The lovely ladies, Betty Dodson and Carlin Ross, discussing vulvas (NSFW language):
Vulvas and Vaginas
Poisoning by vagina.
From the Huffington Post:
Vagina 'Murder Plot': Brazilian Man Accuses Wife Of Poisoning Her Private Parts To Kill Him
A Brazilian man has accused his wife of trying to kill him by putting poison in her vagina and inviting him to have oral sex with her.
The man - identified only as a 43-year-old from Sao de Jose Rio Preto - realised something was afoot when he noticed a strange odour coming from his wife's private parts, Portuguese news outlet tvi24 said.
Concerned, he took her to hospital, whereupon she confessed to the nefarious plan,Argentinian newspaper La Razon claims.
Tests apparently revealed the woman had placed enough of the unnamed poison in her vagina to kill both her and her husband. She has since received medical treatment, although sources claim her husband plans to sue her for attempted murder.
Regiaonoroeste.com says the incident was reported to police where officer Walter Colacino Junior has ordered further investigation of the "unusual" nature of the case before action is taken.
Carlin Ross on vulva.
From Dodson and Ross:
No Hair...No Lips...Just a SlitI subscribe to Playboy magazine because it is the largest sex brand in the world. People are a bit shocked to see it lying on my coffee table. I enjoy the photos of the Playboy parties, the interviews, and the political commentary. The women aren't my type but I do look at the pictorials.I'm not sure if they're trying to compete with internet porn but I noticed that they're showing alot more full on vulva than they used to in past issues. Here's the formula: not one women has pubic hair...not one woman has visible labia. They're sex organ is just a slit and they all look alike. Even their outer lips are tight and barely visible. It's like they took a barbie doll and drew a line down the middle of her crotch and voila it's a vulva. They don't look anything like the vulvas we see in the bodysex groups.Our genital art gallery features submissions of genitals from real people - it's how we combat genital shame. It used to be legal to display images of genitals that didn't include sex acts. Now, all images of genitals are considered "adult". If they're labeled "adult", then we must comply with federal statues - we have to keep a copy of each person's drivers license and a signed release proving that they're over 18.We had to take most of the gallery down. Betty was heart broken. We joined a lawsuit against the government fighting for the right to view real genitals without these images being labeled "adult". Without anonymity, no one submits to the site. The genital art gallery has been Betty's research project for the last 25 years. It may seem trivial but we believe viewing these images is a civil liberty - a fundamental right.Porn genitals have been surgically altered and bleached. The healing is looking at real images of real genitals. Betty and I have traveled the world lecturing etc and I can tell you that the number one issue is genital shame. It doesn't matter what part of the world you're in - Scandanavia, Cuba, America, Africa - everyone thinks there's something wrong with their genitals. Whenever we present Betty's vulva/penis drawings, people are healed. It really is so simple.It's totally ridiculous that we can't just look at vulvas and penises and get over it already. What's the big deal? We all have genitals...we all have sex...why not educate our children to love themselves and their bodies?I came across this video - it includes vulva respresentations in the media (every show from Dr. Phil to the Doctors). A vulva isn't a piece of chicken or a hamburger. And they just can't wait to cut off our inner labia. We have to win this lawsuit:
Plastic Surgery Confidential.
Last year, Vanity Fair published the story of a woman who went undercover to three plastic surgeons to see what they would recommend for her. An excerpt:
Fast-forward to the present. In 2007 alone, Americans spent $13 billion on 11.7 million cosmetic procedures (both surgical and nonsurgical). An ongoing controversy over what qualifies as “cosmetic” makes it difficult to determine the number of treatments that were purely restorative, necessitated by third-degree burns, mastectomies, and other medical issues. But what’s clear is that the overall number of men and women undergoing cosmetic procedures in the U.S. has increased by 457 percent since 1997, when relevant statistical data was first collected. As many as one in 20 people today reportedly suffer from Body Dysmorphic Disorder (B.D.D.), a sort of “imagined ugly” syndrome. While difficult to diagnose, plastic-surgery addiction is often linked to B.D.D. Dr. Barry Eppley, who writes a blog titled “Explore Plastic Surgery,” estimates that one-third of plastic-surgery patients will eventually return to have additional work done.When I began this project, I was relatively certain that I didn’t need plastic surgery. I also suspected that plastic surgeons might tell me otherwise. To test my hypothesis, I went undercover. In the process, I hoped to learn something about what happens inside examination rooms across New York City and, by extension, the United States. Are teenybopper idols and those who emulate them freely choosing plastic surgery? Or is plastic surgery choosing them?
