The Story of V: Opening Pandora's Box
by Catherine Blackledge
322pp, Weidenfeld, £18.99
"Vagina" is a dirty word. So filthy, in fact, that a book entirely dedicated to the subject fails to include it in its title. Despite a good airing by The Vagina Monologues, a term that was first used in English in 1682 is still so problematic that this study of female genitalia resorts instead to a euphemistic "V", which, in exaggerated font, also functions as something of a modesty patch for the book's pubic cover photo.
The problem, of course, is that the vagina is a culturally obscure little organ. Phallic references and penis jokes litter daily discourse, whereas vulval imagery is seemingly limited to pornography and dated lesbian-feminist jewellery, with the odd Georgia O'Keeffe and amusing ancient artefact thrown in. Of course, Catherine Blackledge is here to show us otherwise, and The Story of V is a mind-boggling smorgasbord of fanny facts, some of which we really, really didn't need to know.
The vagina has been explored by gynaecologists, sexologists and pornographers, but rarely, if ever, has its every cultural, historical, anthropological and anatomical facet been probed with such exhaustive - and exhausting - dedication. In our liberal era, we think we're all frightfully frank, but the vagina remains a far more taboo subject than we realise. Indeed, what goes on down there is still misrepresented or shrouded. There is still no term equivalent to "willy" that is acceptable for use among children. Fanny, pussy, snatch, cunt: the lexical options only shoot further and further up the rudeness scale. And the full-colour crotch shots that illustrate the book are undeniable shockers, entirely divorced from the images peddled by top-shelf publications that promote a world of trimmed labia and shaven havens in which women resemble pre-pubescent girls. As Blackledge writes, "For many men and women, such cunt caricatures are coming to be seen as a normal view of the vagina." If The Story of V does anything, it drives home the fact that we're stunningly vaginally ill-informed.
To go back to the beginning - or l'origine du monde, as Courbet entitled his boundary-breaking legs-akimbo vista - the vadge wasn't smelly or rude. No, it was life-affirming, iconic, divine even, and invested with symbolism that we can barely begin to imagine. Skirt-lifting was significant for centuries: in India, the gesture was meant to disperse evil influences, while in ancient Egypt, women did it to multiply crop yield. On 17th-century drinking mugs, depictions can be found of a confrontation between an exposed vagina and a reeling Satan. Even Pliny noted that a woman could banish pests by strolling around with her fanny on display before sunrise. As Blackledge notes in her quite astonishingly thorough monograph, vulval cakes were carried at the Syracusan Thesmophoria festival, just as split loaves still form part of some Italian and French Catholic ceremonies. The odd perplexing omission aside (where is Kinsey? Where is Hite? Conclusions reached decades ago are presented with a gloss of novelty), the abundance of research into all things vaginal leaves the reader both highly impressed, and somewhat engulfed.
Female genitals have been widely represented through history, but lacking the more thrusting presence of their male counterparts, their existence is virtually unknown to us. In art, any number of fertility icons, Sheela-na-Gig girls (medieval figures displaying their pudenda), and ancient French vulval carvings are there for the unearthing, and, since men's role in procreation was misunderstood, the mons veneris and not the penis was a major feature of prehistoric art. As Blackledge demonstrates, images once perceived through the filter of the male gaze as prehistoric porn are increasingly accepted as fertility symbols.
While vagina worship has formed an element of many eastern religions, the Christian view is all sin, shame and fig leaves. Vagina veneration is not exactly hot in the west. Even pubic hair is something of a problem, since centuries' worth of nude paintings suggest that the hairy diadem simply doesn't exist. In the 13th century, however, Gropecuntelane was a fairly common English street name, and Paris sported a rue Grattecon (Scratchcunt Street). In contemporary Spanish, the mild local expletive "coño" is used in stock phrases. The word pops up all over the shop in similar guises: "kunta" in Old Norse, "cunnikin" in 19th-century English, "kunthi" in Sanskrit and "kus" in Hebrew.
The crux of The Story of V is the role of the "intelligent vagina". Blackledge gathers together a body of evidence showing that the idea of the vagina as a reproductive "passive vessel" is one of the greatest scientific mistakes of all. In fact, it acts as a sorter and screener of sperm via an obstacle course of hairpin bends, chambers, and a finely balanced acidic eco-system that bounces away the weedier genetic specimens before they can get anywhere near the egg. Orgasmic contractions then hasten the selected sperms' journey. The vagina, therefore, is an active participant in successful conception. The theory is more successfully expounded when it comes to chickens, but in humans, fertility techniques such as intra cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), where fertilisation takes place without the sperm-sorting role of the vagina, result in a larger number of chromosomal abnormalities and embryo deaths.
The proof involves a trip around the animal kingdom that somewhat pushes it. Once we've been treated to details of bedbugs' genitals, Caribbean fruit flies' vaginal entrances, and the spotted hyena's catering-size clitoris (17cm on average), the impressive can verge on the obsessive. The glut of specialist zoology leaves the reader longing to return to a bit of basic human biology. However, what Blackledge terms the "velvet revolution" clearly represents the beginnings of a radical breakthrough in perception.
Thankfully, this is neither a big and baggy whinge about marginalisation and reclamation, nor is there too much New Agey wittering about yonis and primordial triangles; although The Story of V, with its odd moments of strangely clumsy prose, can occasionally read like a student's notes on The Golden Bough.
However, the author is a phenomenal researcher, and movingly enthusiastic about her special subject. This is as persuasive, comprehensive and wide-reaching a study as you could wish for - should you wish for it. It goes before, behind, between, above, below and just about everywhere else. Enough information now, Dr Blackledge.
· Joanna Briscoe is the author of Skin (Phoenix).
