Philip Werner Talks Vaginas, Nakedness & Body Image

There's a mysterious negative stigma attached to our bodies in America. Violence and drug-use rule the airwaves, but the thought of a penis or breast being shown is revolting. Why are we so ashamed of our bodies? What happened between the time when we all walked around naked with spears? Well, not all of us are ashamed. GetLusty asked Philip Werner some questions about his book,  101 Vagina and his thoughts on how women perceive natural beauty.

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What is the premise of the 101 Vagina coffee table book project and what inspired you to create it?

The main idea is to break the taboo around vaginas and ease all the body image shame in general. I was first inspired after reading the Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler as it really highlighted how big an issue this really is. Our entire society is hobbled by these taboos and by this shame around our bodies.

Why do you think portraying pictures of vaginas, or even mentioning them, is still so taboo?

Yes, there is a bizarre juxtaposition where on the one hand sex and bodies are sensationalized and on the other, people feel ashamed and almost afraid of the simple realities of our bodies. Bikini clad women are plastered all around us and yet some people feel uncomfortable with women breast feeding in public. Something has gone wrong somewhere and I honestly don't know how we ended up in this situation where people are afraid of the simple realities of their bodies. Perhaps vaginas are the ultimate symbol of vulnerability, openness, the feminine; all the things that the ideas of power, protection and control feel threatened by. But honestly I don't know.

How do you think nude photography and seeing other women nude can help individuals overcome shame and issues with their own bodies?

Well, I think in particular when naked bodies are depicted as they are without Photoshopping, it helps deconstruct these marketing-driven ideals that have been rammed down our throats. If you see someone who is also imperfect, just like you, you feel validated in a way. Somehow it reminds you that, yes, they are OK, and therefore I'm OK.

I was at a nude beach recently and there was a woman who had obviously had a mastectomy. One of her breasts was missing a nipple and both breasts obviously had implants. It took me aback initially, but it was also very reassuring somehow that humans are somehow perfect in their imperfections. She was comfortable, probably having come to terms with it long ago. How unfortunate that we hide our imperfections from each other all the time, no wonder so many people are depressed, trying to live up to some stupid ideals of everlasting happiness and "beauty".

Like with overly skinny models and Photoshopped, airbrushed celebrities, do you think porn puts forth the wrong image of what vaginas should look like and make women self-conscious about their own nudity? What negative side-effects have you seen related to this issue? 

Well, I think this is an interesting issue and there are many sides. "Porn," comes in so many different variations, and anyone that's had a bit of a look around will have seen many different looking vaginas. Yes, in mainstream porn most women are shaved, for example, but home made porn seems to be becoming more popular where ordinary people are just the way they are. Again the problem with porn has been that it's been market driven, rather than community driven. Look at music these days. The big marketing machines are being circumvented by everyone being able to make and upload their own music. It means people are making what they love, rather then just what the big bosses say sells records. I think ultimately the same will happen with porn, people will just make their own and the big end of town will loose it's grip.

But coming back to your question, yes, certainly anything which presents an unreal image to the world will lead people to believing that they themselves are not normal. In Australia we have the terrible situation that soft core porn mags have to airbrush vaginas into a thin slit. No labia are allowed to show. It's ludicrous. Women end up believing that they themselves are not normal and seek out plastic surgery. It's so, so sad that a teenage girl might think her vagina does not look the way it's "supposed" to look.

Besides an inaccurate representation of “normal,” what other reasons have you seen for women being ashamed of their bodies and their vaginas?

Yes, besides all the women's magazines, porn, etc? Well, there is also peer pressure isn't there. So many of the older school feminists blame men for everything, but so often the pressure to conform comes from other girls in school or other women in social circles. Most people want to fit in and be accepted and conform. But this is also where things can change. Often it only takes one person to break out from a group and say, "I'm happy with how I am and I don't think we need to all look the same" for the whole dynamic to change. And this requires courage.

How does portraying vaginas help pave the way for discussion of “taboo” topics like rape and genital mutilation?

Well, I think to a degree there is an indirect knock on effect. If someone feels more comfortable with their bodies as a result of surrounding themselves with positive messages then they will feel more empowered to talk about things. It may be easy to talk about rape or genital mutilation from an academic perspective, but it takes a lot of courage to talk about your own experience of having been violated.

