4 ways women learn to worry about their vaginas — starting with the treachery of porn
Today's beauty standards are tough to keep up with. Women are supposed to be trim, fit, hairless, odorless; the list goes on. It’s hard enough to apply these standards to our outward appearance. It's worse when we’re asked to apply them to our nether regions. Listed below are four ways society teaches women to worry about their vaginas.
1. The treachery of images: This is not a vagina.
Most porn presents us with perfectly trim, tidy little slits that make those of us with differently shaped vaginas look down and go, huh? But let it be said, the “single crease” aesthetic is a bullshit standard to wish for.
A few years back, the Australian television program HungryBeast decided to investigate how the country’s censorship laws have skewed the public’s idea of what a normal vagina should look like. In accordance with the Australian Classification Guidelines, porn producers are allowed to show full frontal nudity, but only “discreet genital details.” The terms state, “Realistic depictions may contain genital detail but there should not be genital emphasis. Prominent and/or frequent realistic depictions of sexualized nudity containing genitalia will not be permitted.”
