a black girl’s guide to living with a vagina

hint: PYNK!

The word vagina had a late entry into the human vocabulary. It actually didn’t come about till around the 1680s. Pre-17th century folk called the vagina an inside-outside penis. (Gross, i know).

Throughout history, women have been shamed for ‘living with [their] vaginas’. The ancient Greek physician Aretaeus believed that the uterus wandered about the female body like an “animal within an animal,” causing illness as it banged into the spleen or liver.
Some time after (idk if I’ve got the timelines right?) medieval Bible folk saw vagina owning persons as ‘dirty’ or ‘unclean’ especially when that time of the month came around.

Vaginas have been called all sorts of names–from less glamourous (and very rude) names like cunt to funny ones like lady bits and bobs–we’ve all used some variation of her numerous monikers to refer to our VAGINAS.

Men kill for her, women love her and everybody seems to be obsessed with this organ? body part? You say potato, I say potato.

This is less a history about vaginas and more of a personal journey into the most h(a)unted ‘hole’ on the planet. as told by me of course.

Credits: Charles Deluvio

I first became aware of my vagina in (this is a lie, don’t quote me) primary school when we all got the talk about sex and reproductive organs and the whole lot. I remember owning this giant book about vaginas, where it spoke about everything from periods to pregnancy.

I was at that curious age where I didn’t really know my intimate bits and shied away from conversations revolving it entirely (following the horrors of a pre-pubescent lad telling me my tits were out). But with this book, I felt knowledgable. I felt ready and sure that I could take on my period whenever it came.

I remember half the girls in my year starting their periods around that time, and me feeling left out that I wasn’t ‘woman’ enough’ and there was obviously something wrong with me. I went home to my mum and for the first time ever, voiced out loud that I was unsure about what was down there. She placed me in front of a hand-held mirror and told me to explore and fish around for the different parts I had learnt about in school.

For the first time, I could see her: pink, wet and not very pleasant looking.

It didn’t look very much like any of the vaginas I saw in the porn videos. It was a black girl’s vagina (LOL!).

I wouldn’t look at her much after that, and in fact when I did eventually start my period I would grow to hate her. For me, starting my period brought tremendous pain like I had never felt before, projectile vomiting and weakness. By the time I was in highschool, I was marked out as one of the girls with the worst bouts of period pains and the lot of us would frequent the sickbay like it was serving free mimosas.

Imagine having a needle on your ass every other month because lack of heavy sedatives means having to endure excruciating pain (I shudder at the thought of my past reality).

After high school, the time came for alternative methods to the injection. I moved to the UK and learnt that I didn’t have to wait till my period came to feel less pain.I was alone in a foreign country and it dawned on my mum and I that I could no longer go on like this. So we tried contraceptives–the combined pill. And damn did that work like a trick.

I was back. I loved her again.

Credits: Refinery29

And I was having sex with boys (well one boy lol).
My relationship with my vagina still didn’t improve much, I resented her less but she still bled and left me bloated every month.

By the time I was in university, homegirl down there could hold her own. She could pack a mean punch, she could bite back and she definitely had learnt a trick or two to navigate the lads at uni.

We slowly morphed from the pill to an implant. And that had her angry. She bled for months–which the nurses reassured me was normal. Then NOTHING for several months. No periods, no bloating, no cramps. The pain was gone and I thought that was the new normal.

And then the worst happened.

The (then) LOML and I reunited after six months apart, and I noticed she had changed. First of all, she hurt like a bitch (OWW!). Then she began to itch and shortly after some odds spots here and there. We panicked and immediately seized all sexual relations until she was nursed back to life.

She got well after a while. And everything was back to regular scheduled programming. till we found out the reason for her pain in the first place was disloyalty and a reckless abandon for our health.

It was crushing to find out the place your pussy made home (his words not mine) was suddenly hollow, unfamiliar, used, and abused.

It was hard. We stopped looking after her. We just didn’t want to touch her at all. She was after all without an owner.

It’s been a while since all of this happened (if it did happen at all hm) and I don’t know why I am telling this story now.
maybe by chance (came to me in the shower as I cleaned her) or because I watched Janelle Monae’s PYNK at some point during my day.

But here we are.

Vagina and me are still not the best of friends at the moment. But I have a newfound understanding and appreciation of her. She’s a total babe.

and she’s currently social distancing (as you should be too)

So I ask…Vagina owners

What’s your story? Do you care for your vagina? Do you understand her?Did you always? How do you show her love? Tell us. or her.

she deserves to know she’s loved.

*This contains a combination of personal (slightly exaggerated) stories and those of women around us.