So, for example, say someone has suffered some sort of abuse, or they have some difficulty with their sexuality but they have never spoken about it. Then at some point they come across a "vagina positive" book and they realize that they perhaps don't need to be so ashamed. They may, perhaps, open up to someone about their experience and that could trigger a huge healing cycle for them. Or someone has an irregularity that they ought to get checked out at the doctor but they feel embarrassed, etc. Shame prevents us from talking about things. Seeing material which unashamedly addresses that issue will help ease people's shame.

Remember also that with 101 Vagina, in particular, there is also a message that accompanies every photo. These messages are so diverse, and really it is these stories that give the book it's depth.

Who are the models for the 101 Vagina project? Was it a big step for some of them to be photographed nude and what were their reactions to their pictures?

It started with friends. However, after a few months I had only taken a few photos and I realized I needed to ramp things up. That's when I built the website and Facebook page. I invited every woman I knew in Melbourne, and then things spread from there. Before long the word got out and complete strangers came in to participate. I think the project has really struck a chord with a lot of people.

We understand you are self-publishing the book as of now and raising funds for its first print run. After the book is printed, what kind of reception do you foresee?

Oh, if only I had a crystal ball. So far people have been incredibly positive and supportive and I hope that will continue. Obviously I'd love the book to go as far as it can to have as large an impact as possible. I'd love to get on talk shows, radio shows, etc. Oprah? Ellen? I don't even know who's doing what really, I don't have a TV myself, but yes, I'd love it to go big. And the bigger the better since $5 from every book will go towards women's charities. But I understand the reality that ultimately no one cared about your project as much as you do. Never mind, if I only sell 100 copies so be it. In a way the project has already been successful because it has already touched a lot of people's lives.

Where can our readers go to learn more and how can they support the project?

Please visit the crowdfunding page to support the project here: http://pozible.com/101vagina.

In addition to the 101 Vagina project, you’re also selling a vagina calendar to raise funds for the One Billion Rising event protesting violence against women. Tell us more about it. How did you get involved, and how does this event’s message relate to 101 Vagina’s goal of erasing the taboo surrounding women’s bodies?

Yes, it's an interesting union and one that some people may find a bit jarring, but I really believe that we need to take an unflinching look at the causes of sexual abuse rather than simply lament and be outraged at it's occurrence. I strongly believe that sexual repression and sexual aggression/abuse are connected. I just don't think that anyone who is truly comfortable in their sexuality would ever impose themselves on another person. Rape and abuse are NOT expressions of sexual freedom, but of sexual repression. And sexual repression is closely related to body image shame and taboos.

One Billion Rising is a V-Day event, and V-day was founded by Eve Ensler who wrote The Vagina Monologues, so it's already a natural fit. I got involved because I already knew about V-day and One Billion Rising, and when some friends of mine started planing to organize an event in Melbourne I jumped on board. Regarding the calendar, well I figured that the media often like controversial calendars that are raising money for good causes, so this might be a way to raise the funds needed to stage the event in the most visible place in Melbourne. It's not cheap, we've got to come up with $20,000 and are also looking for corporate sponsors. We can be contacted at: onebillionrisingmelbourne@gmail.com.

Philip Werner is a Melbourne (Australia) based photographer (philipwernerfoto.com), web-designer, mediator, furniture maker (lazydeckchairs.com.au), thinker, engineer, shit-stirrer and perhaps soon-to-be book publisher (101vagina.com).

He has traveled the external and internal world extensively and gotten a closer understanding of each in the process. His photographic portrait work demonstrates this awareness through the depth of presence he captures in his subjects, bringing their internal world to light in the external form of their bodies. Follow him on Twitter & Facebook.

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Vulvas & Porn: Why Their Relationship 'Is Complicated' (NSFW) (Part 1)

At GetLusty, we feel like porn can be beautiful. Feminist porn that is. What about mainstream 'traditional' porn? At GetLusty, we like to talk about erotica of all kinds. We've touched on the potential negative affects of too much porn for men. but now we want to take a look at how porn might be skewing the perceptions of women. We're glad to have the perspective of Hylton Coxwell, author of Vulva 101. The first in a two part series, Hylton defends the porn industry against what he calls "quasi-feminist" blogs.

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It’s porn’s fault! 

At least that what we’re often told. Whether about corrupting morality, or the more recent hot topics of pubic hair removal and labiaplasty, the notion that pornography has the ability to manipulate human behavior has been assumed to be the truth. But is this really the case—can it actually compel people to shave daily or have parts of their genitals surgically removed?

