I don’t feel that it’s just another part of the anatomy. I barely feel like it’s part of my anatomy at all. I feel it’s probably been tucked away out of sight for a reason. Namely, IT’S REVOLTING.

I would hope that I am alone in this. I would hope that everyone reading this is horrified by my mental state and is rushing to email me with paeans to their own beautiful vulvas and love of their labia and effusive encouragements to think of it as both tool and ornament.

It’s not that easy, of course. Because I (or we, if I may be so bold) haven’t simply conceived a sudden irrational dislike of a random body part – what we’ve done is believe the lies we’ve been told about this specific one. We’ve grown up in a world that makes jokes about how we smell “down there” (a place too hellish to be given its proper name in polite society), that refers to it in terms of its animalistic bleeding and wetness, its shameful association with sex and its inextricable link with the horrors and pain of childbirth. My brain and vag took all that in when I was too young to question it and there it stays. And now I’m supposed to hop up on a couch and let people look at the thing? I don’t think so!

“Women aren’t attending regular smear tests – and I’m one of them”