Exhibition
Vagina Museum, Camden Market, London
Until 29 March
A GIANT, red, glittery tampon is the first thing you see as you walk into the Vagina Museum, a small gallery that recently opened in London and claims to be the first of its kind. The point of this exhibition, Muff Busters: Vagina myths and how to fight them, is to educate visitors about human anatomy, as well as tackling taboos and giving people confidence to talk to doctors about their bodies.
When I first heard about the project, it sounded pretty old hat. Do we really still need this kind of consciousness-raising in the UK in 2020, where, until last year, the prime minister was a woman?
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But when I visited the museum, it made me think again. A display of images celebrating the normal diversity of gynaecological anatomy may seem like a cliché, until you recall that, in recent years, there has been a fivefold rise in the number of labial reduction surgeries by the National Health Service in the UK. According to a by gynaecologists, this is partially due to unrealistic representations in pornography. The problem seems to be that people don’t know what typical genitals look like.
Other exhibits aim to bust myths. Contrary to popular belief, the hymen isn’t a reliable indicator that a person has had sex. As a small area of mucosal skin around the edges of the vagina, the hymen may bleed a little when someone first has penetrative sex, but it usually doesn’t. It is so naturally variable that one individual may have regular sex and still retain some visible hymen tissue, while another may never have had sex and yet have no hymen at all.
Nevertheless, this scrap of flesh has long been used to control the lives of girls and women the world over – and still is in some families. In November, US rapper TI said he took his daughter on yearly trips to a doctor to have her virginity “checked”, something that is medically impossible and that critics called abusive.
Former advice columnist and social psychologist Petra Boynton says she had letters every week from distressed women being similarly policed by their partner or relatives, who often have no idea of the range in the hymen’s appearance. One charity, the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education, argues it should be renamed the vaginal corona, to help dispel the myth that it is a sheet that ruptures on penetration.
Even if a woman’s virginity isn’t being questioned, she may hear messages that her genitals are offensive in some other way. One exhibit displays various douches, sprays, lotions and potions marketed for cleansing or perfuming the vagina.
All are unnecessary, as vaginas are self-cleaning: they get rid of dead skin cells and bacteria by releasing a clear or white fluid, something that may cause disquiet but is really a sign that everything is in working order. In fact, such products can disrupt this efficient self-maintenance by changing the vagina’s pH balance, thereby making infections more likely.
It would be nice to think the misguided idea that vaginas are inherently troublesome organs needing constant care is in decline. But this seems unlikely, judging by the success of Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand Goop, with its promotion of vaginal steaming and jade eggs.
The Vagina Museum is an initiative from crowdfunded activists, rather than doctors, and it shows. Some of its content strays from biology into ideology – tricky when it includes topics over which feminists clash, such as sex work or the removal of pubic hair.
And I can’t help wondering if lecturing someone for using the “wrong” terms for their body – such as saying vagina for the external parts of their genitals, when the right term is vulva – is really the best way to boost their confidence. Isn’t educating people about sexual health more important than policing their language?
Still, the fact that this exhibition, located in trendy Camden Market, has a different atmosphere to the capital’s more traditional science museums may help it attract a wider audience.
