Gaping maws

[girlygirl]

Recently, somebody posted on this board regarding dificulty finding his girlfriend's vaginal opening. My first thought was to direct him to the female anatomy diagrams on this site. However, I decided that they were too stylised to be much help in this particular case, especially the depiction of the vaginal opening, which is shown as a huge hole that doesn't look much like any vaginal opening I've ever seen. I therefore began searching the net for more realistic and proportionate diagrams of the external female genitalia. I was amazed by what I found.

Every diagram I looked at, regardless of how realistic it was in most regards, depicted the vaginal opening in the same way: a great big hole. I knew for a fact that this was not what the enterence to my vagina looked like, but my exposure to other women's vagina's had been sadly limited, so I did some research (thankfully, photographs of vulvas are not hard to find on the internet). My suspisions were confirmed; none of the pictures I found match the diagrams. Even the vaginas discribed as "loose" have much smaller enterences, and the angle of the vagina causes the enterence to look more like a pocket than a hole. In the end, I directed the poster to the original diagram, but cautioned that, if his girlfriend was a virgin, her vaginal opening would probably not be that "noticeable". Now I take that back. If his girlfriend has twenty-eight kids and a taste for fists, her vaginal opening still will not be that noticeable.

What the heck is up with that? I understand that these diagrams are intended to be educational and not pornagraphic, so the artists may feel the need to stylize them somewhat in the interest of taste. However, it seems to me that changing the details makes the diagrams less educational--I can't imagine how many young people have been left all the more confused by them--and I fail to see how exagerating the part that men are likely to find the most sexually interesting can make a picture less pornigraphic. Does anyone have an explanation for this? I am utterly baffled.

[Brandye]

There is a difference between the porn sites and legitimate anatomy sites. Try searching with "reproductive anatomy" or female anatomy" of just go to Gray's Anatomy, the standard text, now online. The perspective will not be distorted as the sex sites are.

When you take the view of a clinician, the vaginal opening is really quite noticeable. Like most of you, I have examined my own only with a mirror and that, too, yields some distortions.

In short, the excitement sites use poses and techniques to amplify. And remember, position can make quite a difference.

[moderatorII]

The female anatomy diagrams on web-sites (including the more "reputable" ones) typically seem intent on clearly defining the various parts. In order to be clear about what part is what, some exaggeration is required, as in reality a lot of the parts are not that easily distinguishable from each other.

However, I agree that this can cause an unintended perspective. Unfortunately, the viewing "novice" may now have a clear idea of the parts, but a skewed perspective of the whole (no pun intended!).

Pornographic sites are another subject ...

[ELF]

Ahhh....you know...website aren't the only ones with silly pics.

Take biology books for example...like the ones we use in class. We just laugh bc they're sooooo useless. They may label the prostate glnad and the urethra...but the proportions aren't quite right.

And hey, this is a one diagram, whereelse everyone differs slightly.

And plus it can't look realistic...otherwise they'd be showing us a picture of someone's genitals!!! Not that i'm against this... But that's how it goes.

Some people see our own body as pornography rather than our own body!