Fanny Fallacies

In 1559, Realdo Columbo made a discovery that in my opinion is far more important than the one his namesake did 67 years before him. Realdo was the man who discovered the clitoris! Well, he discovered it as much as Christopher “discovered” the Americas; the native owners had been living in peace with it for centuries before the white man came, and he was probably on his way somewhere else when he found it. However, Realdo Columbo documented the significance of the clitoris in female sexuality, and for that he should have some kind of credit, I suppose.

Unfortunately, the clitoris hasn’t been as thoroughly explored and mapped as the Americas, and that men have problems navigating in the area has repeatedly been highlighted in popular culture.

When you have a look at women’s history of medicine it becomes evident that the clitoris hasn’t been the only confusing part about the female genitalia, and it’s still apparent today through the way we speak about it. I think most of us use “vagina” as a collection term for pretty much the whole pelvic region, when the vagina is actually only located on the inside of the body. The outer region is correctly referred to as the vulva, but don’t think that’s the end of it because every little bit of the vulva has a name:

!

In addition to the struggle of understanding the bits that are actually there, there’s been a whole lot of effort put into researching bits that don’t even exist. The whole package has been subjected to a wide range of misconceptions, with the most stubborn one being The Wandering Womb.

The wandering womb

The theory of the wandering womb describes the uterus as a free-floating organ, and it was used to explain a variety of different medical pathologies in women. Whilst this is a silly idea, vaginas and its associated bits really are hard work and can be involved in a lot of trouble. The obvious one is of course periods, which refers to the time of the month when the devil stabs a woman in the uterus with his trident (which explains both the pain and the blood). Periods can be controlled with birth control, however symptoms have also been proven to ease by excessive chocolate consumption and uncontrolled crying. Other common vagina-related problems include ovulation*, thrush, bacterial vaginosis, urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted infections, pap-smears, and the pay gap.

*ovulation is an overlooked and unknown problem; most gals don’t feel anything at all, or feel a cramp so tiny they might not even realise it’s an egg popping. However, some ladies have ovulations so painful that it can feel like a chicken egg is trying to slide down their fallopian tubes rather than a not-visible-to-the-eye human cell.

The idea of a wandering womb originates in medical texts from ancient Greece, but was a widely accepted theory in European medicine into the late 19th century. It was said to be the cause of Hysteria (from greek hystera = uterus), which was a common psychological diagnosis for women in the late 1800s. Symptoms included nervousness, insomnia, sexual desire, irritability and a “tendency to cause trouble”.

Today Hysteria is no longer recognised as a disorder, and some of the different symptoms are now instead covered by more researched conditions, such as anxiety and borderline personality disorder. However, many of the symptoms of female hysteria are likely to have been symptoms of frustration from living in an oppressed society. As the gender equality increased, female hysteria decreased.

The G-spot

Today we shake our heads at concepts like the wandering womb, but before we laugh too much we should realise that we live in a society that accepts another vaginal myth: the G-spot.

The G-spot is also called the Gräfenberg spot, from the german gynaecologist Ernst Gräfenberg, and is supposed to be a highly erogenous zone on the vaginal front wall. I don’t know what Ernst did to his patients to find this spot, but I’m fairly sure it wasn’t included in his official role description.

Despite an abundance of studies, there’s not enough evidence that the G-spot is a real thing that every woman has. This is compared to the clitoris, which is the most sensitive body zone on all women. Experts in the field have therefore repeatedly suggested that we should be talking about the C-spot instead of the G-spot. Despite the lack of scientific evidence, women’s magazines love to write about how to best find and stimulate this fictional spot. Even if it did exist, most ways to reach it seem physically impossible unless you’ve practiced yoga regularly for 10 years, or lack a skeletal system.

You might’ve noticed that these fallacies were made up by men, which isn’t very strange since women haven’t had many chances to contribute with knowledge through history. Thankfully, times are now different, and we can take the matter in our own hands (literally hehe). What we women first of all have to do in order to keep our fannies healthy and satisfied is to overcome the stigma and talk about our fancy bits. Like, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a topic suitable for all settings and maybe you don’t have to bring it up during a work lunch or family dinner — use you gal pals for this. Me and two friends have a Facebook group chat where we exclusively post about vagina-related problems. This is one of my favourites:

You probably think I’m advising sharing vagina stories because I think they’re funny and, well, you got me there. However, if girls and women aren’t exposed to real-life stories, they’re gonna think media’s version is the correct one and let’s be honest, we all know what media does to one’s body image. For example, labiaplasty surgery is on the rise due to women worrying about the appearance and symmetry of their vulvas, and this trend has been linked to the censorship in pornography which only allows for “discreet genital details”.

It’s more likely that a woman will look at herself and say “hey, my vulva doesn’t look like that” and think something it wrong with hers, rather than “hmm, it’s a bit weird that ALL vulvas in porn look the same”. The main reason to this is because no one uses the word “vulva”, but also because porn doesn’t exactly stimulate critical thinking due leaving exactly nothing to imagination.

I highly recommend everyone to open the conversation and establish a relaxed attitude to the topic. Nothing puts things in perspective like trying to pull your friend’s menstrual cup out.

Originally published at The Isthmus.