"She was a one-date girl"

A twat by any other name

The World Needs a Vagina Museum

One woman in London is dedicated to starting the world’s first physical space wholly dedicated to vaginas.

BY SARAH LASKOW 

APRIL 28, 2017

Florence Schechter is the sort of person who gets a good idea, starts a project, and sees if it its sticks. “I like just going for things and seeing if they work,” she says. “I get upset if I’ve got a good idea and I can’t actually put it into action.” This outlook is what led her, after realizing that the world lacks a museum dedicated to vaginas, to start planning to rectify that omission.

There is a chain of events that led to this particular good idea. Schechter studied biochemistry but realized she likes talking about science more than doing science. After college, she started a YouTube channel so she could keep talking about science. (She also has started a science film company, Collab Lab, and does science-themed stand-up comedy.) One of her videos is about animal penises—she’s interested in mating behavior in the animal world—and as a follow-up she wanted to make one about vaginas.

BLOGGER'S COMMENTS. OK, OK - I get her idea. Too many penises; not enough vaginas. But this "museum" of hers displays all kinds of floral images, which are meant - I would guess - to give a sense of a woman's external genitalia.

In other words - her vulva.

Vulva, people!

I've written about this before: how the word vagina, once never uttered by anyone, is now proclaimed at every opportunity to refer to anything below a woman's waist.

The synonym for "vagina" is "birth canal". It's a tube. It's nothing that sticks out or is visible. At all. The vagina is invisible! No one can see it but your gynecologist (and only when the speculum is in there and cranked wide open). Why then is it being used to describe the most erotic part of a woman's anatomy?

For just that reason: it's too erotic. Vagina has a nice clean, clinical sound to it. (Ugly, if you ask me, reminding me of Regina and Spadina and Carolina). Vulva is just too - I don't know! It's sort of - ugh! It's - it's just too -

Too sexual.

It's a voluptuous sort of word (ewwwwww!) that folds into itself, actually a kind of visual onomatopoeia (and I can't believe I actually used that word). Say it over and over again.

Oh all right then, don't.

The point I'm trying to make is that society has become pretty casual about displaying a man's "junk" and making lots of jokes about it.  But when it comes to the humble vulva, we pretend it doesn't even exist.

We just don't display what's "down there". Who has a vulva, anyway? And for God's sake, let's not get into the clitoris, a word which is mispronounced 95% of the time. I once heard a university professor go on and on about the "cli-Taurus". Nobody corrected him because they all thought he was right.

As far as I am concerned, women's sexuality has been shoved back into the closet. I remember all sorts of stuff coming out in the '70s about consciousness-raising, women comparing genitals to learn the lesson that "everything is natural and normal and beautiful" in a woman's body.

Now none of it is, and everyone is abnormal.

Meantime, in 2017, a record number of women are undergoing a mutilating, utterly barbaric procedure called labiaplasty (labia being another word we never hear, because all that "stuff" down there is called vagina, folks. VAGINA!). This means the labia are cut off and sewn up so, basically, the woman ends up with a cute little pre-pubescent slit with nothing protruding at all. This sexless mound is usually kept neatly shaven because, well, it just looks better that way. Looks better for him, I would assume.

Why is this happening? Why is it acceptable, increasingly popular and even desirable, to undergo this modern-day version of female circumcision? I don't watch porn, but I have been informed that this is the way a lot of female porn stars look. God knows what they have done to themselves to achieve that look (probably labiaplasty!), but it is fast becoming the "norm", making sexually-intact women feel dirty, smelly and messy "down there" (the vagina, I mean).

I suppose boy friends, husbands and lovers will eventually come around to that standard naked slit, rejecting any woman who does not resemble an eight-year-old girl. Men watch a lot of porn now, and have come to assume those images reflect reality. If that's all a guy has ever seen, well - . Victorian men used to run to throw up on their wedding night, realizing to their horror that their wives had pubic hair.

What creeps me out - well, the whole thing does. I'd rather cut my ears off so my head will look neater. But the fact that it renders the vulva pre-pubescent in appearance is simply alarming. It's eroticizing childish-looking genitals. I don't know how else to see it.

