With so many well-intentioned
websites now devoted to female
anatomy--vulvas, for instance,
a woman can compare
her own parts to check if she
is normal. I admit I’m not
from a generation
that contemplated vulvas,
although we professed free love,
skinny dipped as a statement
until nudist camps became
fashionable; we were vagina-
proud and inserted the V-word
into our conversations whenever
we could--as a sign we were
not like our mothers.
We saw them as uninformed,
caged housewives, our fathers
as suited, corporate robots
while our own husbands,
wearing masks and gowns,
took pictures of our babies
crowning “down there”
in the shaved and silken-skinned
portals, but we never talked
about those layers of lips
we took for granted
until we outgrew the innocence
of thinking they would stay
the same forever rather than
succumb to change,
our vulnerable vulvas,
just like our mothers’
and all women’s before us,
but at least now we can
voice the specifics even clearer
with a mirror and the Internet.
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