Praise anatomy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/09/2011 (5467 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They’re not new.

They’ve been around since the beginning of womankind.

Half the world has one.

But suddenly, it seems everyone is talking about — go ahead, say it — vaginas.

Lady Gaga says hers gives her advice. Actress Olivia Wilde spent part of a recent appearance on Conan talking about vaginal tattoos — a topic that host Conan O’Brien said left him on the verge of fainting.

Now, Summer’s Eve, the company that sells feminine cleansing products, has a new advertising campaign that promotes the vagina as all-powerful. The cradle of life. The centre of civilization. The thing men battle over.

The tagline: Hail to the V.

Reaction to the campaign: mixed.

But no matter what the sentiment, one thing is undeniable: Whether it’s vajayjay, yoni, nether regions, lady bits or hoo-ha, we’ve stopped whispering about the vagina.

“Our slang term in college was ‘bunny.’ When my daughter was born, it’s always been a rule: Your elbow is your elbow, your vagina is your vagina,” said Kris Remenar, a 41-year-old children’s librarian. “It’s nice that we can say, ‘This is another part of our bodies’ rather than make it something embarrassing.”

Holly Hughes, a University of Michigan professor of women’s studies, art and design, theater and drama, put it this way: “I think whatever shock value the vagina had is gone.” Hughes, also a performance artist, once dressed as a vagina for a role in a play.

(In the interests of biological accuracy, it should be pointed out that when people say “vagina,” they’re usually referring to the other V-word, vulva — the external part of the female genitalia. But why split hairs?)

What is responsible for our new, very public fascination with vaginas? What has turned them from taboo to topic of mainstream conversation?

Some suggest it’s the 1996 Eve Ensler play The Vagina Monologues, which has been performed in more than 100 countries. “Eve made vaginas cool. She put them on the map,” says Hughes.

Others suggest it might be Sex and the City (1998-2004), the groundbreaking HBO show about four female friends that featured Charlotte’s unfortunate rash, a painter who only paints lady parts, and Carrie’s inability to remove her diaphragm.

Still others credit the highly rated medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, which introduced the word “vajayjay” during an episode in 2006.

When Oprah Winfrey used “vajayjay” on her television show in 2007, it became part of the nation’s lexicon.

Celebrities — Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton — began leaving their underpants at home, flashing their privates as they got in and out of cars. Socialite Sonja Morgan’s tendency to “forget” her panties turned up as a subplot on the just-completed season of Bravo’s Real Housewives of New York City.

But no one has been as public about their private parts as the Kardashian sisters.

On their E! network reality show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, the sisters have waxed each other and taken their audience along to a laser hair removal salon. “You have a better, like, looking vagina than I thought,” Kim Kardashian told her sister, Khloe.

None of this is especially shocking to Elizabeth Purtill, 41, of Grosse Pointe Park, Mich.

“It’s part of your body. It’s anatomy. It’s not any worse than your toes. It’s not any better than your toes. It’s just one more body part, and now we just talk about it without it having to be secret.

“I think it’s important to let our young women know it’s not a dirty place; it’s not gross,” she said. “On the other hand, you have the glorification of it — Britney Spears getting out of the limo and everyone looking at it. While I want a daughter … to be OK with that part of her body and not think it’s bad or gross, I don’t want her showing it to everybody, either: ‘Hey, look what I have, rhinestones!’ in gym class in the eighth grade.”

Which brings us to the Summer’s Eve ads.

The goofy Hail to the V campaign includes a talking vagina — relax, it’s a hand — that appears on the Summer’s Eve website.

The spot that is getting the most mainstream play is the commercial showing men fighting for the V, although the spot doesn’t use the word “vagina” because it’s not universally accepted by broadcasters. The ad airs on Bravo, E!, Style, the CW and MTV and will continue until the end of the year.

“It’s bold, but women want it to be bold,” said Angela Bryant, director of U.S. marketing for Summer’s Eve. “What it is saying (is), ‘You have a vagina. Love it. And you know what? It does have power. To say that it doesn’t is not really being honest.’”

Viewers disagree about the ad’s effectiveness.

“I thought it was funny. And part of me thought, ‘It’s about damn time,’” said Remenar. “My husband and I were talking about how if a guy is really powerful or even a woman, we say, ‘That person’s got a lot of balls.’ …For so long, the vagina has been equated with ‘weak’ and ‘shameful.’ It is kind of nice to hear a little bit of ‘This is a source of power.’”

But Sirene-Rose Lipschutz, a 31-year-old graduate student, countered: “I think they’re basically saying all we’re good for is our vaginas. I like to think those men fought for our hearts, not to get into our pants.”

But experts suggest that the true value of the commercial is that we are talking about it.

And in doing that, we’re further reducing the stigma, the embarrassment, the squeamishness caused not just by the word, but also by the body part.

“If they can’t speak the name, vagina, vulva … or whatever word they want, vajayjay, how can they have control over their body?” said Pamela Madsen, a New York-based sex expert whose web site is beingshameless.com. Her book, Shameless: How I Ditched the Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure … and Somehow Got Home in Time to Cook Dinner (Rodale, $24.99) was published earlier this year.

“I don’t care if you think talking vaginas are wrong. And I don’t care if you think that the message of Summer’s Eve … is wrong. What I think is, ‘Yay!’ That there are vaginas anywhere in the mainstream, to me that’s change.

“It’s all about taking the shame out. Let’s all scream the word, ‘vagina!’”

 

— Detroit Free Press