Censored

I squirm on the sofa and tilt the mirror. I look at the protruding folds of wrinkled skin, which I am not used to. I don’t often see them. I slide my finger upward over the pleasantly warm and slightly moist surface. After a while, I encounter a thin flap, which I gently lift. I turn the mirror and suddenly see the holy grail of genitalia tentatively peeking out from behind the hood.

– IT’S YOU!!! – I shout, unable to stop the onslaught of wild euphoria that is now racking my body.

I’m 31 years old and this is the first time I’ve ever seen my clitoris.

On the one hand, my age and lack of awareness seems shocking to me, on the other hand, why should my late initiation actually surprise me? We gained a relative idea of the anatomical structure of the clitoris 30 years after we landed on the moon. Anyway, her fate has never been one of the easiest. In the Middle Ages it was called the nipple of the devil, in the late 19th century Isaac Baker Brown was so afraid of it that he cut it out of women with scissors, and a few decades later Freud also disowned it, describing an orgasm from it as childish.

Nearly a century later, not much has changed.

Women are still learning to compromise before they know how to climax, and the most apt term for female genitalia remains the half-whispered, enigmatic phrase – TAM ON THE DOWN.

How can it be that we still do not have a good term for the reproductive organs of 51% of the population?

– And the vagina? – I hear from one side.

– What about the vagina! – indignation is raised from the other.

I only wring my hands sadly too ashamed to admit that I myself only understood in my third decade of life that both terms describe the final part of a woman’s fertile tract, not the vulva – I’m deliberately using here the polonized English equivalent of a word denied a place at the table in Poland, because legend has it that if you stand in front of a mirror at midnight and say the word three times Pussycat, Janusz Korwin-Mikke will appear behind your back. I prefer not to take any chances.

– How about a pipa? – I ask myself and also answer myself. – Another pejorative term that we use in Polish as an insult. On the other steps of the podium successively there is still a cunt, what with such a cunt and another stupid cunt holding hands together – they won the contest for the most vulgar term for female organs. – Well – I’m scraping my head in consternation – We’re still left with buns, mice, seashells, and peaches,” I say, even though I know that this collection of infantilizing female sexuality terms has as much to do with an adult approach to intercourse as the equivalent of vegan cheese has to do with dairy. I don’t even consider vulva, because I don’t accept that my most beautiful flower should be described by a word that in the old days meant so much as shame, disgrace, infamy and humiliation.

What are the conclusions from this linguistic fallow? And well, quite sad, because suddenly it turns out that in the Polish language we do not have a word to describe possibly the most important human organ. It is one that is not the most common vulgarity and/or does not somehow subdue women.

– Houston, we have a problem… – whispers someone from the back of the room.

– No shit, Sherlock! – I shudder, this time already irritated. For the joke is that an infirm tongue is not the only manifestation of an unconscious patriarchy that has sprawled on an armchair and splayed its legs to scrape itself on its balls. Female sexuality has been so suppressed by culture and society that we ourselves are not aware of our anatomy. How else to explain that while writing this text I stared at the sweet pink of my pussy for a good hour, clutching a mirror in one hand and zooming in on a digital engraving with the other, whose circled numbers I matched to unknown parts of my own body?

I, however, forgo the linguistic inquisition and focus on the clitoris.

On the Internet, he learns that the crown of the organ, which is less than the size of a pea, is only 10% of the magic tool. After a while, I invent a three-dimensional model of it, and in front of me stands what I can most accurately describe as the silhouette of a pterodactyl with two extremely generous scrotal sacs flopping over the reptile’s downward-facing wings. I grab the mirror again and pull the thin skin apart to look at my clitoris.

– Aaaaleee power,” I say in awe and stroke my new friend’s head, and she swells up in pride. I watch it grow and caress it more and more boldly. My fingers begin to glide over the already damp skin. In bliss, his breathing speeds up, his face blushes, his heart begins to beat harder. I tease her a while longer, when suddenly my whole body is pierced by a pleasant spasm.

Getting there.

To apply.

That instead of placing the responsibility for your pleasure in the hands of anyone else, it’s time to reclaim the rights to your own pussy. So that you can truly feel confidence in your own body.

This time on my terms.

Read another column: Feminists – servants of the patriarchy.