I Have A Big Vagina And I'm Damn Proud Of It

The first time I knew my vagina was bigger than it was supposed to be was when my mom tried talking me through my first tampon. 

I'd been menstruating since the fall of 5th grade. I wore pads with fair to middling success. Most mornings during my period I'd wake up and it would be that scene from The Godfather with the horse's head in the sheets.

Sure, no fillies were harmed, but many innocent cotton sheets lost their lives. 

Now it was summer, and my family was headed to the beach. I considered quietly bleeding into my suit or avoiding the water altogether, but in the end told my mom. 

I didn't know how to insert a tampon and my mom ushered me into her room to try it out.

"This shouldn't be hard for you," she said, "because your vagina is much larger than your sister's."

Up until this point it had never occurred to me that due to frequent diaper changes my mother was well-versed in the size of all her children's genitals. I tried not to dwell. 

She was right. Though I was tense, I managed to get the tampon in with relative ease. Unfortunately I also sliced open my clit with a fingernail, a combination of words that still makes me salivate in pain all these years later.

Needless to say, the time I spent in the ocean that day was far from comfortable. 

My big vagina stayed under wraps. I did not much consider its size unless I happened to get my period at school or at a friend's house. In need of something to staunch my powerful flow, I was presented with pinkie sized OB inserts or liners that were the shape and length (though thankfully not the color) of a Kraft single. "How even...?" I couldn't imagine sitting on one of these tiny pads.

I imagined my vagina chuckling darkly, like Tim Curry in It. That's right.

My giant vagina was a dark force that would eat small children and lackluster feminine hygiene products for breakfast. 

When I lost my virginity the guy I was with had no idea it was my first time.

I had a hymen, it broke, it hurt, but it wasn't that bad, and I praised my giant vagina for helping me to seem worldly and experienced. 

Before I knew more about how my own body worked, I worried that the size of my vagina would lead my partners to believe I was the village doorknob, with all passersby having had a turn, as it were. After all, aren't dudes always making jokes about being able to toss a hot dog down a hallway? There had to be a reason vaginal rejuvenation was a thing, right?

My big vagina wasn't something to be proud of the way a guy might be proud of his big ol' dick.

I couldn't sass about, the female Jon Hamm. My big vagina meant I was slutty and undesirable. This was a fact, right? 

Wrong. 

The penis and vagina have several crucial distinctions, but here's one we don't talk about nearly often enough: The vagina is a muscle.

Having a lot of sex doesn't make it bigger and looser, it works the muscle making it tighter and stronger.

That's right, it turns out that my vagina is no clown demon who eats children, it's a 1930s style mustachioed weight lifter who probably walks about doffing his hat to ladies and saying "capital, capital!"

A penis gets tired. It needs to take breaks, catch its breath. This is true no matter what size it is.

A vagina on the other hand is all, "MORE WEIGHT" and then does ten more dead lifts and invites passing cuties to squeeze its biceps. 

I wish women trash talked each other by banding around jocular insults about the size of their vaginas, the color of their clits, the intensity of their own smell.

We're not there yet.

We're still a culture where the best thing we can do for our vaginas is keep them inoffensive: odorless, hairless, contained, tight, and clean, clean, clean. 

I don't know that this will ever change, let alone change in my lifetime. While I wait for a shift in cultural norms, I will just continue buy my super plus tampons, my extra long pads, and continue offering strangers a place of ample if awkwardly personal storage should they find their hands full.