How To Stop Feeling Shame About Your Vulva

iloveatiya
2 days ago
4 min read

How To Stop Feeling Shame About Your Vulva

The Words We Inherit and Why We Get to Rewrite Them

By Love Atiya, Pleasure Educator

Dear beautiful soul,

If you’ve found your way to this writing of mine, you’re probably fully aware that women have been under attack and that this attack traces back centuries.

While studying and creating content for The Ethereal Pleasure Oasis, I learned that the shame embedded within us lies deeper than I could have ever imagined. This embedding of shame wasn’t just a slap on the hand; it was an attempt to eradicate pleasure and feeling as a whole.

When doctors in the 1800s and 1900s were attaching leeches to the vulvas (and cervixes) of women, they weren’t always punishing them for exploring or expressing their sexual desires. No, they were quite literally numbing the women in their offices from feeling ANY emotions.

Doctors at the time believed many women’s emotional or sexual complaints, like irritability, anxiety, low libido, or “wandering womb syndrome” were caused by too much blood in the pelvic region. They called it “pelvic congestion.”

To “relieve” that, they’d apply leeches (yes the blood sucking parasites) directly to the vulva, labia, or around the cervix, believing the bloodletting would balance the humors (this is some greek saying) and restore “calm.”

This began the narrative that women who feel “too much” are hysterical. Being hysterical (a woman who is tuned into her desires and emotions) meant women were harder to control.

In turn, we were convinced that our emotions, and being emotional, was a disease.

The irony is that 80% of autoimmune deficiencies are found in women, and I am 99.9% sure that’s due to suppressed emotions, which can actually result in disease.

I have a deep dive into the full list of atrocities that men have committed to disconnect women from our power, but here, I want to talk about word spells and language.

The Spells That We Speak (Unknowingly)

Have you ever stopped to wonder why the words we use for women’s genitals sound like an apology or like an evil villain in a movie?

And why calling our pubic hair “shame hair” is considered…normal? (Did you know this was a thing? Well, it is!)

I say all this to say, if you’re feeling shame when it comes to your genitals, it’s not you… it’s literally in the language.

Around the world, words for female genitals have long been rooted in shame. From the German Schamhaare (shame hairs) & schaamlippen ("shame lips" = labia), to the Latin pudendum which is another word for vulva (literally meaning “something to be ashamed of”), to Swedish and Finnish terms like blygdläppar and häpyhuulet (both translating roughly to “shame lips”), the message across many cultures has been the same:

You have this magical, potent, sacred part of you… and you’re supposed to feel bad about it.

And it doesn’t stop there:

In Arabic, words like ʿayb (shame) have been used for intimate anatomy.
In ancient Greek, aidos carried a dual sense of “awe” and “shame” for the vulva.
Even in Chinese, the traditional term chǐmáo means “shame hair”.

Is this not INSANE?

For too long, words have shaped our feelings. And feelings have shaped our behavior and the way we see ourselves. When every term for a part of your body is wrapped in the concept of shame, it’s no wonder so many of us struggle to connect with ourselves fully, lovingly, and openly.

Pair this with unrealistic images of the “perfect pink small tight vulva… did I mention pink?” and invitations to labiaplasty and boom, we find ourselves drowning in questions “What should my vulva look like?” instead of “How should me and my vulva feel?”

Here’s the Truth:

The words may have been passed down to us, but the shame quite literally doesn’t have to be.We can rewrite the script and change the intention behind each word. What’s a word that you simply don’t relate to and would like to replace? Make it up! Have fun with it.
Words actually only have power when we give it to them. Even though the translation may break down to “shame” our feelings surrounding them don’t have to!
We can call ourselves by names that honor, uplift, and celebrate our bodies.

What if:

We call our genitals “sacred spaces”, “magic portals” or “powerful pleasure centers”?
We embraced the word “vulva” as a word rooted in reverence?
We named ourselves and our anatomy with words that make us smile instead of shrinking?

This is what I teach every day in The Ethereal Pleasure Oasis: that words matter, feelings matter, and that every person (yes, including you) deserves a vocabulary of belonging, belonging in your body, belonging in your skin and belonging in your deepest desires and pleasures.

You Are Not What An Old Dictionary Tried to Name You.

The language of shame no longer has to penetrate you.

You are not “something to be ashamed of.”You are holy af babe, you are whole, and you deserve words that honor the beauty and power you and you vulva carry.