It’s Vulva, not Vagina

In the annals of Things that Annoy me as a Woman, Feminist, Pagan, and just plain Human-

Odd example, but bear with me:

In an episode of a TV show I watch, that takes place at a fictional law firm, there was a public sculpture, after being unveiled, the city who commissioned the sculpture refused to pay the artist, saying it “violated community standards”. Throughout the episode the characters made arguments about whether the sculpture did or didn’t “look like a vagina”. Problem: most people, apart from gynecologists- don’t really know what vaginas look like. It’s an internal organ. It’s a vulva, people! Labia majora, labia minora, and clitoris. Not vagina- that’s the “slot” below the vulva. But that’s slot that the penis goes into, so it’s the important part! Yay heteronormativity. So we refer to the whole of female anatomy as “the vagina”. This spreads misinformation, and is insulting to women. Seriously? It doesn’t help how shoddy sexual education is in our public schools. But most of the time, there are sexually experienced adults talking about the Great Mysterious Female Anatomy. Stop talking about it that way. It shouldn’t be any more mysterious than male anatomy, which apparently is more OK to talk about? Is it more obscene to say vulva than vagina? Is this an American problem rather than a European or Canadian one? I don’t know- feel free to tell me if other countries are less insistent on oversimplifying lady parts.

But yeah- this whole thing reminds me of the straight guys who can’t fathom what women do together in the bedroom. All I can say is fellas, if you can’t figure that out, your girlfriends and wives must be pretty unhappy.

Here’s some visuals to help you out. (Not porn- sex ed material!)

This post has been brought to you by: Sheela Na Gig

“Sheela Na Gigs are quasi-erotic stone carvings of a female figure usually found on Norman or to be more precise Romanesque churches. They consist of an old woman squatting and pulling apart her vulva, a fairly strange thing to find on a church. The carvings are old and often do not seem to be part of the church but have been taken from a previous older, usually romanesque, building.” Well, isn’t that special?

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Wheel of the Year

As a follow-up to my Ancestor Calendar, here are some more resources for personalizing the wheel of the year.

Make Your Own Wheel of the Year by Caer (yay craft project!)

Moon names- I’ve always been fascinated by the moon names I see various Pagans use, but it drives me nuts not having a good source for which name came from which culture. Well, to start with here is a list of moon names from different Native American tribes. The writer cites some of his sources, and at least he’s an actual Indian and not from the Wannabe tribe!

Civic holidays and Local festivals- Sometimes we long for the city-wide celebrations of ancient Greece and Rome, when in fact we do have some of those celebrations. They may be secular, but pagan elements can be found within- look at the queen or princess of the county fair as a representative of the local sovereignty goddess, civic holidays often have hero and ancestor cultus attached to them, you can give an offering of wine to Dionysos before going to your city’s film festival. Most towns have at least one harvest festival- whether it honors corn, strawberries or whatever, honor the spirits of the harvest, and the spirits of the plant.

Saints days- are there local folk customs with suspiciously pagan undertones? Even if they aren’t actual survivals from Ye Olden Times, if it works, why not use it?

Pagan Book of Hours- Breviary of the Church of Asphodel– this polytheistic monastic order has a very well put together calendar- it is very multicultural, so people from many traditions could find ideas here! They use alternate month names: Anglo-Saxon, pseudo-Celtic Ogham trees, and Athenian, but line them up with the Gregorian calendar to make things easier.

Living in Season– Waverly Fitzgerald’s collection of info about holidays from around the world

Earth-Based Judaism- Jewish holidays have many interesting seasonal connections

Peel a Pom websites, Tel Shemesh