This is Dan Savage on Menstruation and Vaginas
Warning: excessive over-share to follow…
I LOVE Dan Savage. That said, I disagree with quite a few of his opinions.
A couple weeks ago my women’s studies class came around to the inevitable conversation of vagina; gross or grrrlpower? As expected, most of the opinions voiced were of the ‘androcentric society tells you it’s gross, but vaginas are powerful/flowers/lovely/womanly/etc’ persuasion. Did you know that some women used to pour bleach into their vaginas? Not to mention the whole douching/”feminine perfume” industry crapola. Society has been trying to convince girls our bodies need sanitizing for generations, and its mostly just to get our money. (Which reminds me of the idiocy of “anti-bacterial” soaps- ALL soap is antibacterial!) I can definitely see why the girls in my women’s studies class rejected ‘gross’ from the discussion of vaginas.
Two years ago I stage managed for one of my favorite shows of all time, The Vagina Monologues. I saw that show every night for more than a month, and I still thought it was amazing. It’s empowering and awesome and frightening and you should see it every chance you get. Truthfully, I hadn’t really thought of my vagina as a thing all its own until I saw The Vagina Monologues.
But, after all this, personally, I still think vaginas are gross. Don’t tell my women’s studies class. I hate my period- I feel gross and pukey and weak and mean, every time. I’ve tried so hard to see my vagina as a flower, or as a symbol of my feminine power, etc- but it just isn’t happening. I’ll admit it, I’m an excessive-washer. I’m never going to go so far as to buy into the whole vagina-bleaching business, but periods don’t make me feel sexy, and they never will.
So really, I agree with a lot of what Dan Savage has to say on the subject. But I also think he left out a very important aspect of the grossness of vaginas: it’s not just vaginas. Penises are gross too. I think straight girls and gay guys forget it sometimes, both because we are attracted to boys and because society has never really focused on it- and I could go into reasons for that as well (for starters, men as a gender are dominant, and therefore invisible to scrutiny, etc).
I think this you-tube comentor sums up this arguement sucintly with her contribution to the comment thread:
“penises are 10 x more disgusting than vaginas. the look like snakes with mushrooms attached to them and they spit out white shit, not to mention they have a hairy ball sack that dangles underneath them…blech.”
blech indeed.
Eventually, I think I will get over this gross-vagina thing. But I know for now I’m not quite ready, and I’m not alone either. I’m all for equality of the sexes, so until I’m ready to see my vagina as a flower, penises are going to be gross too. If society is going to tell me I’m gross, I’m going to tell it he is too.
Dan Savage probably has hairy balls.
I LOVE Dan Savage!!
Penises are way cleaner than vaginas. I don’t think vaginas are gross (as a generality I don’t, but many are) but a penis? Visually weird, but sanitarily gross? I don’t think so, leastways not in comparison to the ground zero for fluid discharge that is the vagina. And penises don’t have ‘breath’ LOL