But it gets worse.

I Couldn't Poop For 5 Days While On Vacation With My New Boyfriend

It seems when you’re in the midst of that “Everything is perfect, I’m perfect, you’re perfect” stage of a relationship, nobody poops.

When I returned home from a two-week European vacation with my (fairly) new beau, after the tales of our journey from London to Paris, the revelation that pigeon tastes actually not that bad, and the admittance that, oui, Paris women really are the most stylish femmes on the planet, my girlfriend, Lauren, asked me:

“OK, but you have to tell me: How did you… poo?”

Just so you know Lauren’s not into poo, or anything. I mean, I think she composts, but she’s not into scatology or those DIY fecal transplants. The reason for her inquiry into my bowel movements was in regard to a common problem that plagues many women in new relationships.

“A lot of women actually get sick during the first six weeks of the relationship because they don’t poo around their partner,” Lauren told me matter-of-factly, as if she had actually researched that sh**.

Now, for the life of Google, I could not verify her claim for the sake of this article, but I did find various blog posts and forums where various women commented that pooping is forbidden when it comes to dating. It seems when you’re in the midst of that “Everything is perfect, I’m perfect, you’re perfect” stage of a relationship, nobody poops. Or, at least, you don’t want to imagine that the area you want to do dirty things to is, well, dirrrrtttty.

OK, here it is again, the imperative to NOT be a normal, natural, functioning human being. I had never heard of this pressure on females (no one ever mentions this problem in connection with males) to suppress their bowel movements when they're in a new relationship.

But now I have become enlightened. Girls don't poop, they just don't, and if they DO they are dirrrrrttttty and animalistic, if not a downright freak.
Or, at least, unattractive. Or, at very least, downright inconsiderate to their normally-pooping boyfriends. How can they even think of doing such a disgusting thing in the same hotel room?

I groaned when I came across this piece, but was flabbergasted to see dozens and dozens of articles and message boards and social media posts about "whether we should poop when we're with our boy friends". This is an actual question that you see. A lot. Incredibly, an example was cited of a seven-year marriage where the wife had always found a way to poop outside the home, in a public bathroom somewhere, or at least in a bathroom in a remote, faraway part of the house (with the fan on, and the water running). Or maybe she had a port-a-potty out in the back yard. Thus, her husband had actually come to believe that she never pooped.

It's hard enough not to have genitals, or to have genitals that can only be called by one (inaccurate) name, or genitals that can only be portrayed by pictures of flowers and fruit (or sliced off and sewn up into a neat little slit). It's much worse to be forbidden a bodily function which is about as crucial to health as eating (and by the way, women face pretty tough strictures on that too). The story I quoted above concludes with the woman's shame-faced admission that she had become hellishly constipated after two weeks of not pooping. But isn't dealing with rock-hard shit a lot better than having him leave you because you. . . poop?

This is what I worry about. These things become standardized, after a while. Holding it in will become a requirement, something all decent women are expected to do so their boyfriends won't be totally disgusted and grossed out.

I remember reading someone's query to a sort of internet Dear Abby dating expert, and it was on this question: when my boyfriend of three years sleeps over at my apartment for the weekend, should I - you know? Can I - I mean, is it OK if I - sort of - I mean, uh - can I use my bathroom? The Dear Abby person was sort of taken aback. This woman was asking a dating expert if she could use HER OWN BATHROOM for a universal bodily function. The underlying feeling is that if he finds out she actually shits, he'll just (pardon the expression) dump her.

Who knows how true this is? Maybe a lot of guys DO insist a woman never poop when they're in the same building (if ever). Maybe a lot of guys DO want a neat little slit in which to deposit their goopy, disgusting, fish-smelling slime.

And women always fall into lockstep. If they don't, they might not get ANYBODY. The fact that this may even be true makes my head truly spin, if not fall right off.

She's a wildcat! Or maybe. . . she just can't poop

"Watch your step" he said. . . SHE'S A WILDCAT!

What a penalty people pay for being mean and nasty-tempered! They forfeit friends and romance! They're their own worst enemies!