Though I’ve read it in medical literature, today quasi-feminist blogs are the biggest pushers of that idea. I say ‘quasi’ as there’s a big difference between believing women have sole control over their bodies, choices and sexuality, versus simply being angry with individual men. The latter also presume women are gullible and easily manipulated, by those evil male pornographers, into doing things like shaving their pubic hair or having parts of their labia removed.

Here’s a few direct quotes:

“Sometimes they are influenced in these views by having seen misleading pornographic magazines or videos – in which the ‘heroine’s’ vulva appears impossibly neat and tidy!” “Often times the only point of reference women have is what they see in porn. And what they see is dyed, shaved, airbrushed and sometimes surgically altered. What they see does not occur naturally.”

That sounds good on the surface, except it’s not true. That’s not what you see in porn, and is so far from reality I must question whether the authors of those statements have ever actually viewed porn. It’s not based on evidence. They just made all that up, or repeated something someone else made up.

Don’t believe me? 

Just google the words ‘vulva’ or ‘pussy’ or any of the other common slang terms and what you’ll find is a real cross-section of how vulva actually look. You’ll likely end up on thumbnail gallery posts (pages of small images which when clicked view the full-sized pictures). And probably, you'll encounter more than a few blind links. But you’ll see long lips (labia minora), short ones and barely there ones, shaved, trimmed, hairy and a respectably wide range of body types and ages.

In essence, you’ll find the same range of vulva appearance, labia size and pubic hair in porn as you do in the general population. While researching for this article, I viewed thousands of random vulva images, and not a single vulva would be out-of-place in Vulva 101. All were naturally occurring—not one was dyed, Photoshopped or manipulated to alter the shape, size or color of labia. The only ones I found that were surgically altered were those of transgender women.

It’s important to note: virtually every image you see (of any subject, in print and online) has been “Photoshopped” to some degree, mainly to ensure the image looks good color-wise on-screen or on various combinations of ink and paper types. I spent more than a decade Photoshopping hundreds of thousands of images, and ‘darkrooming’ them before that, in my career so doctored images are pretty easy to spot. If there are misleading vulva images in pornography, I’m having a seriously difficult time finding any.

Pornography is not a manipulator, it’s simply a mirror of what exists. There’s no agenda, no one is trying deceive you as to what vulva actually look like.

Illegal vulva

No one at least, except for some governments. There are countries with strict laws prohibiting the sale of images showing vulva (and penises too). Japan, for instance, forces porn producers to blur out vulva entirely and Australia requires on-the-shelf erotic magazines to not show any inner lips. Producers comply, not because they want to or because they think lips are obscene—in fact they hate the laws and the expense incurred by all that retouching—but because they have to in order to sell their products.

Prepubescent myth

Another argument often thrown around regarding the lack of pubic hair in porn is that it makes women look like little girls, and men want women to look prepubescent. This concept is as absurd as it is insulting. It ignores the fact that adult, shaved vulva don’t look like those of little girls and it totally disregards women’s motivation for shaving, and their right to do so.

While working on Vulva 101, I spoke with hundreds of women about this. When asked why they chose to remove some or all of their pubic hair the answer was a resounding, “I like the way it feels, and it’s easier to keep clean.” Coincidentally, these are some of the same reasons humans have been removing pubic hair for thousand of years.

Vulva Puppets

And then there’s the Vulva Puppet, and other abstractly colored vulva trinkets, sometimes regarded as the antithesis to the “unnatural” images of vulva in “male-centric” porn. Well-meaning as they may be, as teaching tools they are worse than useless and border on the comically ridiculous. They only serve to illustrate what real vulva don’t look like and sadly reinforce the perception that actual vulva are too graphic or obscene to be viewed.

So where do people get the idea that porn causes women to believe they must shave their pubic hair, or that their labia are too long and need to be surgically removed? They certainly don’t get the idea from viewing porn, that much is clear. Instead the idea comes from not viewing porn. It’s an idea based not on fact but on ignorance and fear.

It’s a lie, often repeated and easily believed. In Part 2, we delve deeper into the subject of porn and vulvas. Our two favorite topics.

With a background ranging from journalism, publishing and photography to computer programming and languages, along with an insatiable curiosity of the world around us, Hylton Coxwell explores a hidden topic in his first book ‘Vulva 101’. Born in 1976 near Belleville, Ontario (Canada), Hylton moved to Hiroshima, Japan in the mid- 90’s to study Japanese and various martial arts. Having returned to the Belleville area, he now teaches self-defense classes, mostly to women, and owns several small businesses. Follow Hylton on twitter @Vulva101. You can also email him at info@vulva101.com, or subscribe to his Facebook page.

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