Joan Smith

That Which Must Not Be Named

The Vagina: A Literary and Cultural History

By

Bloomsbury 354pp £19.99 order from our bookshop

It is more than four decades since the feminist self-help book Our Bodies, Ourselves offered women detailed instructions on how to look at their vaginas. My yellowing copy describes the way women learned to feel that their bodies were not their own, arguing that this ‘hands-off’ message had even more force when applied to the vagina. Over two pages, the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective gave matter-of-fact instructions on self-examination, advising women to prepare by collecting a strong torch, a plastic speculum, a mirror and a tube of KY jelly. Once everything was in place, they were ready to learn that the ‘pink area, which looks much like the walls of your throat, is your vagina’.

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