The Narrow Door

Sybil Smith’s essay “The Narrow Door” [November 2005] illustrates an unfortunate deficit in this country’s sex education.

I had little appreciation for the diversity of women’s genitalia until relatively recently. As a monogamous male in his fifties, I’d hardly had the opportunity to make comparisons. (The skin magazines of my youth generally neglected this portion of the female anatomy.)

Since my wife has entered menopause, however, her libido has disappeared, and rather than initiate an affair, I have taken advantage of the proliferation of Internet porn. Though the pornography business seems filled with stupidity, misogyny, repressed aggression, coercion, and various other awful human traits, it does make available thousands of photos of women’s genitalia in all their natural diversity.

Sybil Smith stated that “there was nothing beautiful about these organs.” To men, though, even those with declining sex drives such as myself, vulvas are endlessly interesting. Like faces, some are attractive to me, others less so. As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Preferences as to pubic hair, pigmentation, and so on are as varied as individuals.

I believe a great service would be rendered if we made thousands of photographs of vulvas (and, to be fair, an equal number of photographs of penises) available to adolescents. As Eve Ensler writes in her play The Vagina Monologues, the only way that abuse of women can be eliminated is by admitting that half of humanity has one, and the sooner we all recognize it, the better. Removal of the mystery and taboo can only aid in bringing greater equality between the sexes.