Learn more. When was the last time you looked at your vagina? Like, really looked at it? Real talk, looking at yourself while squatting over a mirror can feel weird. This is true in the sense that you have complete control over who or what you allow down there. For some people, the only info they get about what vulvas look like is from porn, which can give a very disillusioned sense of what's normal. The truth is that vulvas and vaginas come in a range of shapes, sizes, and colors and each one is unique.

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It can help with body image anxiety. Now, her latest work puts vulvas and vaginas in the spotlight thanks to her new book Womanhood: The Bare Reality and forthcoming Channel 4 documentary: Vaginas. And when women share intimate photos and deeply personal experiences relating to their vaginas, the result is a tender yet taboo-exploding message of women reclaiming their womanhood. I think a part of me was shying away from that intimacy because I would have to address my own related experiences. The correct language and understanding of female genitalia is so important to me: the vulva is the whole external package, the vagina is a muscular tube which leads from the cervix the neck of the womb down to the vulva. Later, a BBC report about girls as young as nine seeking labiaplasty — surgery that involves the lips of the vagina being shortened or reshaped — because they were distressed by its appearance, had Laura reaching for her camera again. The key is not concentrating on the size or shape but whether it affects your physical or emotional wellbeing. She believes a cultural change amongst adolescents and young women, who now choose to remove or style the pubic hair, coupled with a lack of understanding about vulval anatomy, is fuelling the rise. But it can be hard to find accurate information about this.
In mammals , the vagina is the elastic, muscular part of the female genital tract. In humans, it extends from the vulva to the cervix. The outer vaginal opening is normally partly covered by a membrane called the hymen. At the deep end, the cervix neck of the uterus bulges into the vagina. The vagina allows for sexual intercourse and birth. It also channels menstrual flow menses , which occurs in humans and closely related primates as part of the monthly menstrual cycle. Although research on the vagina is especially lacking for different animals, its location, structure and size are documented as varying among species. Female mammals usually have two external openings in the vulva, the urethral opening for the urinary tract and the vaginal opening for the genital tract. This is different from male mammals, who usually have a single urethral opening for both urination and reproduction. The vaginal opening is much larger than the nearby urethral opening, and both are protected by the labia in humans.