Petals

Axe wound, bearded clam, catcher’s mitt, cunt, tuna taco, snatch, twat… all these words are common North American slang terms for the vagina. Funny? Possibly. Disturbing? A little. So what do they all have in common?

A negative connotation to a beautiful body part.

Why must most vagina referrals be negative? Why has our society attached shame and repugnance to a part of the body that not only brings pleasure, but life itself?

Well I can sit here and ponder the origins of our sexual distain… blame the church, our patriarchal system, the Victorian era etc however the past can’t be changed, regardless of its origins. So, the future is what I look to.

How do we change these beliefs into something more positive? Well, we start with art.

The book Petals, by Nick Karras, is an amazing body of work which contains nothing more than the pure, untainted black and white photos of women’s vulva’s. As up close and personal as an eye can get, Karras captures the essence of true feminine form and diversity in these stunning images. No names, no faces, just raw uncensored genitals in their entirety.

I was moved when I first saw Karras book. Not because I was shocked by the images (although the diversity of the vulva is much greater than porn leads us to believe), but because I knew how difficult it must have been for the women to take off their cloths, release there inhabitations, break down the shame many have attached to their vaginas and spread their legs for the world to see.

That courage and pride in their true feminine form is – in my opinion – something worth spreading. So… I spread it (pun intended). Karras new book, Petals 2, is a color version of his original and yes, I am honoured to say I’m in his new artful masterpiece. Of course I’ll NEVER tell which photo is mine, however I’m still proud of the fact that I was able to embrace my pulchritudinous vulva and spread my legs for the future societal path towards vaginal beauty.

So I leave you with this….. love canal, slice of heaven, honey pot, grassy knoll, jewel box, crack of heaven.