That’s Not a Vagina – Guest Post

by Molly Moore
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The aim of the Pussy Pride Project is to create” a little blogging celebration of the beauty that lies between a woman’s thighs in an attempt to make women feel more accepting about this truly unique yet mainly hidden part of their body.” There are currently over a 100 links on the page which cover a hugely diverse range of stories, thoughts, experiences and in many cases images too. Some of them are wonderfully happy, some of them are shy and unsure, some of them are down right sad but together they become a celebration of women, by women, and yes some men too, talking openly about female genitalia.

When I saw that Dizzygirl from Toy Meets Girl has started a new site called That’s Not a Vagina I immediately went and checked it out. One of my absolute pet hates is people referring to what is in fact the vulva (the external female genitals) as the vagina. It is just wrong. It would be like calling someones ass/arse their rectum. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I don’t really know why we have such a problem with the word vulva but we definitely do and so anything that challenges this misuse is a good thing in my opinion and so I applaud Dizzygirl for her new venture, I hope that it might go a little way towards correcting the misuse of the word vagina and help us all love the word vulva a little bit more.

Edit: I want to be clear that I am not trying to make any individual feel bad for using the word vagina when they mean their vulva. We all have different words we use when we are talking about our bodies. The area where it bothers me is when it is used incorrectly by people who are in a position to educate people about the correct meanings of those words. I believe that we should be empowering people with information and knowledge and I hope this project will do that.

With all that in mind I contacted Dizzygirl and invited her to come on over to my little corner of the sexy internet and introduce her fabulous project for Pussy Pride. Happily she said yes!

That’s Not A Vagina – Dizzygirl

Why would I create a website with the sole focus of educating people about the proper anatomical terms of those with a vagina? It’s simple really, I was sick to death of hearing people refer to the vulva as a vagina. Every time I hear it, it’s like nails across a chalk board.

So really, the idea came about one day while jokingly bantering back and forth on Twitter with other sex bloggers about how much we hate it when people misidentifiy the vulva. This tweet from Lunabelle, a contributing author on That’s Not a Vagina, really sparked my snarky side.

Screen cap of tweetI started throwing out possible domain names and ThatsNotaVagina.com seemed to stick. It was simple, to the point and something that would get people’s attention. But at that point we were still all just joking around and I wasn’t at all committed to buying the domain and building the website.

I woke up the next morning and literally my first conscious thought was that I had to do it. That’s Not a Vagina HAD to be born. The world needed it and I would be the one to bring it to fruition. I announced on Twitter that I had purchased the domain and got tons of positive feedback from fellow sex bloggers. Everyone really seemed to be excited to see what I’d create.

I had forgotten how much work goes into creating a site from scratch since building my other blog, Toy Meets Girl. I think people see a website and they have no idea how much time and energy goes into creating it. I also had some much-needed help from DomSigns  who I’ve always been able to count on for technical assistance.

Despite the work involved, That’s Not a Vagina was up and running with its first post in just a few days. That first post is a sticky and will continue to be the first thing you see when you visit the site. It explains everything from why I created the site to the inclusion of labeled anatomical diagrams.

So, while the sole focus initially was to teach people the proper words for the anatomy of folks with a vagina, I also see it branching out to include posts about how we feel about our vulvas. Sadly, there seems to be a pervasive shame that many people feel about how their vulva looks. I want to empower those folks to feel good about their body and be proud of the vulva they have.

In addition to those kinds of posts, we also like to “call-out” folks who call vulvas, vaginas. For example, we posted (http://thatsnotavagina.com/the-vagina-beauty-contest/)about the dude who hosted the “Vagina Beauty Contest”. Not only is he wrong about what his contest is about (it’s actually a Vulva Beauty Contest) but the idea of comparing vulvas to find the ones most aesthetically appealing kind of makes my skin crawl. I mean really, how can you judge that?

I guess you could say that, That’s Not a Vagina will simply be a celebration of vulvas. The purpose is partly to educate, partly to empower and hopefully also, to entertain. It started out as a kind of joke but now I’m seeing that it is a legitimate worth-while project.

What am I looking for from our readers? Just interaction really. Leave comments if you feel compelled to do so – share our posts if you like them. There is one big way our readers can help us. If you see someone calling a vulva, a vagina… let us know about it. You can do this through our contact page. You never know, your tip could turn into a post and you might get a shout-out for bringing it to our attention.

