After posting just two articles as part of a series called Tame your Vagina – which deals with feminine reproductive and sexual health in a candid manner – I received some rather outraged reactions from readers.

Some said they were embarrassed, others were appalled at how "dirty" the topic was, while – even more alarmingly – others said that using the word "vagina" was unacceptable on the front page of a news site. Still more behaved as if the article was an invitation to post dirty, suggestive comments about women.

What the commentary made abundantly clear was that many of us are uncomfortable with the word "vagina". 

Of course, this argument goes deeper. Sexuality in general, whether masculine or feminine, is considered dirty. Our religious, patriarchal societies have kept a close guard over how we talk about sex. But this taboo seems to be unfairly skewed towards women – whether it involves talking about women’s sexual health, sexual experiences or actual sexual organs.

Writing on SummersEve.com, Carla Stokes, a self-empowerment educator, explains that women owe it to themselves to learn as much as they can about how they bodies work so that they can make informed choices about their health.
"If adult women are uninformed and feel uncomfortable talking about their bodies and genitalia, how can we expect girls to be knowledgeable and fully embrace and appreciate their bodies?" Stokes asks. And she's right, we're perpetuating a vicious cycle by avoiding our own sexuality.

Yet, even today, in a world where sex is a topic that’s referred to openly, women struggle to experience sexual pleasure. Some may say it's because women are just not made to enjoy sex the way men do, but they'd be wrong.

The grim fact is that generally women are not taught to explore their sexuality in any positive way. In fact, if a women shows interest in sex at a young age (let's say at the age of 18), it’s still likely that she’ll be labelled a whore than be taught to learn safe ways to explore her sexuality.

As a result, many women choose to shun their sexuality. Has no one considered the repercussion of ignoring such a large part of ourselves? As women, we struggle with image, self-doubt and confidence. We are encouraged to root our identity in being wives and mothers, but very rarely are we encouraged to explore our identities as individuals.

Of course, some readers would complain if we used the word “penis” in a headline on our homepage. But there is no doubt that the reaction is more vociferous when one talks about female genitalia. The words that refer to actual anatomical parts are seen as so dirty that they are unmentionable – despite the fact that we live in the 21st Century, an age when much of the world recognises women's rights.

Perhaps "women's rights" should be qualified. The term is conditional. You are allowed to speak about the feminine, as long as it doesn't involve referring to female sexual organs by their given names. Is that it? We can refer openly to other parts of the anatomy – but please don’t mention the word “vagina”.

Unfortunately for those detractors of our article series Tame your vagina, the female sexual anatomy comes with being a woman. Every woman has one and it's not going anywhere. We need to deal openly and honestly with issues such as sexual health because it is as much a part of our lives as death and taxes.
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