The rest of the article, which makes a great read, can be found here.
And the woman who I imagine holds the world record for plastic surgeries, Ms. Jocelyn Wildenstein:
Nobody knows how many surgeries she's had, but it's likely far more than lots and lots and lots.
More vulva collages.
Many people are unfamiliar with the diversity of vulva, in terms of what they look like. To address this, several sites have popped up that feature photos or collages of many different vulvas. Here are two such collages:
Labiaplasty in Australia.
The seriously twisted effect of ridiculous government policy (NSFW):
A love story.
From hypervocal:
The Love Story of a Man and a Woman with Two Sets of Genitals Each
(Probably NSFW.)
Blanche Dumas, born to French and Caribbean parents, was a high-class Parisian courtesan in the late 1800s. She was uniquely qualified for her line of work: Attached to her lower back was a third leg, and her wider-than-normal pelvis contained two bladders, two bowels and, yes, two vaginas. Her doctors noted that both sets of ladyparts had “equally developed sensations.” They also commented on her sex drive, which was “markedly pronounced,” and, they confirmed, “coitus was practised in both vaginae.”
[...]
While living in Paris, Dumas met Juan Baptista dos Santos, a Portuguese man with a “ravenous” sexual appetite. Like Dumas, he happened to have a third, nonfunctional leg, which he kept in a sling or tied to his thigh. And like Dumas, he also had a second set of genitals.
“Juan was considered quite handsome, fit and well proportioned,” writes The Human Marvels, which adds, “Both penises functioned perfectly. An 1865 report stated that Santos used both penises during intercourse and, after finishing with one he would continue with the other.”
Diphallia, known as penile duplication, is a condition in which a male is born with two penises. Only 1,000 cases have ever been reported. One in 5.5 million men in the United States has two penises.
Read the rest of the articles and see the other photos here.
Another new study on pubic hair styling.
From the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Abstract:
Introduction. Pubic hair removal is prevalent among women in the United States. However, most studies related to pubic hair removal are based on cross-sectional surveys and retrospective recall. Aim. The purpose of this research was to, in a prospective event-level daily diary study, assess demographic, affective, relational, situational, and behavioral factors related to women's pubic hair removal. Method. Data collection occurred as part of a 5-week prospective, Internet-based daily diary study. Main Outcome Measures. Age; Affective predictors (positive mood, negative mood, feeling interested in sex, feeling in love); Relational predictors (partner support, partner negativity, partner type, partner gender); Situational predictors (any vaginal symptoms, use of any vaginal hygiene products; having applied any creams to the genitals); Behavioral variables (penile-vaginal sex, penile-anal sex, had finger inserted into vagina, had clitoris stimulated with fingers, inserted toy into vagina, used vibrator on clitoris, inserted finger into anus, inserted toy into anus, duration of penetration, intensity of penetration). Results. A total of 2,453 women ages 18 to 68 (mean age 32.69) completed the study, contributing 49,287 total diaries (mean per person 24.5; standard deviation 10.3, median 30); 15.2% of all days (N = 7,362) involved pubic hair waxing or shaving, with the vast majority of hair removal days involving shaving (N = 7,302; 99%). Pubic hair removal was significantly associated with younger age, a greater interest in sex, vaginal fingering, finger-clitoral stimulation, having a casual sex partner, using vaginal hygiene products, and applying cream to the genitals. Hair removal was marginally associated with longer duration of vaginal penetration. Conclusions. These findings provide greater insight into the factors associated with women's pubic hair removal and their sexual experiences on a day-to-day level. Clinical and educational implications are discussed.
