The "labia pride" movement

Rebelling against the porn aesthetic, women are taking to the Internet to sing the praises of "endowed" women

Published February 17, 2013 1:00AM (EST)

Underneath a self-portrait snapped of the ruffly pink flesh in-between her legs, a woman writes, "I am 23 and so embarrassed of my labia that I still have never shown it to anyone -- to a guy or even a doctor!" It's a post submitted by an anonymous reader on the Tumblr "Large Labia Project." The blog is filled with similar photos accompanied by tales of vulval shame. One woman writes of distress over the fact that her labia are lopsided. Another worries that she's lost lovers in the past because "they all thought my vagina was weird." There arEe concerns about taste and smell, too, but mostly vulva shape and size.

It's just one of several new sites calling on women to bare all -- to benefit womankind.

These crotch shots are not meant to titillate -- although some male readers pop in to proclaim that they navigate the site with one hand. Instead, the idea is that submitting a photo can help a woman get over her body shame -- particularly because of positive feedback from site moderators and readers, who often offer "you go, girl" cheerleading. (Although, some posters find it devastating when their photo doesn't get as many "likes" as others.) The greater aim is to publicly catalog normal genital diversity -- the kind you won't find in mainstream porn -- so that women no longer judge their nethers by an unr...

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By Tracy Clark-Flory

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