"Lady garden", "private parts", "vajayjay", "hooha"...just come out and say it. It’s vulva and
vagina, okay? Beating around the bush, if you will, is one of the reasons people
are still so uncomfortable talking about their bodies, and this has real-world impacts
on health and wellness. So strap in—’cause we’re gonna talk about it.
First, we gotta get our words in order. When most folks talk about female genitals, they
often say vagina. But the vagina is very specifically just the canal inside the body—it’s internal.
The vulva is where most of the fun stuff is: it’s all the female genitalia on the outside
of the body. So let’s explore! First we’ve got the mons pubis,
or the fatty tissue on the outside of the body that protects the pelvis.
Then we’ve got the outer lips, the labia
majora. These are fleshy and grow pubic hair, and inside those are the inner lips, the labia
minora. Both the inner and outer labia are there to protect the parts underneath them,
like the urethral opening, where your pee comes out. And under the surface of the labia
are two glands that sit on either side of the vaginal opening.
These are called Bartholin’s glands. When someone is aroused, blood flow to the genitals
increases, and this can stimulate those glands to produce moisture—a mix of water and proteins.
This is what’s happening when people talk about ‘getting wet’—it’s natural lubrication
that gives anything entering the vagina a bit of a smoother ride.
Speaking of the vagina, this is the perfect opportunity to address a big myth: the hymen.
For centuries, people thought that vaginas have a ‘seal’, that the hymen must be
‘broken’ when something is inserted. It’s all wrapped up in the social concept of virginity
(which is a topic for another time) but essentially—the hymen is just a thin flap of skin inside the
vaginal opening. For most people, the hymen has at least one
hole in it, usually more, and it doesn’t actually break, it gets stretched: by physical
exercise, by using a tampon, or yeah—by penetrative sex. But that doesn’t always
hurt, there’s not always blood, and most hazy pop culture ideas of what the hymen is
are actually pretty far from the truth. Everyone’s hymen is different, and some people don’t
have one at all. The world really loves to focus on just the
vagina when it comes to sex, anatomy, and pleasure. But it’s not even usually the
main source of pleasure for those with vaginas. That is the clitoris.
-What's fascinating for me is the way the clitoris, the full internal structure of the clitoris,
has come and gone from anatomy textbooks. It was there in the middle of the 19th century,
and then it went away. And then it came back. And then it went away again.
And I was just reading a sex manual written in 1940 that absolutely included the clitoris
as important to sexual pleasure, but it talked about as it's just this, like little nub.
-And it’s so much more than that. The clit is a sensory organ filled with blood vessels
and an estimated 8,000 nerve endings, about double the number found in the penis. And
it’s a heck of a lot bigger than just that little nub we see on the outside. That’s
the ‘glans clitoris’, which is connected to a much larger internal structure with clitoral
bulbs extending down on either side of the urethral and vaginal openings.
And finally there's the pair of crura, they're kind of like the legs of the clitoris.
And when you look at it this way, you can see that all genitalia are pretty similar.
Both the penis and the clitoris are made of erectile tissue that swells when aroused,
and they originate from the same organ structure during fetal development.
Despite the similarities, the clitoris is still poorly understood compared to the penis.
-The biggest gap is that penises go first and then vulvas come a decade or two later.
So for example, full imaging of the internal structures of the penis happened in the 80s
and 90s. That happened for the clitoris in the middle 2000s. The first anatomical illustration
to my knowledge of the full internal structure of the clitoris was in the middle of the 19th
century. So we knew that anatomy was there. But to
give it the attention it deserved, to get the funding to be able to do the research,
just took a couple decades extra.
-Since 1947, only a handful of anatomical papers
have been published specifically on the internal structure of the clitoris. In fact, many major
medical textbooks still omit internal clitoral anatomy, and still more contain inaccurate
depictions of the nerve endings that surround this important organ.
This lack of formal knowledge impacts those whose sexual anatomy may need medical attention.
Like, when your vulva or just pelvic area in general is being operated on,
you want your doctor to know where everything is
That lack of up-to-date education and discussion spills over into schools, households,
and even relationships. -What talking about sex does is empower people
to make choices for themselves. And what ends up happening when we don't talk about sex
is that people do not have the information they need, they do not feel empowered to make
choices that are right for them. And they're going to end up making choices that are right
for somebody else. And that's where boundaries start to get crossed. So communicating about
sex is 100% essential in making the world a better place. Like if we want the next generation
to have a better experience growing into their sexual selves than we did, the way to make
that happen is by talking about it. -Research has shown that many people don’t
even know the correct terms for many parts of their own bodies. Lots of folks don’t
know that there’s a separate opening for urine, that we don’t actually pee out of
our vaginas. One study found a majority of its participants felt uncomfortable using
the words vagina and vulva. But if we can’t even say the word out loud, how can we express
a problem we’re having to a doctor, or to a partner?
Feeling embarrassed about saying the words just magnifies any shame someone might have
about their vagina or vulva in the first place. There can be a lot of insecurity about the
way this stuff looks because of how female genitalia is usually shown in media,
especially in porn.
-Where people get really confused around sexual
anatomy of vulvas is in thinking there is a way they are supposed to look that is correct
In fact, vulvas just look incredibly different from each other in the shape and size and
color of the labia, external and internal, in the shape, size, position of the clitoris
and the urethra and the vagina. And all of the variations in how our parts are organized
are normal and healthy. The only sickness that a vulva can have is if you're experiencing
pain or infection, in which case absolutely seek medical attention.
- So, making friends with your body, getting to know where everything is, what it looks and
feels like, how it works, can be essential to your sexual and reproductive health. Talking
about our bodies without fear or shame, feeling empowered by calling things what they are,
and advocating for resources and research into the unique complexity of female sexual
anatomy...all of this is so important. I mean, I’m sure you’ve heard of the g-spot, and
most scientists these days don’t actually think it exists.
So for closing the orgasm gap. For improving care for those recovering from physical trauma
to this area. For catching and treating things like STIs and vulvo-vaginal cancers as early
as possible. For your health, happiness, confidence, and sex life—grab a hand mirror! Say hi!
You won’t regret it Thank you all so much for watching Seeker’s
Body Language. If you have another topic like this you want us to cover in this series,
let us know in the comments, and check out this video here for more info.
I’ll see ya next time.