Viva la vulva: 7 myth-busting facts

From the tip of my thumb to the tip of my index finger. That’s the length of an average penis. At least that’s what my classmates at elementary school told me. I learnt about the anatomy of the male genitals before I knew my times tables. By contrast, I would’ve miserably failed at describing my own female reproductive organs.

Male genitalia was not only mapped in my imagination, but also in countless studies – including all its erectile states and even by ethnicity. And yet for a long time, I struggled to name everything correctly in the «nether regions» of my own body. Pussy, privates, slit, vagina – nobody told me there’s only one correct name for my external genitalia. Namely, vulva.

I believe there’s already enough speculation going on around the female genital area. What we need is matter-of-fact information and shameless details. Allow me to introduce: After the clitoris and menstruation, here are seven facts about the vulva.

1. The vulva’s on the outside, the vagina on the inside

Vulva, vagina – same same? Not at all. Allow me to clear up the biggest misconception right at the start: the vulva and vagina aren’t the same thing. The vulva includes everything you can see from the outside: the mons pubis, the inner and outer vulval lips (labia minora and labia majora), the clitoral glans with clitoral hood, the urethral opening, the vaginal vestibule and vaginal entrance. The vagina, on the other hand, is a roughly 12-centimetre-long muscular tube that connects the vulva to the cervix and uterus.

Never heard of the difference? Well, you’re in good company. Not even 30 per cent of all women in Germany know what the term vulva describes. And how could they when textbook publishers in Germany have only been depicting the clitoris in an anatomically correct way for just under a year?

2. A man’s to thank for banishing the vulva and vagina into obscurity

The male gaze has shaped how the vulva’s been viewed for centuries – blurring it almost to the point of invisibility. Thanks go, among others, to the Italian anatomist and surgeon Matteo Realdo Colombo, who also falsely claimed to have discovered the clitoris. He introduced the word «vagina» into medicine as early as 1599 and described the genitalia in his work «De Re Anatomica» as «the part into which the spear is inserted, as into a sheath.»

Vagina translates as «sheath» in Latin, and it doesn’t exactly shine in Colombo’s description. According to him, the vagina is nothing more than a body opening for the male genitalia. Or, to keep the vibe of Colombo’s era: a sheath for his sword. The vulva played no role whatsoever in this idea.

You can explore the history of the vulva in «Vulva: Die Enthüllung des unsichtbaren Geschlechts», which translates to Vulva: The Unveiling of the Invisible Sex by cultural scientist Mithu M. Sanyal. The book is currently only available in German.

3. The vulva is the pleasure centre

Oh, but it’s so much more than Colombo could have guessed! There are 8,000 nerve endings on the tip of the clitoris alone. That’s around three times more than the tip of the penis has. By contrast, the vagina’s relatively insensitive, which is why current science is only slowly moving away from the Freudian concept of vaginal pleasure.

Instead of referring to the ominous G-spot, researchers now increasingly speak of the CUV zone, which is short for the clitourethrovaginal complex. Studies are giving rise to the idea that the female orgasm isn’t reached through a magic button at the external opening of the urethra, but through an entire erogenous zone. The clitoris, urethra and anterior vaginal wall work together to stimulate the inner clitoral thighs.

This means caressing the vulva is far more effective. Not only is the clitoris equipped with a highly sensitive nerve plexus, countless nerve endings also meet at the inner labia and the vaginal vestibule. When aroused, the vulva swells, is supplied with more blood and gets in gear for explosive orgasms. Stubborn penetration, on the other hand, will rarely satisfy a female sexual partner.

4. The scrotum and labia grow from the same tissue

To understand a woman’s erogenous zone, it’s worth taking a look at sexual development in the womb. This is because male and female genes are identical for a very long time. Initially, every embryo is equipped with a genital tubercle, which develops into a clitoris without testosterone. In other words, in their first few weeks of life, all humans are female. It’s only through the influence of the male sex hormone that this genital tubercle becomes a penis. The penis and clitoris therefore develop from the same erectile tissue.

What’s more, the reddish scar on the underside of the penis is the line marking the fusion of the two urogenital folds. This tissue remains open in biological girls. The inner labia become the urethra in biological boys and the skin of the scrotum develops from the same tissue as the outer labia. The subtle line on the scrotum is actually two labia that have grown together.

5. There’s no «normal» when it comes to vulvas

An absurd assumption, if you think about it. And yet, a team of scientists from the Lucerne Cantonal Hospital measured 657 vulvas to find out just that. What’s more, only white women took part in the study. This means, there’s even more variation and diversity in women’s nether regions worldwide. This is also shown in the educational art project The Vulva Gallery on Instagram. Incidentally, one of the findings of the Lucerne study was that yes, the symmetry of the vulva is considerable. However, the inner labia were larger than the outer ones in more than 50% of the test subjects. Why am I mentioning all this? Because, until this day, the vulva is simultaneously censored and sexualised and portrayed in a simplistic way in porn, for example.

A recent study in Sexuality & Culture examined the depiction of vulvas in porn and on pornographic websites. The result: vulvas are almost exclusively shown hairless, and the pictures only show vulvas with inner labia that doesn’t protrude beyond the outer ones. As seen above, this is only the case at least half of all women. In other words, a «small, groomed and tidy» – and if I may add, childlike – image of the vulva is sold.

The authors of the study conclude: «Undeviating depictions could influence women’s genital ideals, pushing them to seek out extreme surgery and beauty measures in order to adhere to the standards presented.»

Which brings me to the next point.

6. Intimate surgery procedures increased by 73 per cent

Indeed, more and more women are going under the knife to attain this beauty standard. Between 2015 and 2019, there was a 73.3 per cent increase worldwide in labiaplasty procedures, according to a report published by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. And according to a 2017 report published in the German Ärzteblatt (in German), «vaginal rejuvenation» has become one of the most popular cosmetic surgeries and was carried out 50,000 times worldwide in 2015.

This trend has reached Switzerland, too. A report (in German) from the Swiss Society for Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery states: «Another trend in aesthetic surgery is rejuvenating operations in the genital area. Labia reduction or vaginal tightening are the most common procedures performed to meet patients’ beauty standards.»

7. The vulva changes with age and weight

It is only natural that the vulva changes over the years and depending on personal circumstances. This was revealed, among other things, by the aforementioned Lucerne study – the largest study of the female genitalia to date. The team led by Dr Anne Kreklau managed to overthrow the general idea of what the vulva is and prove that it changes with age and weight.

The results state that age has an influence on the length of the inner labia as well as the length of the perineum, while body mass index (BMI) correlates positively with the length of the outer labia and the vaginal entrance.

In other words: the older a woman is, the larger her inner labia and the heavier she is, the larger her outer labia and vaginal entrance. Makes sense, right?