Still, they're not always to blame. You know, yourself, that you can't escape being nervous, irritable, crabby, if your system is clogged with poisonous wastes. So if you really want to be light-hearted. . . popular, fresh-looking. . . be sure that your bowels move regularly. And whenever Nature needs help - take Ex-Lax.

Ex-Lax works by the "GENTLE NUDGE" system

The "gentle nudge" system is a simple, easy, effective method of giving you a thorough cleaning-out. Ex-Lax just gives your intestines a gentle nudge at the point where constipation exists. Evacuation is easy, comfortable - and complete. You'll feel clean. You'll feel more alive. And you'll be grateful for the absence of the strain and nausea that make the action of a harsh purgative so unpleasant.

Another thing - Ex-Lax tastes just like delicious chocolate. Children actually enjoy taking it, and Ex-Lax is just as good for them as it is for you. Available at all drug stores in 10-cent and 25-cent sizes.

When Nature forgets - remember EX-LAX The Original Chocolated Laxative

The worst (worst, worst) product name EVER

(OK, if you don't believe me about the product described below, I've seen them. They made my jaw drop. I saw them in a drug store, so I assumed they were for medicinal use only.  I didn't buy any (didn't think I could chew them) and forgot about it until I saw this article by Campbell Webster, which kind of says it all. The post-script is an ad for a related product which is probably just about as palatable.)

Last week, a bag of cookies caught me by surprise. This may seem unusual, especially considering the location was a Charlottetown grocery box store, where the most startling sight might be someone you haven't seen in a while, and you would prefer to keep it that way. Large grocery stores have been planned with the accuracy of a large-scale military invasion: their layout is designed to comfort and entice, lulling you into overconsumption. Shock is not the goal.

Still, not all plans are perfect, proof positive being the huge bags of cookies for sale, under the brand name, 'Bowel Buddy'. As you may have guessed, the Bowel Buddy cookie brand is particularly high in fibre, and therefore promises to keep your bowel moving at a pretty good clip. (An unusual need, it seems, at least taken from my three-month-old son's viewpoint, who needs no such buddy at any time of day or night).

(Editor's note. Notice subtitle: "Snack on the GO and get regular!" Yum.)

What is startling about the Bowel Buddy is that we usually don't name our foods after their last stop in our bodies; sewage being something that in many ways is the anti-thesis of food. Even more amazing is that somebody had to come up with this name, or perhaps a few people, on salary no less, delivering this brand name to the market. It stimulates the imagination, this stimulating cookie, as to how the cookie company settled on a name which is the marriage of friendship with an excrement organ.

"Marketing! Get in here! We've got a heck of a new cookie! It'll clean you out faster than a truckload of raisin bran. Need a name by Monday!"

And so the naming process may have begun, begging the question: What names finished out of the top spot? Rectal Recess? Anal Allies? Sphincter Sojourn? And did somebody shout, "Eureka!" or "Bingo - Bowel Buddy!" when the winning name for the cleaning cookie was declared?

Health claims for foods is, of course, a heated battlefield, with aisle after aisle of packaged foods screaming their benefits to your longevity, energy levels etc. Accordingly, the pursuit of your dollar can be as much about the name and the claim of the food as it is about the food itself. As a result, truth is constantly endangered with amazing product claims like Campbell's Soup products claiming to have "25 per cent less sodium". This is an accurate statement, except that it is still a very high amount of sodium, and might as well say, "25 per cent less sodium . . . than the Dead Sea."

Government regulatory bodies attempt to assist us by forcing manufacturers to be accurate in their naming strategies, leading to products such as 'grated cheese flavoured product' and 'real juice-flavoured beverage' (i.e. no cheese or juice is involved in either product.) Painfully awkward descriptions such as these no doubt sends cookie companies and other food manufacturers to break the mold, and come up with branding like the Bowel Buddy, which just seems ridiculous, and even likely to repel consumers.

Or will it? I bought two bags.

Campbell Webster is a writer and producer of entertainment events. He can be reached at campbell@campbellwebster.ca

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