The Secret History of the Vulva
(a lengthy, most interesting article. you might also want to read "Vagina Obscura", a book that covers this at scholarly, fascinating, length)
The Secret History of the Vulva
3/25/2023 by Catherine Faurot
Vulvas carved into the sandstone walls of Carnarvon Gorge in Queensland, Australia. (Aussie Towns / Facebook)
We live in a world so dominated by phallic imagery that the vulva—humanity’s first and most sacred symbol—has been almost completely obscured. Even the term for imagery of the vulva (yonic, in case you’re wondering) is obscure. Once revered, the vulva’s inherent power in bringing forth new life made it dangerous, and men tried—and are still trying—to denude it of power, tame, control and erase it. Let me take you on a tour of the yonic imagery omnipresent in our world. Once you can see it, the vulva is everywhere.
Don’t Call It a Vagina
(“Vulva v. Vagina: What’s The Difference?” / Yoxly)
The vagina and the vulva are not the same thing. The word ‘vagina’ means ‘sheath’ in Latin, as if the penis is a sword, and the vagina: a penis accessory. Referring to the vulva as the vagina is a verbal sleight of hand designed to make the labia and clitoris disappear. Can you imagine this happening to men? No one is going to erase the penis. But culturally there is a huge ignorance about female genitals. This ignorance is not due to prudishness about sex but about female sexuality and female power. The porn industry shows no reluctance in portraying or fulfilling male sexual desires. Underlying this cultural squeamishness is a long history of fear of the vulva and the power of women to create life—hence the erasure.
But it wasn’t always this way.
The Wall of One Thousand Vulvas
The vulva is the oldest and most common object in prehistoric art. Carved in stone or painted on cave walls, images of the vulva were created around the world. In Queensland, Australia, you can visit a stoneface called “The Wall of One Thousand Vulvas.” In contrast, paleolithic images of the penis are rarely found, either by themselves or in ithyphallic images—which is a fantastic way of saying pictures of men with dicks. Why so many images of the vulva? Scholars believe early humans had no awareness of the role men play in fertility, while, in contrast, a woman’s role in creating life is unequivocal. The vulvas carved all over the world are invocations to this creative power. During a span of human existence tenfold the length of recorded history, the vulva was a primary object of devotion. Female bodies and our ability to bring forth life were the focus of reverence. Let this understanding of the sanctity and power of the vulva seep into your cells, your souls. This is fundamentalism in its deepest sense.
. . . .
The origins of the human experience are embodied in reverence for women and our bodies, which are both fully celebrated for sexual and generative powers, and also seen as sanctified portals to the cosmic realm. To say that this history calls into question cultural norms about gender, power, religion and sex is an understatement. But knowledge of the past is useless unless we change the present. One important resource for reclamation is Indigenous women, many of whom still carry this knowledge as living traditions in their communities. Among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), the vulva is seen as the “sacred door of the mother.” The Mohawk Bear Clan Mother, Iakoiane Wakerahkats:teh, writes, “Inside Indigenous women’s world view, Mother is the LAW!…It is the mother who stands at the threshold of life and death. She is the canoe, the vessel, the rivers from which all life flows or not.”
Life and death, the physical and the metaphysical are all manifest in female sacred power, and the vulva is and will always be the sacred opening.
https://msmagazine.com/2023/03/25/vulva-art-history/