ‘vagina’ meaning vulva. I must say, this makes me angry. It is denial in the guise of freedom to discuss sexuality in public.

—
J
OY,
82, New York

“Imagine my face is a vulva,” Debby said, dropping the Frisbee to the ground. Pointing to her mouth, she said, “My mouth would be the vagina and my lips would be the labia minora, which are the inner vaginal lips.” Next, she pushed her cheeks closer to her lips and said, “My cheeks would be the labia majora, the outer vaginal lips. That would make my nose—just above the vagina but not inside of it—my clitoris.”

Not only did Debby’s Frisbee teammates learn about the vulva and clitoris that day, but Debby also invented a new way to use her face as an educational icebreaker at parties and a great get-to-know-each-other topic on first dates. Try it sometime (well—maybe not on “first” dates).

Watch a video of Debby showing how her face can become a vulva on our web site,
www.readmylipsthebook.tumblr.com

Fortunately, we have diagrams available to us here in this book, so there’s no need to rely on Debby’s face for our entire knowledge about women’s vulvas. Check out our diagrams to see where the various vulva parts are located. Then, if you’re a woman, find some time to check out your own vulva (if you’re a man with a female sex partner, perhaps she will be kind enough to give you a guided tour of her vulva). In San Francisco, at the Center for Sexuality and Culture, gay men (mostly—but others are invited) have been able to sign up for and attend a class called “Cunts for Fags.”
⁴
This class teaches attendees everything they need to know about vulvas and vaginas so that they can effectively teach about women’s genitals alongside a wide range of sexual health topics. Those who have never previously seen a woman’s vulva or vagina before are invited to view and/or touch genitals for educational purposes. If you are interested in attending, find more information from the Center for Sex and Culture (see Resources). We highly recommend the class for everyone regardless of whether you choose to have sex with a vulva-equipped woman.

As you review the diagrams, notice that, if you’re a woman, your genital parts probably look a little or a lot different than the images here in this book. This is to be expected. After all, there is no one “standard” vulva
^5
–
8
—a message that is worth repeating. Let’s try that:
There is no one “standard” vulva.
This is a powerful message. It means that there is no need to compare the appearance of your genitals to the genitals of any other woman on the planet. Like a thumbprint, they are all a little different. Some women have a small glans clitoris (the part of the clitoris that can be seen from the outside), while other women have a glans clitoris that stretches out for an inch or two or more. Most of us are somewhere in between. The size, color, and shape of the clitoral hood can vary, too.
^5
–
8

Only a handful of researchers have measured women’s genital parts, but those that have done so have found that vulva parts come in all sorts of shapes and sizes (see sidebar). The labia minora (inner vaginal lips) are particularly variable in size.
⁸
Author, sex educator, and activist Betty Dodson used the name of famous architectural designs (e.g., baroque, classical) to emphasize the different, yet beautiful, variations in women’s inner labia.
⁹
She, along with other sex educators and artists, has also likened the shape of women’s labia to the appearance of hearts, angel wings, sea shells, or flowers (particularly orchids). Before we get too excited about the labia, though (and believe us, we definitely get going talking about labia in chapter 4), let’s back up and go part by part through the vulva. Even if you think you know all your vulva parts, read on, as you may learn something new. Research scientists are learning new things about vulvas and vaginas all the time. Has there ever been a better time in the history of the world to have, or be curious about, a vulva?

VULVA DIMENSIONS

Several years ago, researchers measured the vulvas of fifty premenopausal women in order to better understand how similar and different we all are from one another.
⁸
Here are some examples of what they found in terms of female genital diversity.

Let’s start with the clitoris:

• The length of the glans clitoris ranged from 3 to 35 mm.
  
• The width of the glans clitoris ranged from 3 to 10 mm.
  
• The distance from the clitoris to the urethra was as little as 14 mm and as much as 45 mm.
  

Women’s labia also varied considerably:

• The outer labia (labia majora) length ranged from 7 to 12 mm.
  
• Women’s inner labia (labia minora) length ranged from 20 to 100 mm.
  
• The width of the inner labia was as little as 7 and as much as 50 mm.
  

The size of the perineum ranged in length from 15 to 55 mm. The researchers also noted the color of the genital area and how dark or light it was compared with the color of women’s surrounding skin. Of the fifty women they examined, they found that nine women (18 percent) had genital skin that was the same color of the rest of their surrounding skin and forty-one had genital skin that was darker than the skin around it.

VULVA INTRODUCTIONS

The
mons pubis
(a.k.a. “the mons”) is a term that refers to the triangular area between a woman’s legs and is the genital part that women have most frequently seen on other women, such as while changing in the locker room. Other terms for this area include the
mound of Venus
and the
pubic mound
. Most women, if they let nature take its course, will have pubic hair growing on their mons and down the outer edges of their
labia majora
, which are women’s outer vaginal lips, as well as a little or a lot of pubic hair on the inner thighs.
¹⁰
For women who choose to keep some or all of their pubic hair, it can feel sensuous to gently tug on one’s pubic hair during masturbation or sex with a partner.