“And graphic medical pictures,” I said. “I tried searching ‘feminist vulvas of color,’ but all I got was embroidery projects from Pinterest and Etsy.”
Camilla laughed at that, but said, “Now think if you were a young woman trying to see what a normal, healthy vulva looks like. If you’re white, you’re all set, Tumblr is full of those. But if you’re Black or Asian or Latina, what is there? Porn and medical pictures. What does that tell you?”
I said, “But I can’t say, ‘Hey, women of color, post more pictures of your vulvas on the web, so that other women will know they’re normal.’ ”
“No, but still,” Camilla said, “the images we see—or don’t see—
matter. You know those Escher girls?”
“No, what’s an Escher girl?”
“They’re the female characters in comics with abdomens so flat there’s no room for their internal organs, and their spines are impossibly twisted so that you can see both boobs and both butt cheeks at the same time. Their poses are so anatomically absurd that they’re named after an artist famous for impossible illusions.”
“Sounds like some bad porn I’ve seen,” I said.
“Right,” said Camilla. “I saw those as a teenager and I felt like that said everything about what a ‘female’ was supposed to be, and because that wasn’t what being female felt like to me, I decided my first identity is ‘geek.’ Not woman, not Black: geek. Gamer. It took a long time to integrate the other parts of my identity, because I couldn’t see how they all fit together. Images matter. They tell us what’s possible, what things go together, what belongs and what doesn’t belong. And we’re all just trying to belong somewhere.”
This statement was such a gift to me. I go back to this idea over and over now, as I write my lectures. I spend hours searching the Internet for sex-positive images of a wide variety of vulvas, because my students vary—no two alike—and I want them to know that their bodies are normal and that they belong there in my classroom. why it matters Why might the seemingly simple fact that all human genitals are made of the same parts, organized in different ways be the most important thing you’ll ever learn about human sexuality?
Two reasons: Because it means your genitals are normal—and not just normal, but amazing and beautiful and captivating and delicious and enticing, on down the alphabet, all the way to zesty—regardless of what they look like. They are made of all the same parts as everyone else’s genitals, organized in a configuration utterly unique to you. The entire range is normal. Beautiful.
Perfect. And because it is true for each and every facet of human sexual expression. As we’ll see in the chapters that follow, from genital response to spanking fetishes, our sexual physiology, psychology, and desires are all made of the same parts, just organized in different ways.
If we embrace this simple, profound idea—all the same parts, organized in different ways—it answers that ever-popular question: Are men’s and women’s sexualities the same, or are they different?
Answer: Yes.
They’re made of the same parts, organized differently.
While we can see obvious group differences when we look at populations—male and female bodies—there’s at least as much variability within those groups as there is between those groups.
I can illustrate with a nonsex example. The average height of an adult woman is five feet four and the average height of an adult man is five feet ten, a six-inch difference between the two groups’ averages. But height varies more within each group than between the groups. If you measured the heights of a thousand random people—five hundred men and five hundred women—you’d find that nearly all the women would be between five feet and five feet eight—an eight-inch difference within the group— and nearly all the men would be between five feet four and six feet four—a twelve-inch difference. Notice three things: There’s more difference within each group (eight or twelve inches) than between the two groups (six inches); there are four inches of overlap between the groups; and one or two hundred people among the thousand would be outside even these wide 9ranges!
The same goes for sex. Within each group we find a vast range of diversity—and I don’t mean just anatomically. I mean in sexual orientation, sexual preferences, gender identity and expression, and—the subject of the rest of this book—sexual functioning: arousal, desire, and orgasm. We also find overlap between the two groups, and we find folks who vary wildly from the “average” while still being perfectly normal and healthy.
Some authors argue that the differences between men and women are more important than the similarities. Others say that the similarities are more important than the differences. My view is that the basic fact of homology—all the same parts, organized in different ways—is more important than either.
And variety may be the one and only truly universal characteristic of human sexuality. From our bodies to our desires to our behaviors, there are as many “sexualities” as there are humans alive on Earth. No two alike.
Here’s the kind of conversation you have when you’re a sex educator out drinking with your friends: Laurie: “This woman I know told me if she ever has kids, she’ll have plastic surgery on her ladybusiness right after she gives birth, because she thinks it won’t look good anymore.”
Camilla: “Did you tell her that the cosmetic medical-industrial complex paid a lot of money to make sure she felt that way about her body, so that they could profit from her needless self-criticism?”
Laurie: “No, I told her that once you have kids, your partner is just glad if they ever get to see your business, whatever it looks like.”
Emily: “Let’s invent a ritual where women celebrate the transition into their postpartum bodies. I mean, it’s not just its appearance that changes, it’s what your body means, to yourself and to the world.”
Laurie was the only mom in the group, and she was the only one who didn’t look at me like I was on drugs. She said, “I totally want a ritual. Anything to make it easier to live in a body that feels like a deflated balloon.”
“But you’re so beautiful!” everyone said instantly.
The compliments to Laurie’s indisputable beauty flowed even faster than the wine, but a few days later, Laurie told me that was the opposite of what she needed.
“What I need is to hear that it’s okay to feel sad that my body will never be what it used to be. I put a lot of effort into learning to love that body, and now I’ve got to start all over again learning to love this one.”
So I said, “It’s okay to feel sad that your body has permanently changed.”