What if everyone’s vagina looked exactly the same way?

Imagine a meadow of beautiful flowers—flowers with egos and the opportunity to change their appearances.

The columbines might find the roses to be perfect, and start plucking petals, in a vain and futile attempt to become other than what they are. Or perhaps ‘someone’ decides that the standard of beauty among flowers are orchids, so all flowers begin to (in many cases radically) alter themselves to ‘become’ more like orchids.

Grasping at a foreign ideal, they begin an endless quest to alter perfection…the innate perfection of themselves. Imagine they succeed in this fool’s errand.

Now the individuality and diversity is gone from the meadow. Instead of the sublime interplay and variety of color, the meadow is now one standard and uniform color. All petals look the same. Nature’s unique asymmetry is gone.

Gone are the special and magical bends and twists, the departures from the linear that bestow uniqueness, even on a single tulip in a field of tulips.

Now imagine the most special and magical of creatures trying to alter one of their most special and magical features, plucking their lovely petals to look like all the other flowers. Welcome to the world of vaginal resurfacing—something I thought existed only in Chuck Pahlaniuk novels and on the lunatic fringe is a real and growing trend.

The idea of clitoridectomy shocks and disgusts me.

Changing a person’s intimate and unique form to fit an outside ideal of morality (or beauty or functionality or whatever) is just wrong. We can all see that.

Yet, those poor women were forced to undergo this horrible ritual, one of fundamentalist prudery. Even more abhorrent is the idea of someone inflicting these defilations on themselves.

They actually choose this ritual, the opposite of a clitoridectomy, one of fundamental vanity. They become the perpetrator…on themselves. They enact and enable all the foreign body image travesties that a chauvinistic media and porn industry dictate to us.

If all vaginas looked the same, it would be a sad and boring world. If all conformed to what Hollywood or Penthouse or Giorgio Armani think a vagina should look like, we’d be living in a much smaller and bleaker world.

No matter what vaginal configuration a woman has, somewhere out there is a guy who just loves it, just that way. Chances are he’s also nice and considerate and maybe even would make a good lover and companion, a good appreciator and worshipper of the unique beauty of your pussy…and only yours.

If the Guy You Love or the Guy You Want is that set on having a certain vaginal configuration, then the question arises of just how right is Mister Right? If he cannot love and (okay, I’ll say it) worship you as you are, then there’s a problem.

Now, I’m not advocating letting nature run amuck. Take care of yourself, by all means. Fight those yeast infections and keep her clean. Then take the rest of that money (that you saved by not resurfacing) and buy yourself a nice dress, or some yoga lessons. Fix the rest of your bod (with exercise and diet) before you go messing around with perfection down there.

Women are the flower of creation, the culmination of nature’s awesome artistry. They rise above even butterflies and sunsets in glory.

Each and every woman, not just the ‘good looking’ ones (such a temporary and subjective state that is, anyhow).

Speaking as a man, I gotta say that on magical angels whose every curve fascinates me, the vagina is a small bit of paradise and artistry. Not to sound overly Georgia O’Keefish, but there is such variety, such divinity, such pure artistry in every curve and line of a vagina.

My purpose in writing this is not to ‘go off’ on how great vaginas are, yet it’s difficult to see the innate weirdness of this trend until you consider that most guys see it like I do. So the question remains…who are you doing all that for?

Who benefits, other than plastic surgeons?

Please believe me, we like your little boobs, and your freaky-cool pussy. We love how only you laugh, or think, or make love…or look. All the ‘imperfections’ are what create the unique you. We love you. Just as you are. Honest.

If someone else was doing this to women, we’d be shocked, outraged.

We’d send in a bunch of diplomats or lawyers or the 82^nd Airborne to stop them. Yet if it is done in the name of ‘fashion’ or ‘personal choice’ we all just sit blithely by and let it happen, as our wives and girlfriends carve themselves up, offer up their most intimate body parts on the altar of false vanity.

Yet as I write this, I am faced with the innate chauvinism and duality of my words. I am sort of dogging women who do what they want, with their private parts, for their reasons. So what if the reasoning or the result do not meet my (or any guy’s) idea of how or what a woman should do?

I think we’ve started to realize globally that people are not slaves, women have rights, and what they do with their vaginas is their choice. Okay, I support that…just please, don’t pluck the petals. Please, don’t make the meadow all the same. I beg you!

Yet all I (or any guy) can do is beg…or plead…maybe cajole a bit. After all, it’s your decision.

But before you do decide, let me leave you with this one anecdote: one of my former lovers has the most complex vagina I’ve ever seen. Her labia folds about like a wonderful rose. This is no pussy for the timid. It demands loving, care, patience, appreciation. It was the freakiest, coolest vagina I’ve ever encountered.

It was exciting to think there were others similar to it out there. It was awesome to know that nobody had a sweet secret garden just like that. It was so memorable, so wonderful, so uniquely and totally her.

If you are blessed with such a gift, perhaps the appropriate response is gratitude, not a knife.

If your guy (or girl) doesn’t dig it, then maybe it’s time to find a new mate, not a new vagina. I don’t know, just saying. Just saying like the guy and artist and flower-lover I am. That’s all. You decide. You little special, unique flower, you.   : )

Note: this blog was inspired by the wonderful blog of Tanya Lee Markul, editor of Elephant Journal, blogger extrodinaire, and Keeper of Unicorns. Her (better) blog can be found here.

Mark-Francis Mullen is a Nowist monk, the only one in the world who claims this distinction. He is lucky enough to live in Boulder, Colorado amongst a vibrant yoga community. He is called to be a guide to those who think they are ‘too something’ for yoga (too old, too sick, too fat, etc.). He loves to live, laugh, practice/teach yoga, and write. He prays that all beings experience peace and serenity.

 

~

Editor: Lara C.

Like elephant journal gets sexy on Facebook.