BIG LOVE

One photographer seeks to dispel vulva stigma with a book that busts open the very real issue of body shame and turns it into self love.

- Ellie Sedgwick

I was fourteen when my journey with vulva anxiety began. Sitting in math class, a boy handed me a note with a question that would haunt me for years: “Do you have an innie or an outie?”. And no, he wasn’t talking about belly buttons. Through high school, the words that boys used to describe vulvas – “kebab,” “upside-down volcano,” “octopussy” – further fuelled my self-doubt. I began to wonder, “Was my vulva weird? Was I abnormal?”

By the time I was in my early twenties, this anxiety had intensified to the point that I was considering labiaplasty, which involves the removal or alteration of tissues from the labia (the folds of skin that sit on either side of a person’s vaginal opening). I went so far as to book two consultations, and both surgeons were all too willing to proceed with the surgery without as much as looking at my vulva.

"One in six Australians feels anxious or embarrassed about the way their labia looks" - Women's Health Victoria

Ultimately, my third consultation in India – where I was working at the time – saved me from undergoing unnecessary labiaplasty. When I showed this doctor my vulva, he informed me that what I wanted surgically altered was completely “normal”. He sent me away with the homework to research what real, unedited vulvas look like. I thought to myself, “If only there was a book of vulvas that I could buy to help me.”