The Red Knob

What is it about labia? Vulvas? Why don’t we ever get to SEE any? I don’t mean the milions of trimmed, shaved, surgically enhanced, photo-shopped, spread-eagled, fingered, f#ck#d, gushing examples plastered all over the interent and the top shelf mags..I mean ordinary, usual, lady flaps with a good old minge bush and a bit of pendulous flesh?! Has anyone been watching the plethora of sexumentaries that have been on terrestrial TV of late? All well and good. Can’t knock it all -at least they’re covering the subject and getting a bit of conversation going but why oh why does every one seem to involve the presenter getting a bloody fanny waxing done! After one painful example (as they all are, I hasten to add) the waxer says to the waxee “there now - you look like a little girl again”. Why - pray - would a mature woman of 37 WANT her nether parts to look pre-pubescent? What kind of infantalisation fantasy are we feeding here? And what kind of blokes are seriously finding this a turn on? I did it once, back in my London days. Not for any reason beyond sheer curiosity really, Certainly not at the request of a partner and not to enhance my sex life in any way. I just wondered what it would be like. So I took the old bic razor to myself in the bath and then found myself looking down at my semi-submerged nakedness and it was, quite simply, bloody ghastly. There I was with the body of a 20-something adult woman, curvy hips and a pair of breasts to be proud of…and a hairless pudenda that looked just as it had when I was 11. I couldn’t bring myself to look at it again until I had at least a George Michael stubble growth! Call me old-fashioned but I just don’t get it. The body hair fascists have taken over the asylum, it seems. On the one hand, we’re dressing up little girls in outfits that are just mimi-me replicas of adult fashion - rouched tops that are designed to accentuate a bosom on clothes designed for 5 year olds etc and then when we get to grow up and our bodies reflect our maturity by growing pubic hair we shave it all off so we can look like ‘little girls’ again, What the hell is going on? I think what disturbs me most, though, is the growing trend for labiaplasty - surgically trimming the labia so they look ‘neater’ and smaller. Unless we have a better idea of what is a normal range for vulvas and labia (and let me tell you it’s a fabulous variety!) we’ll just feed into growing insecurities and women will increasingly put themselves through traumatic surgery in an effort to achieve an ideal that is pure fantasy. When I then think about the thousands of women across the world who are still forced to be ‘circumcised’ (I prefer genitally mutilated’ to describe the process) it all starts to look pretty gruesome. Are we creating a vulva-averse generation? Don’t even get me started on ‘feminine hygiene’ products!! perfumed tampons, douches, deodorising panty liners! The irony is that overuse of these products - and all the home-spun variants- can actually cause an upset in your normal self-cleaning system and make your fanny smell like an old haddock and cause irritations that can increase your risk of contracting sexually aquired infections. So come on! Let’s celebrate our flaps just as they are! shout HURRAH for the wonders of the natural noonie! raise a glass to the glories of the great British beefy curtain, embrace our natural aromas and stop short at a wee trim on the old pubes. Anyone up for that???

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