Full reference:
Herbenick, D., Hensel, D., Smith, N.K., Schick, V., Reece, M., Sanders, S.A., & Fortenberry, J.D. (2012). Pubic Hair removal and sexual behavior: Findings from a prospective daily diary study of sexually active women in the United States. Journal of Sexual Medicine. doi: 10.1111/jsm.12031. [Epub ahead of print]
Vulval whitening.
From The Guardian:
Thailand's skin-whitening craze reaches woman's intimate areas
Critics say vaginal whitening wash is extreme example of how cosmetic industry has changed Thai definition of beauty
A new product said to make women's intimate areas "fairer within four weeks" has revived the beauty debate in colour-conscious Thailand, where fair skin is associated with opportunity, success and status, and caused critics to question when, if ever, the skin-whitening craze will end.
Products promising to lighten the face, body and armpits are already available across the country, with skin-whitening pills and diet supplements claiming to pick up where the cosmetics leave off. But this is the first time that a vaginal whitening wash has hit the Thai market.
In the adverts, which are available online, on TV and on radio, a fair-skinned woman in skinny jeans wanders into her closet to change clothes, describing how "everyone wants to look good – but tight shorts can leave your skin darker". The camera then zooms in on her new outfit, which includes a pair of white shorts, to a voiceover claiming that Lactacyd White Intimate can make skin in that area become "bright and translucent".
The launch of a similar product in India this year was met with international disdain after a TV advert insinuated that having a fairer vagina would make women more attractive to men. In Thailand, however, the companies responsible say they have been successful. "Products [have] evolved from face-whitening to body and deodorant solutions to even out dark areas in the armpits," said Louis-Sebastien Ohl of Publicis Thailand, which created the adverts. "Now an intimate toiletry also offers a whitening benefit, because research evidenced that … women [are] keen to have such a product."
In many countries across south-east Asia, fairer skin is equated with higher class as it suggests a life not spent toiling in rice paddies under the sun. The Thai language is peppered with expressions that denigrate dark skin, such as the insult dam mhuen e-ga – "black like a crow". These days, rice farmers wear long sleeves, trousers, wide-brimmed hats and gloves. According to DRAFTFCB, the agency behind many of Nivea's skin-lightening ads in Thailand, such labourers make up much of of the Thai market for Nivea's face- and body-lightening products.
Using pale Korean and Japanese pop stars as illustrations, Thai women's magazines are full of fair-skinned Asians promoting products that promise to whiten, lighten and "boost" the complexion, with slogans such as "Show off your aura" and "Get to know the miracle of white skin". Fair-skinned actors and singers dominate the media nearly all over the Asia-Pacific region, where the skin-lightening industry is expected to reach $2bn this year , with the fastest growing markets in China and India.
But the trend has been associated with health risks as many products contain ingredients such as hydroquinone and mercury, which can lead to permanent skin discolouration or kidney damage. Some products are illegal. There is no suggestion that Lactacyd White Intimate or Nivea products are illegal or contain hydroquinone or mercury.
Critics of the whitening trend, such as Kultida Samabuddhi of the Bangkok Post, who wrote an opinion piece on the whitening feminine wash, say such products have changed the country's value system.
"As the definition of beauty has been changed by cosmetic industry, Thai women who fail to meet the beauty standards set by cosmetic producers and ad agencies have to struggle very hard to maintain their self-esteem," she told the Guardian.
But the skin-whitening craze looks set to continue. The male market is yet to be fully tapped, said Ohl, who added that future variants of Lactacyd White Intimate would be formulated to include anti-ageing properties, "so you can keep intimate parts fresh and young" as well.
The Beautiful Cervix project.
From the homepage (link):
The Beautiful Cervix Project is a grassroots movement celebrating the beauty and intricacies of women’s bodies and fertility! This website provides accessible information about women’s fertility and menstrual cycles and showcases photographs documenting changes in the cervix and cervical fluid throughout the cycle.
The Beautiful Cervix Project teaches cervical self-exam and fertility awareness as a revolutionary path of promoting respect, confidence, and health. We believe that this form of self-empowerment and education will help contradict shame and misinformation around women’s reproductive health and choices, affecting positive change from the personal to global levels.
