It’s pretty amazing how one moment in your life can define you. Mine was back in high school when a conversation in maths class taught me there was such a thing as an ‘innie’ and an ‘outie’. I hadn’t seen another vulva at that point in time, and it was that conversation that set me on a path of years of self-hate, as I thought my vulva wasn’t ‘normal’.
In my early 20s, I set about changing it. I was sick of feeling totally self-conscious every time I was intimate with someone. I was done with worrying about people judging my body, and I thought the best way to fix how I was feeling about myself came down to cosmetic surgery. I wanted a ‘normal’ vulva, so I sought out to have labiaplasty.
Labiaplasty and the quest for ‘normal’
I went down the road of searching for a cosmetic surgeon, convinced that this would change how I felt inside. I found many doctors who were open to helping me with labiaplasty – despite my age and despite my being totally uneducated in the space.
Two years later, I had saved the money to get the procedure done, and I met with a surgeon to begin the process. It was this surgeon that suggested that I actually go and research what other vulvas looked like.
It was this simple recommendation that saved me from cutting off part of my vulva in a quest for what was ‘normal’. The doctor told me to go home and Google what vulvas look like to better arm myself with knowledge. He suggested I research if ‘normal’ actually existed and to make sure I made a decision to have labiaplasty surgery based on knowledge and not insecurities.
It was that conversation that set me on a path that I am so grateful for. I went on and started photographing vulvas. I set a goal to photograph 500 people’s vulvas and hear their stories.
It started off with a mission to allow me personally see what other vulvas look like, but it has now grown so big that I want every single person in the world to see my project – Flip Through My Flaps.
Through doing this project, I have learnt the many things a human can be self-conscious about – we really are our own worst enemies when it comes to how we see ourselves and our bodies. We would never speak to a friend the way we talk to ourselves, and it is my mission to change that internal dialogue.
Today, I have gone about creating workshops that help people connect to not only the vulvas but their entire bodies, hoping that we can all love ourselves and our bodies – just as it is, in every stage of life. And to ensure that I’m continuing to support all kinds of women, on and offline.
I have joined Sunroom – an app created by women for women and non-binary creators, designed to be a liberating space for celebrating unfiltered self-expression and enabling creators to make money on their own terms. Sunroom’s mission is to remove the stigmas women and non-binary people face when asking for more or showing more in their pursuit of creating content that feels authentic to them. It’s really important to me that there’s a platform that showcases and celebrates natural female bodies because when I was growing up, there wasn’t anything like that available to me which unfortunately perpetuated the stigma that I wasn’t ‘normal’ because of what my vulva looked like.
But all in all, I am forever thankful for that doctor and how a simple conversation set me on a path to change my relationship with my body and helped me on a mission to bring the same outlook to others.
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