A what?

Women are more open about their bodies than ever before. From the #freethenip movement, to the daring menstrual marathon statement from Kiran Gandhi, there is more pride in the female form than ever before. And yet, there seems to be one last Everest to climb: accepting all vaginas, regardless of what they look like.

Perturbed by the trend for “vaginal rejuvination” that sees women heading to the cosmetic surgeon to get their bits “tidied up”, Dr Rebecca Huntley and Sarah MacDonald took on the topic on this week’s Debrief Daily podcast. And during their conversation, they got into (so to speak), something I had actually never heard of: outie vaginas. How was this possible? As the daughter of a doctor, I was pretty sure I knew everything about everything when it came to our fanny region from before I could even use a fork. So how had the concept of an outie vagina passed me by?

Well, hold onto your seats, ladies because here’s something that might shock you.

50% of women have outie vaginas.

Yep, our resident GP Dr Ginny Mansberg has said that “In 50% of girls the labia minor is bigger than the labia majora… that’s your reality. Women who think ‘there is something wrong with me’ because something sticks out a little bit – well, no, it doesn’t happen in porn movies, but it is actually very normal.”

An ‘outie’ refers to a vagina in which the labia majora (ie. the outer lips) is smaller than the labia minora (ie. the inner lips), causing the inner lips to protrude in the same fashion as an outie belly button. But the similarities stop there.

Things that look like vaginas.

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But onwards to the matter of women trying to “fix” their vaginas: without sacrificing any of my polite feminist rage, here’s a home truth – vaginas are ALL funny looking. There is no aesthetic perfection when it comes to genitals, but what there is, is a whole lot of anxiety, resulting in money-making surgery.

Vaginas, like the rest of our body, are liable to change with age. For this very reason, hordes of older women are begging their GP’s for ‘vaginal rejuvenation’, which is, for lack of a better description, a face lift for the vagina. During the process, an outie vagina is ‘fixed’ to sit back inside the outer lips, and the whole thing is hoisted up and into fight the effects of gravity and aging. The process, whilst touted as perfectly safe, still involves removing tissue in a highly sensitive area. It is a sad predicament of our body-beauty obsessed world of female body image that we are fully prepared to sacrifice, or at the very least, risk, our future sexual arousal for the sake of a “prettier” pussy.

In days gone by, how many vaginas would a women see apart from her own? Two? Three? And really, how closely did she allow a look – enough to compare in fine detail the differences between hers, and theirs? These days, porn is as much a woman’s sexual domain as it is a man’s, and the smorgasbord of vaginas on parade are extensive – but not diverse. A ‘normal’ vagina, according to the world of female sexuality and porn, is small, pink, hairless, and neatly tucked under. Well, that’s just not realistic – as Dr Ginny pointed out, “Women are getting a really warped view of what’s normal. When watching porn they are thinking, mine doesn’t look like that, there must be something wrong with me.”

So here’s a rallying call to women worldwide from an Innie to all y’all Outies: let’s embrace all vaginas, and stop making women feel like they need to “fix” their perfectly unique lady parts.

After all, you think vaginas are weird? You should take a closer look at a set of balls. And somehow I can’t ever imagine a man voluntarily letting anyone with a knife anywhere near them.

Do you have an ‘outie’ vagina? Would you ever consider surgery?

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