We hope The Beautiful Cervix Project inspires our readers’ curiosity to observe and appreciate what is normal for each one of us as we track the subtle changes in our bodies throughout our cycles.
The website includes a gallery of photos of cervixes in a range of states (e.g., different times of the cycle, during pregnancy, during procedures, abnormalities, etc.). There are also two sub-galleries with photos from each day of one woman's cycle. The photos are all accompanied by descriptions of observed physiological changes. Here's a sample:
Day Two
Blood – Dark red, medium/light flow
Breasts – normal
Basal body temperature – 97.2 F (and remains between 97 F and 97.4 F until day 20)
See the rest of her series of photos here.
Mother-daughter womb transplant.
From the BBC:
Mother-to-daughter womb transplant 'success' in Sweden
Two Swedish women could be able to give birth using the wombs in which they were carried, doctors say, hailing the world's first mother-to-daughter uterus transplants.
The weekend procedures were completed by more than 10 surgeons at Sweden's University of Gothenburg.
The names of the patients have not been revealed.
Doctors caution they will not consider the operations successful unless the women achieve pregnancy.
"We are not going to call it a complete success until this results in children," said Michael Olausson, one of the Swedish surgeons told The Associated Press.
"That's the best proof."
Both women started in-vitro fertilisation before the surgery, he said, adding that their frozen embryos will be thawed and transferred if the women are considered in good enough health after a year-long observation period.
Up and walking
Both recipients, who are aged in their 30s, were tired after the surgery but recovering well, said the university in a statement.
One had her uterus removed due to cervical cancer and the other was born without a uterus, they added
"The donating mothers are up and walking and will be discharged from the hospital within a few days," said Mats Brannstrom, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the university.
He is the leader of a research team - comprising 20 scientists, doctors and specialists - which has been working on the project since 1999.
Turkish doctors said they had performed a successful uterus transplant last year, giving a womb from a deceased donor to a young woman, but Dr Olausson said he was not sure whether the recipient had yet started undergoing fertility treatment.
The first widely reported womb transplant from a live donor was performed in 2000, in Saudi Arabia, but the organ had to be removed three months later because of a blood clot.
Last year, 56-year-old Eva Ottoson, who lives in Nottinghamshire, said she hoped to become the first woman to have her womb transplanted into her daughter, Sara, 25, who lives in Sweden and was born without reproductive organs.
It remains unknown whether they were involved in the weekend's procedures.
Multi-vaginaed kangaroos.
From Discover Magazine:
We interrupt your regularly scheduled news programming to bring you this wonderful piece of trivia about kangaroo genitals.
Regular readers will know of my love for Inside Nature’s Giants, the British documentary where anatomists cut up large animals to examine how their bodies work and evolved. It’s a truly incredible show, combiningunbridled joy at the natural world, drama, and solid educational value.
So far, it has brought us the horrifying throat of a leatherback turtle, the mysterious bloodsweat of a hippo, and the exploding insides of a beached whale. But this week’s episode may have topped all of that with the triple vaginas of the female kangaroo. The diagram above (an annotated screengrab from the show) explains the complicated plumbing.
This set-up is shared by all marsupials – the group of mammals that raise their young in pouches. Koalas, wombats and Tasmanian devils all share the three-vagina structure. The side ones carry sperm to the two uteruses (and males marsupials often have two-pronged penises), while the middle vagina sends the joey down to the outside world.
Note that the ureters, which carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder, pass through the gaps between the three tubes. In placental mammals, like us, the ureters develop in a different way, and don’t go through the reproductive system. As we develop, the precursors to the reproductive tubes eventually fuse into a single vagina. In marsupials, this can’t happen.
The programme also suggested that this might explain why marsupial embryos are born at such a premature stage of development. A kangaroo’s joey is about the size of a jellybean when it leaves the vagina, and it must endure an arduous crawl into the pouch. It’s possible that with such a narrow tube to go down, it couldn’t get any bigger before its birth.
With its complicated reproductive set-up, a female kangaroo can be perpetually pregnant. While one joey is developing inside the pouch, another embryo is held in reserve in a uterus, waiting for its sibling to grow up and leave. Indeed, a mother kangaroo can nourish three separate youngsters at a time – an older joey that has left the pouch, a young one developing inside it, and an embryo still waiting to be born.
