It seems a great doubt has befallen Australian women.
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I’VE always been completely and utterly terrified that my vagina is in some way not normal, that it somehow doesn’t stack up against the generally accepted standard of vaginas worldwide.
My whole life, I just assumed that every other woman had the same thought process, this natural curiosity as to whether the lady bits that they’d be given were on par with the next person’s.
I guess it’s normal to compare your physical self to the rest of society. Most of us are constantly stacking ourselves up against the next person — walking down the supermarket aisle, scrolling through Instagram or flicking through a mag in a waiting room. Is my hair as shiny? Are my calves as defined? Does my butt sit the same way in a pair of skinny-legs?
It’s something we learn to do as little kids. Who remembers running nude through the sprinkler with a male cousin or having a bath with their brother and noticing that their private parts look nothing like your own?
“WOAH, IT’S LIKE THERE’S A WORM IN HIS PANTS ... I WANT A WORM TOO MUM!” It’s intriguing to realise that not everybody looks the same as you do.
But as you grow up and the acceptable age of nudity around blood relatives becomes a distant memory, you’re left wondering, “Do I still look like every other girl ‘down there’? And how the hell will I ever know?”
Short of asking my besties to drop their dacks for confirmation, I lived in this thick doubt that I’ve never managed to totally shake. This innocent curiosity as a child has morphed itself into fear. An ugly, tightly wound ball of fear. A fear of being different.
‘I’ve always wondered, is my vagina normal?’