Behind Closed Doors: The Mysterious Case of the Missing Labia

(LABIAPLASTY HUNGRY BEAST: EP 14 from HUNGRY BEAST on Vimeo.)

You've all heard the terms: Meat curtains. Roast beef. Piss flaps. They're all derogatory, of course, and many people see this: 

And think: "What is that hanging out?" And then there was that deeply disturbed mom who decided that talking about her daughters' vaginas on the Internetz was the "Christian" thing to do:

Beyond the disaster that is her understanding of anatomy, all this presents a skewed idea of what inner labia really looks like on my women. Some have very tiny inner lips that are concealed by their outer labia, yes, but more than 50 percent (yes, 50) have inner labia that protrude. That means more than half of the female population has "meat curtains." 

So the question is: If at least half of human women have protruding labia, then how in Merlin's name did we get here? Why are some women so ashamed of their lady bits that they're having sensitive, feel-good tissue cut off, and some men (who probably enjoy the friction from the folds) are turned off by the sight of them? We have two things to thank for the phenomenon, folks: Racism and obscenity restrictions, which may or may not be connected. Woo! 

Let's start from the top, chronologically speaking: 

Deranged colonialism 

Before Darwin penned "The Origin of Species" and evolution was accepted as scientific fact, the Europeans colonized Africa. At the time, differences in race/ethnicity were attributed to intellect, and white folks considered themselves to be more "human" and less animal than their colored counterparts. As we all know now, that's totally incorrect and completely fucked up, but the buttoned-up ways of European culture were heralded as pure, clean, and enlightened. A common practice among African women was (and still is) labia stretching, which is exactly what it sounds like and quite naturally gifted local women with significantly longer inner lips. The reasoning for the practice was significantly ahead of its time from a female pleasure standpoint: The inner lips have many nerve endings and provide extra stimulation during sex, and is part of a practice geared toward female orgasm. 

You can imagine that this anatomical discrepancy between black and white women ruffled some colonial feathers. Visiting Europeans reasoned that African women had longer, more protruding labia because they were promiscuous and had been pounded one too many times due to their "less refined" culture, causing irreversible stretching. (I would be remiss not to remind you dear Fleshlings right now that labia does not stretch because of sex, no matter how frequently you get it in. Not one bit. I'd also like to remind you that someone who has one sexual partner throughout their life will likely have sex more frequently than someone with many, due to the nature and ease of that sort of relationship.)

Needless to say, a myth was born: Longer labia signifies and worn, used, loose vagina. This is already a large stigma to get past when it comes to pussy, but there's another inhibiting our perception of the female body, and it's just as self-righteous. 

Prude people regulate things

In another chapter of Your Puritanical Belief System Is Doing More Harm Than Good, we have a very simple yet very detrimental barrier to blame for the digital retouching of inner labia: Protruding inner lips are considered too obscene for print because they show "graphic genital detail." For softcore porn and magazines, the outer labial fold is A-OK, but seeing the inner lips is like WOAH, OH MY GOD, THAT'S A VAGINA. It's weird, but it's real. People in real life are actually paid to edit out protruding labia so that it's "tidy and neat." To me, it seems that the popular practice of blurring out genitals in bus porn would be less psychologically and financially damaging, but that doesn't make for a good magazine centerfold. 

Interestingly enough, the one safe place for a diverse range of labial length is hardcore porn and magazines. Go figure! 

What this all means for Vagina Havers 

Naturally, women live in a world where they've been told since high school that longer inner labia are "beef curtains" that don't fit the neat, clean, tidy standard everyone is supposed to aspire to have down there. This is probably very confusing, considering most women are virgins and not at all "used" when they start perceiving their bodies and "worn," but hey, being a human is fun, amiright? Add to that images of labia-less women with airbrushed buttholes, and both men and women really start to believe this kind of anatomy is gross and wrong. Despite a second boom in sex-positivity and gender equality, our society is still a phallocentric one that is both mesmerized with and revolted by vulvas and vaginas. I like to think that because men watch a statistically higher volume of hardcore porn than women that this notion of "neat, clean" pussies won't endure in their minds for long, but what about the perception women have of their own bodies? 

Overarchingly, little research has been conducted to link the notion of softcore's "genital detail" to the enduring idea that longer labia indicate something vulgar or dirty, but I imagine they're at least minorly connected on a subconscious, indoctrinated level. After all, inner labia is likely considered more graphic than outer labia for a reason. Regardless, labiaplasties are still on the rise, which can cause women a number of medical and cosmetic issues - including discoloration, pain, blunted sensitivity, and more. It seems painfully obvious that this is not a surgery women undergo for their own pleasure, but to conform to a certain visual aesthetic. 

It's interesting - in Western culture, women are furthering diminishing their own orgasmic potential by cutting off perfectly healthy parts of their bodies, while some African women are stretching theirs out to maximize that pleasure. You have to wonder - which women are happier? I'd put money on the latter. And I can tell you this much: As a white woman who could do with a little more stretching down there, if you catch my drift, I have to feel like I might be missing out on something great.