More labia anxiety.
From Jezebel:
Your Vagina Isn’t Just Too Big, Too Floppy, and Too Hairy—It’s Also Too Brown
Good news, ladies! Society has discovered another new thing that's wrong with you, which means another opportunity for you to make yourself more attractive for your man. Score! Turns out, the color of your vagina is gross and everyone hates it. So bleach that motherfucker. Bleach it right now!
In this commercial for an Indian product called Clean and Dry Intimate Wash, a (very light-skinned) couple sits down for what would have been a peaceful cup of morning coffee—if the woman's disgusting brown vagina hadn't ruined everything! The dude can't even bring himself look at her. He can't look at his coffee either, because it only reminds him of his wife's dripping, coffee-brown hole! Fortunately, the quick-thinking woman takes a shower, scrubbing her swarthy snatch with Clean and Dry Intimate Wash ("Freshness + Fairness"). And poof! Her vadge comes out blinding white like a downy baby lamb (and NOT THE GROSS BLACK KIND) and her husband—whose penis, I can only assume, is literally a light saber—is all, "Hey, lady! Cancel them divorce papers and LET'S BONE."
Needless to say, certain citizens are troubled by this product—which, in addition to just being fucking insane, brings up painful issues about the hierarchy of skin tone within the Indian community. As if it isn't bad enough that darker-skinned people are encouraged to stay out of the sun and invest in skin-bleaching products like Fair & Lovely, and that white actresses are being imported to play Indian people in Bollywood movies, now everyone has to be insecure about the fact that their vaginas happen to be the color that vaginas are??? Splendid! God, I was just saying the other day that my misogyny didn't have enough racism in it.
Read the rest of the article, including a comment from one of the ad execs, here.
And the ad:
* As a side note, I'm surprised that Jezebel, which fundamentally is a women's feminist online magazine, is calling vulva, vagina.
Knit a uterus for a congressman.
From Jezebel, passed along by Laura (thanks!).
You can click the links in the text for more informartion:
Knit a Uterus to Donate to a Congressman in Need
Remember when we decided that Rick Santorum needed a uterus of his very own so he'd leave ours alone? Well, now there's a similar idea being proposed for the members of Congress across this great land who seem so insistent on getting all up in our lady parts since they're jealous they don't have any of their own. So how exactly are we going to make that happen, since we can't, you know, give them actual uteruses? Enter Government Free VJJ, a project which aims to have have ladies knit or crochet lovely versions of uteruses (plus cervixes and vulvas) and mail them to their representatives.
If you've got some spare time and know how to knit or crochet, pick one of these patterns (or devise your own), fill out this form so they can keep track of who's getting what, and then mail off the finished product to the statesman of your choice. It might not end the war on women, but at least it will give our beloved representatives something soft to cuddle when they have nightmares about slut-demons and whore-monsters taking over the world with our birth-control riddled godzila-sized vaginas.
Wrenna Robertson on her project I'll Show You Mine.
I mentioned Wrenna in class when discussing vulval dissatisfaction and the rapidly growing prevalence of labiaplasty. Wrenna was a student in the class back in 2010, which was also when she was wrapping up her project, I'll Show You Mine. I've posted about her and her project on the blog a few times since: here, here, and here. She recently did an interview with Options for Sexual Health. Here's that interview:
Much more about the project here.
The clitoris, in 3D.
Thanks for passing it along Lisa! From Loose Garments:
Yes – that is what a clitoris looks like. And we were finally able to create a 3D model of the erect clitoris using magnetic resonance imaging 3 years ago in 2009!! Even though we know almost every detail of the male penis, the clitoris has always remained more of a mystery. I suppose you could chalk this up to both to the fact that our sexual organs are more internal and thus harder to observe, and the fact that most scientific and medical fields are male dominated. But what helped bring about the better understanding of the internal clitoral structure was the advent of MRI machines, which allow us to perfectly model structures within the body.
New paper on clitoral location and orgasm during intercourse.
