When I was growing up my mother taught me to refer to my vagina as my "cookie." As in, "make sure to wipe both your cookie and your tushie after going to the bathroom." I started sex play with my friends at 6 and had my first orgasm at 12 from masturbating, and then at 16 came for the first time with another person when my friend Paul went down on me for the first time...but all that time I could never find a word I liked for what I had down there.
I always thought I looked different than the porn magazines I saw and other girls I glimpsed briefly in the locker rooms--my outer lips were substantial and puffy and I didn't have really any inner lips to speak of. My clit was small, hidden and extremely sensitive, so much so that I never allowed anyone to touch it directly and masturbated by circling my fingers over the mound of flesh above it: touching it by proxy. Masturbation was fun but often frustrating as I found my fingers didn't have the stamina to go as hard or fast as I needed for as long as I needed to come hard like I wanted.
I slept with a woman for the first time at 17; and that was when I first discovered how beautiful cunts could be. She looked and tasted wonderful. I started questioning the wisdom of a consumer culture that did not value the natural smell, taste, and appearance of women. That questioning increased in my 20s as I read books on gender, sexuality, and lesbianism from sexpositive bookstores, saw the Vagina Monologues, and otherwise sought to reeducate myself in the mysteries of femalia. I particularly enjoyed Eve Ensler's essay "Reclaiming Cunt," which is about choosing to make such a powerful, magical word as Cunt a positive force in your life instead of letting our society dismiss it as a slur.
At 18, I met my primary partner Brian. Hy loved every inch of me and told me so constantly. Hy helped me see the beauty in my difference--how my big lips made sex cushiony and soft, the perfect size for sucking or biting and holding jewelry or other adornments, how my supersensitive clit could bring me to mindblowing orgasms if it was approached with respect and devotion, how all the little things I previously felt took away from my sexiness instead multiplied and defined it.
Brian also taught me to appreciate what I had--he was born intersexed, with both male and female genitals, and some of the female ones were removed at birth without his consent as was (and is) the policy in most hospitals, in an effort by the Drs to make him look "normal." Brian's chromosomal sex is female (XX) and his perceptive gender is mostly female too, so he knew long before he found out he was born intersexed that he was fundamentally missing something important and is extremely sad and angry that his vagina isn't where it should be.
He bought me my first real vibrator--the Hitachi Magic Wand. I still use it almost every day--it can give me the hard, fast, deep stimulation I need without ever getting tired. I usually press it slightly to one side of my labia, so it sits above one of the horns of the larger clitoral structure, and I press it hard into my mons so the vibration transfers to everywhere, from the head of my clit, to my paraurethral sponge, my vaginal opening, the muscles beneath...everywhere. After the first week with the Hitachi I found out I could female ejaculate...we celebrated that discovery by my coming all over hys face. These days both my clit and my sex drive have grown a bit from taking supplemental testosterone, and I find my most intense orgasms come from using my Hitachi at the same time as having a dildo or fingers sliding slowly and deliberately in and out of my vagina.
Brian and I are now approaching our 12th year in a wonderful open polyamorous relationship. We recently shared a short fling with a silly young girl, who told us early on that she couldn't abide the word "cunt" and that she referred to her own and others' as their "kitty". I was happy to humor her, to use any word she wanted for hers, but the first time she called mine "kitty" something in me recoilWhen I was growing up my mother taught me to refer to my vagina as my "cookie." As in, "make sure to wipe both your cookie and your tushie after going to the bathroom." I started sex play with my friends at 6 and had my first orgasm at 12 from masturbating, and then at 16 came for the first time with another person when my friend Paul went down on me for the first time...but all that time I could never find a word I liked for what I had down there.
I always thought I looked different than the porn magazines I saw and other girls I glimpsed briefly in the locker rooms--my outer lips were substantial and puffy and I didn't have really any inner lips to speak of. My clit was small, hidden and extremely sensitive, so much so that I never allowed anyone to touch it directly and masturbated by circling my fingers over the mound of flesh above it: touching it by proxy. Masturbation was fun but often frustrating as I found my fingers didn't have the stamina to go as hard or fast as I needed for as long as I needed to come hard like I wanted.
I slept with a woman for the first time at 17; and that was when I first discovered how beautiful cunts could be. She looked and tasted wonderful. I started questioning the wisdom of a consumer culture that did not value the natural smell, taste, and appearance of women. That questioning increased in my 20s as I read books on gender, sexuality, and lesbianism from sexpositive bookstores, saw the Vagina Monologues, and otherwise sought to reeducate myself in the mysteries of femalia. I particularly enjoyed Eve Ensler's essay "Reclaiming Cunt," which is about choosing to make such a powerful, magical word as Cunt a positive force in your life instead of letting our society dismiss it as a slur.
At 18, I met my primary partner Brian. Hy loved every inch of me and told me so constantly. Hy helped me see the beauty in my difference--how my big lips made sex cushiony and soft, the perfect size for sucking or biting and holding jewelry or other adornments, how my supersensitive clit could bring me to mindblowing orgasms if it was approached with respect and devotion, how all the little things I previously felt took away from my sexiness instead multiplied and defined it.
Brian also taught me to appreciate what I had--hy was born intersexed, with both male and female genitals, and some of the female ones were removed at birth without his consent as was (and is) the policy in most hospitals, in an effort by the Drs to make him look "normal." Brian's chromosomal sex is female (XX) and his perceptive gender is mostly female too, so he knew long before he found out he was born intersexed that he was fundamentally missing something important and is extremely sad and angry that his vagina isn't where it should be.
He bought me my first real vibrator--the Hitachi Magic Wand. I still use it almost every day--it can give me the hard, fast, deep stimulation I need without ever getting tired. I usually press it slightly to one side of my labia, so it sits above one of the horns of the larger clitoral structure, and I press it hard into my mons so the vibration transfers to everywhere, from the head of my clit, to my paraurethral sponge, my vaginal opening, the muscles beneath...everywhere. After the first week with the Hitachi I found out I could female ejaculate...we celebrated that discovery by my coming all over hys face. These days both my clit and my sex drive have grown a bit from taking supplemental testosterone, and I find my most intense orgasms come from using my Hitachi at the same time as having a dildo or fingers sliding slowly and deliberately in and out of my vagina.
Brian and I are now approaching our 12th year in a wonderful open polyamorous relationship. We recently shared a short fling with a silly young girl, who told us early on that she couldn't abide the word "cunt" and that she referred to her own and others' as their "kitty". I was happy to humor her, to use any word she wanted for hers, but the first time she called mine "kitty" something in me recoil
ed a bit--a kitty is cute, sure, but it's also juvenile, childish, gentle, not to be taken seriously.
Between MY legs, there is nothing like that. Between my legs is something sexual, adult, womanly, powerful, magical, joyful, intense, soft, strong, sometimes painful, usually comfortable, mostly ecstatic, incredible wonder of the universe. I can't think of a better word for it than Cunt.
Thank you, Betty, for giving me and others a chance to share ours with each other and the world.
Lauren
