About That Time I Threw A Vagina Party Of Self-Discovery
The vagina party full of self-discovery.
Three years ago, my friend Melissa and I stumbled onto a Playboy magazine in her apartment. Naturally curious, we flipped it open and began thumbing through glossy photos of girls in anything but natural poses.
Women's' "plumbing" has about as many styles as Kim Kardashian has purses: a lot. And I'm not talking about the styling of the hair down there. This is the actual equipment I'm referring to.
As I perused Playboy's vaginas, I was jolted by a vague memory. About two years prior, in my college Cosmopolitan reading days, when I really believed "50 Hot New Tricks To Keep Him Coming Back" would really work, I recalled a letter published in the advice column. The young lady wanted to know if it was normal for her inner lips to be bigger than her outer lips.
Wait, I thought to myself, by "inner lip" does she mean the part that rubs against her teeth? So, outer lips must be the portion on which you apply lipstick? Maybe this girl has really big, Angelina Jolie-style lips?
But then it hit me. She was talking about down there.
As I had yet to have an orgasm courtesy of oral sex, I tended to leave "down there" pretty much to its own devices. This was before I got my wax on, so the area in question was generally hidden underneath a small thicket of hair. But looking at these naked vixens, captured by the camera, allowed me a good gander.
I realized what inner and outer lips meant, and it had NOTHING to do with mouths.
Many models' inner lips protruded like tiny tongues from between the outer lips. Other women's lips were neatly packaged like a store-wrapped Christmas gift. A tightly wrapped box, if you will, with a pink bow on top, nary an inner lip to be found. Those pictures bored me. Neatly packaged was what I had imagined a vulva should look like. Skin, with a line down the middle. A smaller version of a butt, really.
It was the other pictures that drew me: The everything-out-there girls. They had all the usual equipment, but when legs were splayed, delicate inner lips popped out and saluted the camera. Velvet pink rose petals. So these must be inner lips.
But then there were the women, legs spread, with what appeared to be roast beef peeping from outer lips. Mocha-colored and wrinkled, this wasn't something I associated with women's genitalia. It both fascinated and repulsed me.
Melissa and I discussed each new vulva in great detail. From rose petal to roast beef, pink to coffee- and cream-colored, each body was a mysterious package, waiting to be unwrapped.
"Are you a rose petal or roast beef?" Melissa blurted.
I tilted my head to the side in deep consideration. I replied, "You know, I don't know."
So we decided to find out.
Each of us took a turn locking ourselves in the bathroom with Melissa's hand mirror, conducting our own investigation.
"So?" She asked when I emerged, a new woman.
"It's somewhere in the middle of rose petal and roast beef. It's kind of lopsided — one part sticks out more than the other."
"What about you?" I asked, hoping she was fully roast beef so I could feel better about my own "strange" situation.
"Outtie, but rose petal," she replied in what I imagined to be smug tones.
Thus began my shameful sex years. Years I couldn't orgasm from oral sex. Instead of losing myself in ecstasy I would imagine each valiant man who attempted as munching roast beef. Eventually, marijuana and liquor helped ease my insecurity and I achieved an oral orgasm.
Fast-forward three years to a party I was hosting. Drinks and conversation were flowing. The men somehow ended up huddled in the living room sipping beer and tossing around sports statistics while the girls migrated to the kitchen and the drunk bonding began.
Before I knew it, the vagina party began. The girls began to shout out sentences that would sound strange to ears other than ours.
"I'm a rose petal!" Heidi shouted. The boys across the room ignored us, probably assuming we were discussing floral arrangements for Natalie's impending wedding.
"I'm a total innie," Jenny whispered.
"Lucky!" I griped.
"Which do boys like?" Holly inquired.
"I would guess innies," Alison responded. "They're so tidy."
"Outtie rose petals aren't so bad!" Melissa chimed in.
"I think I'm a roast beef!" another friend moaned.
"You know, I'm not sure what I am, I've never looked that close," Sarah said.
Well, not knowing what "type" of vagina you had was unacceptable, so we all trooped upstairs to Natalie's bathroom for the Vagina Party finale.
Holly went first. She hiked up her skirt and gave us a peek.
"ROSE PETAL!" We all shouted
"What about me?" Sarah inquired.
"Innie..."
"But it's a bit roast beef, look!" Natalie pointed.
"Oooh," Sarah moaned in mortification.
"That's how I look!" I shouted and whipped down my pants.
I looked up to see Natalie's face screwed up in laughter. The wheezing, shoulders shaking, hiccuping kind that makes everyone nearby laugh even if they don't know what's so funny.
"Is it that bad?" I giggle.
"N-n-noooo!" She howled then pointed at our reflection in the mirror. "Look at us!"
There we were, seven of us, faces flush from booze and laughter, various stages of undress, in our "you show me yours, I'll show you mine" poses. An hour later, we were still talking and giggling. It took us a moment to hear the boys pounding on the door.
"What is going ON in there!?"
We composed ourselves, and one by one emerged from our private vagina party, our roast beef and rose petal discoveries glistening conspiratorially in our eyes as we said our goodbyes.
That night, I learned to be proud of my little bit of roast beef vagina lips. After all, I'd rather eat roast beef than a rose petal. Wouldn't you?
Monica Bielanko is a mom of three who writes about relationships, her personal experiences and co-parenting with her ex. Her writing has appeared on The Huffington Post, Yahoo!, and Mom.me. For more of her writing, visit her website, The Girl Who.