Image courtesy of Danielle Corsetto at Girls with Slingshots.
Originally posted back in February, 2011:
Drs. Kim Wallen and Elisabeth Lloyd have reanalyzed some old data and found support for the idea that the closer a woman's clitoris is to her vaginal entrance, the more likely she is to experience orgasm from intercourse alone. This adds to the controversy about the nature of women's orgasms, and whether or not vaginal and clitoral orgasms are the same.
From the abstract:
In men and women sexual arousal culminates in orgasm, with female orgasm solely from sexual intercourse often regarded as a unique feature of human sexuality. However, orgasm from sexual intercourse occurs more reliably in men than in women, likely reflecting the different types of physical stimulation men and women require for orgasm. In men, orgasms are under strong selective pressure as orgasms are coupled with ejaculation and thus contribute to male reproductive success. By contrast, women's orgasms in intercourse are highly variable and are under little selective pressure as they are not a reproductive necessity. The proximal mechanisms producing variability in women's orgasms are little understood. In 1924 Marie Bonaparte proposed that a shorter distance between a woman's clitoris and her urethral meatus (CUMD) increased her likelihood of experiencing orgasm in intercourse. She based this on her published data that were never statistically analyzed. In 1940 Landis and colleagues published similar data suggesting the same relationship, but these data too were never fully analyzed. We analyzed raw data from these two studies and found that both demonstrate a strong inverse relationship between CUMD and orgasm during intercourse. Unresolved is whether this increased likelihood of orgasm with shorter CUMD reflects increased penile-clitoral contact during sexual intercourse or increased penile stimulation of internal aspects of the clitoris. CUMD likely reflects prenatal androgen exposure, with higher androgen levels producing larger distances. Thus these results suggest that women exposed to lower levels of prenatal androgens are more likely to experience orgasm during sexual intercourse.
Dr. Wallen provided some more commentary to explain what he believes in going on:
As I speculate in the paper, I suspect that the relationship between short CUMD and orgasm is not the result of moving the clitoral glans closer to the vaginal opening. In some cases it might be the case that there is increased penile-clitoral glans contact, but it may be that smaller CUMD is a proxy for the internal portion of the clitoris being forced in closer proximity to the vagina. Alternatively, or maybe in combination, smaller CUMD may be a proxy for a more diffuse clitoral eroticism. I suggest that prenatal androgen not only produces a rostral migration of the genital tubercle, but also focuses genital eroticism to a small area of the penis, primarily the area around the frenulum. Evidence from women suggests that their genital eroticism is spread over a larger area than in men. Possibly one of the effects of androgen exposure is to concentrate erotic sensation in a small area of the clitoris. Thus women exposed to higher levels of prenatal androgen have a longer CUMD and have more punctuate clitoral arousal, centered on the clitoral glans. There is a lot of research that needs to be done, but I suspect that the effects of androgens on genital differentiation are more than simply determining the final location of the genital tubercle derivatives.
He also sent along the paper, for those who are interested: download here.
Another woman with two vaginas.
I've posted about a woman with two vaginas (more accurately, two vaginas, uteri and cervixes) previously: post here. Brendan (thanks!) shared a link about another woman with the same condition (uterus didelphys). The story made news as she turned down an offer by Vivid Entertainment to star in a porn for $1 million. From The Mail Online:
'I would never consider doing it in a million years': Woman with two vaginas rejects $1million offer to make adult film
A woman with two vaginas who has captured the attention of the porn industry has said she would never consider accepting any role in a film.
Hazel Jones appeared on TV earlier this week, where she revealed she was diagnosed with 'uterus didelphys' - a condition which means she has two wombs and two cervixes.
The 27-year-old has since been approached by Vivid Entertainment, a U.S. adult film production company.
But the horrified blonde, from High Wycombe, claims she would turned down any deal.
According to This Morning, she said: 'I have never received any offers of this kind of work nor would I never consider doing it in a million years.
'I just want to be left alone.'Read the rest of the article here.
And the clip:
Film: Desert Flower.
Dodson and Ross.
I regularly post videos from these lovely ladies, who are two of the best sex educators ever. The following clip is relevant to this week's topic: