After FCMs post on neovaginas, I feel more horrified than ever at what men think of women. Even more so after doing some research of my own, in an attempt to find a least one medical diagram that shows the vagina as closed. (I couldn’t find one.) But the more I think about it, the more it all fits together. There are so many things that reflect the belief of vaginas as holes, and I’m slowly putting the pieces together from everything.
Tampons
I always thought I was a freak, because I couldn’t get a tampon in or even a finger. I imagined that normal vaginas (not mine) were essentially gaping holes in women’s crotches. That women just walked around with them open, 24/7. Well, I looked up some advice given to women who have trouble using tampons-and the girls were just told to keep trying, squat, or that they just aren’t used to it yet.
Now, I think the difference might not be my vagina, but my determination to use a tampon-which is nil. My theory is that the reason most women use tampons, instead of pads, is because menstrual blood is considered yucky (this way you don’t have to see it till you pull the tampon out), because you can still wear thongs, and it hides a bodily function. It’s possible my vagina is just more anti-penetration than other women’s (or it’s genetic, my mom can’t use them either), but considering I’ve never had difficulty with nigel fingering me when I’m aroused, if I wanted to, I kinda doubt this is the case. Tampons desensitize and train women for dealing with the discomfort and pain that comes with pleasing of men and being feminine.
Fingering, Men’s Ideas about Women’s Sexuality & Porn
Speaking of penetration-how many women really masturbate using dick-like objects? I’ve always just touched my clit, and nothing more. But of course, dudes fantasize about women fucking themselves with their fingers or whatever objects are around. My ex-boyfriend always used to say, “It’s okay to enjoy sex, clits are the only organ humans have that are purely for sexual pleasure.” But did he ever touch it, for anything other than “foreplay”? Fuck no he didn’t. Touching my clit was just leading up to the “main act”-since we weren’t having intercourse, this was fingering me. And when I say fingering me, I don’t mean he touched my clit too during it or used his whole hand against my vulva. Nope, just the ol’ in-and-out of fucking. Needless to say I never had an orgasm with him (although that would be news to him).
His terrible bedroom skills aside, this situation still seemed so weird to me. He clearly knows that the clitoris exists, and he touched it, so he clearly knew where it was and that it feels good for me to be touched there. And yet, he never touched it except in the foreplay before fingering me. Why? Because women have holes that need to be stretched and filled by dicks. The vagina is the central part of our sexuality, as men see it. (And because we’re taught the male perspective, women see it this way too.) I’ve never even heard of a man touching a woman’s bits without fingering her. If a man doesn’t have intercourse with a girl, or she doesn’t want to go that far and the dude is a Nice Guy™, it’s blowjobs and fingering. I mean, even gay men get that just being fucked is boring-that’s why they have reach arounds.
Can you tell which are medical models and which are sex toys?*
But of course, men’s asses are closed. Gay men who bottom are not asked to have their asses pryed open annually to ensure their health. Men are also not paid $450 in exchange for medical students getting to use their asses to practice prostate exams on.** I couldn’t even find a model dummy that helped students learn how to perform prostate exams or STD tests for men. (Someone should alert the MRAs of this reverse sexism.)
Women’s asses, on the other hand, are now just as open as our vaginas. In porn, men will repeatedly pull out of vaginas and asses, and the camera will focus on the “gaping” of it. How it remains open because of being fucked repeatedly. The man will enter again, fuck, and then pull out. Or just keep entering and exiting. And just leave their dick outside of the “hole.” I’ve seen quite a bit of both gay and straight porn, and I rarely saw this in the gay stuff, and if it was there, it was in the more BDSM kinda shit. For facials, women often leave their mouths open as well. Our vaginas aren’t the only holes we have any more—now we have three.
Another common thing in porn is inserting various objects into a woman-not just dildos, but coke bottles, pool cues, and entire fists. For my FTM ex, before he got a strap on dick, the goal of sex was basically to see how many fingers he could fit inside of my vagina or my ass. Now, I’m horrified that my body could adapt to that-because even just two fingers feel uncomfortable, and anything back there is a hell no. I don’t understand how I possibly survived his fist being in there.
Our Personalities & Socialization
The entire construction of woman, as men have created it, is based on vaginas being holes, and women being only vaginas. This is sorta like what Dworkin addressed in “The Root Cause,” but if I think the idea of male as the positive and female as the negative needs to be connected to how men see sex. Women are gaps, spaces, and some sort of abyss. Our entire personalities and lives are constructed around this. Without PIV, or without a man, women often feel empty and pointless. And we’re told our lives are pointless without men, thanks to fairytales, porn, and the comments of others about lesbians, and celibate or single women. Our vaginas and lives must be filled by man. Or at least other people, and never ourselves.
I wish I could say more about this, but I’m having a lot of trouble finding the words to express what I mean by this. Hopefully I’ve gotten it across even though I’m lacking on detail and clarity.
Rape
Everytime I think of how men see vaginas, and by extention women, I get an image in my head I just can’t get rid of. A woman, just sleeping. And a dude thinking that her vagina is gaping. So he does what all dudes do to any hole, gay or straight-he sticks his dick in it. And it’s not rape to him or anyone else, because she has a hole. And vaginas are always open and ready for sex. Women are always open. We’re always “consenting” because our sex organs are always open for fucking. Men have to get hard. But women don’t necessarily have to get wet for intercourse to happen. Men invented lubrication for this purpose.
I’m sure my experience is a common one. A man is attempting to fuck, or finger, a woman. When it doesn’t go in easily, what do men do? They keep pushing, or they tell the woman to just relax. Or, if they have a condition such as vaginismus, the woman receives “treatment,” where she dilates her vagina using dildos until it can accommodate a penis. Or the most recent method-botox. If you’re born without a vagina, or with one too short for a dick, doctors can make one. (More fucked up: In the FAQ, pretty much every question is asked about creating one with surgery, except can I orgasm with this vagina?) Or if you’re having a kid, you can have a c-section for “vaginal preservation,” so your hole isn’t too big for him to fuck anymore.
Well lookie here, that cervix thing was pretty easy to find, wasn't it? Fyi, this is a medical model. That students use to learn how to give gyno exams. Yikes.
*I made it black and white to emphasize that they have the same fucking structure. The only real difference is the porn tan and color detail given to the sex toy one. Color is available here.
**Credit for the inspiration for this sentence goes to the quote in the article about modeling for medical students, from sex educator/female-empowerer: “I provide a vagina and breasts to medical students learning to do their first pelvic and breast exams.” She doesn’t provide feedback so doctors can know when something hurts a patient or how to make them comfortable—she just provides a vagina and breasts.
Also I hate the Vagina Monologues, seriously. Because really, the idea that vaginas are the essence of women is so very cliché.
Femanon 
can I just say, that picture with the medical model and sex aid is enlightening. And fucking sick.
Re the idea that women are gaps/spaces, the uterus also contributes to this belief. Germaine Greer wrote about how the uterus is imagined to be a space, a void, an emptiness inside a woman that requires filling. When actually, the uterus itself is closed in on itself when not gestating a fetus, and such a space as popularly imagined does not exist inside a woman.
Women’s asses, on the other hand, are now just as open as our vaginas. In porn, men will repeatedly pull out of vaginas and asses, and the camera will focus on the “gaping” of it. How it remains open because of being fucked repeatedly. The man will enter again, fuck, and then pull out. Or just keep entering and exiting. And just leave their dick outside of the “hole.”
Yes its interesting how this has become a standard porn trope, so much so that “gaping” is now a porn subgenre itself. Really, I find what men eroticize to be increasingly bizarre as shown in porn, it seems to be becoming more and more symbolic and abstract with each new trope that develops.
I do wonder, what do young women (who arent versed in feminist theory) think about all this when they watch porn.
Its interesting, because feminists have been talking about “women as holes” for decades. And now porn with its fixation on “gaping” is proving that the feminists were right on the money with that one. Dworkin published Intercourse in 1987, and porn in 2010 basically illustrates all her arguments, clear as day and with no ambiguity. I think porn has the potential to be one of the greatest weapons at feminism’s disposal (should we ever have a feminist movement again). It’s basically an illustrated guide to feminist theory and female oppression.
I’ve kind of gone on a tangent, but great post! Lots to think about in this one.
Msc, you might want to link to my fuckhole posts, I don’t think miskas seen them yet. :p Anyway, that medical model vs fucktoy illustration was excellent. As in, I threw up in my mouth a little bit, when i saw it. God, how horrifying!! And the least they could’ve done was build a female torso with a speculum sticking out of it, to explain why the vagina is just a gaping hole, and why you could see the cervix from across the room. I mean, i know that this IS what doctors see, when they see our vaginas, because we are spread eagle with a speculum prying the walls apart. But its not because we really look like that!! Isn’t this something doctors need to know?? And, don’t they need to learn how to use a speculum too? If not, why not?
I like what you said about women being holes, and about our lives being holes, to be filled, quite literally with men and babies. It’s exactly how we are seen, but it doesn’t really click, until you say it out loud.
Thanks Msc. I have seriously been trying to entice miska to comment on those, but so far she hasn’t taken the bait. My trans posts never feel complete without her input.
Holy shit that picture is horrifying. I honestly would have thought that they were all designed to be ‘sex’ toys.
“Or if you’re having a kid, you can have a c-section for “vaginal preservation,” so your hole isn’t too big for him to fuck anymore.”
I think it was in Sisterhood is Powerful I read about how they thought that if doctors could ever find a way to reconstruct the vagina + recreate the hymen + aesthetically alter the vulva they would make so much money off the men who wanted their wives to get this done. Except now it’s girlfriends and friends who are pressured into this by the men in their life. They have and now it’s becoming a booming industry.
It’s terrifying to think that men really do just think of womyn as an abyss waiting for them to come switch the lights on, so to speak.
@Miska
Shit, I didn’t know that about the uterus! They don’t draw it closed either, I assume because it’s just waiting to be filled by a babay? Ewww. When I saw it without being feminist, I was just like “why would you do that?” because the feeling of something going in is always uncomfortable for me, even if the intercourse or fingering is pleasurable. I’m not sure it’s uncomfortable for other women, but I know I’m damn sure it is with the anus. My ex used to love doing that crap.
@FCM
“I mean, i know that this IS what doctors see, when they see our vaginas, because we are spread eagle with a speculum prying the walls apart. But its not because we really look like that!! Isn’t this something doctors need to know??”
This is how I felt totally FCM. Honestly I think this is a big reason why gyno exams are so terrible-if the doctor doing the procedure thinks of it as just gaping, they aren’t going to worry too much about pain at all, because there’s nothing to stretch or tear. I’m convinced this is why they suck so much, and why they don’t make any effort to prepare women whatsoever. (I mean, at least let me get aroused first. Then things would be so much easier.)
@berryblade
Yeah that picture comparison is MEGA creepy. I remember when I first saw the medical models I thought they were sex toys too. The hardest part was finding a sex toy that wasn’t in the doggy style position and didn’t have fake hands holding the labia apart so its genitals would be “open.” The one I found I believe was from that RealDoll place. (still need to get a hold of some brain bleach after visiting that site)
All the new surgeries they have for women’s genitals are hella distrubing. I dunno if you’ve also heard of the G-spot injections and the removal of the clitoral hood (so that it can be stimulated constantly-during intercourse of course.) I don’t see how plastic surgeons are allowed to operate on such young girls. Where’s the fucking ethics board? Too busy wanking to porn? I think I’m going to do a post on these kinds of surgeries, because I’ve known men who wanted to go into plastic surgery and they were total porn hounds. So I think they might have a motive beyond profit, as much as it frightens me to think about.
A few years after I founded Moondance, our poetry editor was married to a neurosurgeon. He wrote a few pieces for us, but what he told us privately was far more meaningful to me.
He made the point that women’s phyiology is taught as “abnormal” in med schools because “normal” is male. That was in the late 1990s. I doubt it has changed all that much today. Last year, I read an article by a female doctor who complained that women’s symptoms, diseases and remedies were still being shortchanged in med school. That’s why 40% of women die with their first heart attack. Most doctors have not been trained to know that women’s symptoms of heart attack are different than mens or that the remedies that work for men do not work for women, which means that even if we are diagnosed correctly, we still die because no one thought it was important to find out if the standard (ie male normal) remedies were right for us.
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“Why? Because women have holes that need to be stretched and filled by dicks. The vagina is the central part of our sexuality, as men see it.”
This is so spot on, I can’t even elaborate. This is why I no longer date or respect men who use porn. One guy who used a lot of porn fingered me pretty roughly and when I told him it hurt, he went, hang on it’ll stop it just needs to stretch out a bit. Like the problem was me not him.
“Women are gaps, spaces, and some sort of abyss.”
I never thought about this, but it’s a really great point.
Thanks for a great post!
Oh look, a femanon from /b/ who thinks she’s funny. You and your feminist bitches get what you deserve. As if you all don’t look at porn yourselves. Honestly have you ever tried looking in a mirror?
I guess it’s funny blaming men for your problems, and not taking your slutty behavior in step, but you all take it to a whole new level. You’re all just bitches and deserve to be put down like the dogs you are. You are the ones making true feminism unable to grow. Fuck off.
Love,
Christopher Poole, a.k.a. Moot
Wow, I’m sooo honored, moot. I’m not actually from /b/-I wouldn’t touch you pathetic misogynist assholes with a ten-foot pole. And no, I don’t look at porn anymore, I only look at yaoi or fanfiction. Which not coincidently, doesn’t cause people to catch HIV or fuel the demand for sex trafficking.
It’s hilarious you call me a slut for…what, exactly? Because according to most men, I’m a prudish bitch. Please
mansplaindefine “true” feminism, I’m most interested.Way to not address any of my points.
I think he means ‘true feminists’ the same way some dumb-arses use the phrase ‘true rape victims’
Hahha all just bitches.
Wow I would respond more to that CPoole, except for the fact that you did a way better job showing what a bigot you are than any of us could. In the website slot instead of putting your own blog in, you wrote http://niggers/, so apparently you hate black people too. And anyone who says that people who write very non-aggressive and insightful interesting articles that don’t put down anyone in particular “need to be put down like dogs” is the kind of person who probably goes to meetings with a big white robe with a pointy hat (judging by your nice use of the word nigger in your link, I’d say I’m not too far off). And quite frankly just a sick fuck. Just curious, are there any people you don’t hate? Obviously other men, and “true feminists.” Are true feminists the ones who don’t complain when they’re demoralized or treated like shit? The kind who smile when you slap them around cause women just deserve it for being women? Anyone who gets this angry at this kind of post, which isn’t an angry post or anything meant to ignite anyone, has a serious mental disorder. Have you thought about anger management? Do you like to just go around to other people’s blogs and hate on them for no reason? Why don’t you have the balls to put your opinions out on your own blog for criticism? Oh right, because you’re a coward who gets their shits and giggles from going around putting other people down for thinking about things.
I giggled.
You have a very strange perspective of male perception.
This should change as you mature, godspeed.
Then explain the male perception for me, please, and how it differs from how I interpreted it. How am I perceiving it wrong? Don’t bother to post little jabs at my sluttiness/prudishness/immaturity/womanness if you’re not going to explain.
David, I’m not going to post your comment but I will say this:
Then why does this exist as a genre of porn? Why are medical diagrams drawn as the vagina being open? Why do women born without vaginas get treated as freaks and failures as women?
The crossed out part is what I will not and never will do. The response of the morons on 4chan says enough about what male sthink about women-look at what happened. Rape threats, and someone even said “we fill holes around these parts.” Look at porn, ffs-it’s all present in there. Even in medical diagrams of the vagina. You don’t have any evidence to counter mine that says men don’t see women this way-saying it isn’t like that doesn’t magically make it true.
And again, you are banned and not published because you keep making jabs at me without really making an argument. You’re just saying what you think as if it were factual, no evidence or examples.
And you need to try a little introspection yourself, bud. Since the majority of porn features some aspect of needing to fill women’s various holes with man-meat, it means that concept arouses men. That women have empty space, and are incomplete until they’ve been stuffed full of penis. That concept does turn men on. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be such a popular marketing point of porn. The market doesn’t drive people, people drive the market. It’s basic supply and demand. What’s available reflects what people want and will pay for. So if the majority of porn features something, that means the majority of men enjoy that. Whether or not men want to admit a particular thing turns them on or that they can consciously recognize they enjoy something is irrelevant. Supply and demand.
Women ARE objects and property, and are to be used as such.
I’m allowing this comment because it proves my point, whether or not you mean it as “just” a joke. Thank you for agreeing with my post.
dude, what is this i don’t even?
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linking this on the HUB.