Dizzygirl

***

So there you have it, head on over to That’s Not A Vagina and take a look, have a read and if you see any examples of the word vagina being used incorrectly then you know what to do. If you are interested in finding out more about the Pussy Pride Project then click on the icon below.

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14 comments

dizzy November 4, 2015 - 1:37 am

Thanks for allowing me to guest post and tell the story of TNAV!

Reply
sub-Bee November 4, 2015 - 10:03 am

I love this project!! Calling a vulva a vagina is one of my pet hates too but that may go along with the sex blogger blowing smoke out of their ears!

Since the project has started, as I said on Twitter the other day, I’ve even given a lesson at work to 20 burly and squirming guys putting them straight which was hilarious! But I will gladly do that again until people get it right!!

Reply
dizzy November 4, 2015 - 2:04 pm

Bee,

So glad you like our site. I love that you made the burly men squirm. We should be able to get to a point where they don’t squirm when speaking about the female genitals. 🙂

Reply
Angela Goodnight November 4, 2015 - 10:15 am

When people use vagina and mean vulva it drives me round the bend. I love that tweet you illustrated. How true, eh? One of the biggest offenders I have been crusading against is the Guardian newspaper. It is normally very good and produces excellent articles on all sorts of subject, but EVERY TIME they do a piece which has any sort of reference to female genitalia, they ALWAYS use the word vagina. So annoying.

With your permission, I’d love to put links to their articles when they have done this on your new site. Let me know if that would be okay. We could all then make even more about the error in their comments. Perhaps they’ll finally take note.

Peter (the male half of our blog) is out today, but I shall get him to read this and I know he’ll want to post about his story on FGM or a link to it on the new site.

Anyway, glad I know about it and will bookmark it.

Thanks

Reply
dizzy November 4, 2015 - 2:01 pm

Angela,

I’m glad you like our site. Yes, I have noticed many in the media that consistently misuse vagina. I don’t think they do it out of total ignorance. I think they are purposely dumbing down their content so that it will appeal to more people. More people know the word “vagina” than “vulva”.

Feel free to send us links through our Contact page, which is linked in my post up there and we may do a post calling them out on their misuse of the word. You may even give us links to several examples so we can show it’s not just a one-time mistake.

Thanks!

Reply
Marie Rebelle November 4, 2015 - 2:05 pm

Indeed, people barely use the word vulva, but vagina is widely – almost always in the wrong way. It’s time people are educated and I know that I will be referring a lot of people to this website! Thanks to Dizzygirl for creating it and thanks to Molly for giving her a podium to introduce her site!

Rebel xox

Reply
dizzy November 4, 2015 - 6:52 pm

I’m glad you like the site.

Reply
Jane November 4, 2015 - 6:52 pm

What a great project. And I must admit that I, too, am rather baffled as to why people are reluctant to use the word ‘vulva’.

As an aside, although the vulva/vagina mix-up is definitely a peeve of mine (love Lunabelle’s tweet!) the other female anatomy screw up that really (really) gets my blood boiling is the relocated hymen. I’ve lost count of the times that I’ve read – mainly in erotic fiction – about heroes encountering it well into the vagina. Um, it covers the vaginal entrance.

Jane
xxx

Reply
K.C. Cave November 4, 2015 - 10:54 pm

Yes, drives me up the wall. I mean, you can’t even see the vagina! It’s a hole! Yet this raises the point that there aren’t a lot of words to use instead of vulva, which is so damn Latinate. I’m really, really tired of pussy, but what are you gonna do? Yoni is nice, but I’m not sure if everyone knows it. I just remembered another good one, pudenda (technically, male and female genitalia, but usually understood to be female). But it’s not very sexy and not much used. Sigh.

Reply
Melina Greenport November 6, 2015 - 12:04 am

I noticed “pudenda” at your recent post & loved it!

I find I need to figure out what my characters would call it — then I follow their lead.

Reply
K.C. Cave November 6, 2015 - 9:34 pm

Yes, that’s a great way of putting it. I had forgotten about pudenda, by the way. It just seemed to fit.

Reply
f dot leonora November 5, 2015 - 2:02 am

great guest post, and i have to take a look at her blogs!

Reply
Melina Greenport November 6, 2015 - 12:01 am

Amen!!

Reply
Velvet Rose November 8, 2015 - 5:47 pm

I shall be taking a look at this new site.

Velvet x

Reply

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