Becoming Bob: The Shameless Art of Loving Vulvas

When I first saw Eve Ensler’s *The Vagina Monologues in 1996, one of the monologues stood out to me. It was a woman’s account of being with a man named Bob. This is some of what she wrote:“…Turned out that Bob loved vaginas. He was a connoisseur. Bob loved the way they felt, the way they tasted, the way they smelled, but most importantly he loved the way they looked. He had to look at them. The first time we had sex, he told me he had to see me…”“Becoming Bob” is a journey of discovery available to any man. It begins with honoring the vulva and the woman to whom it belongs. And from that orientation, to help heal her of any shame or self- consciousness so she can open to her own self-acceptance, her own arousal, and her own pleasure.“…I hated my thighs, and I hated my vagina even more. I thought it was incredibly ugly. I was one of those women who had looked at it and from that moment on I wished I hadn’t. It made me sick. I pitied anyone who had to go down there…Women get messages about loving our bodies and our vulvas, while at the same time we see ads for procedures like “designer vulva” surgery.We’re taught that the look of our vulva (vulva) is just one more thing about which women need to feel insecure. We’re told if we pay someone to “fix” us we can look more normal, as in the imagery we’re fed through porn, which usually depicts white women with surgically altered genitalia.Rather than give our money to doctors, I want to see the cultural tide turn toward diversity, self-acceptance, and appreciation. I coach women from every walk of life – age group, race, ethnicity, income level, political grouping, and sexual orientation. A vast number of these women tell me they don’t feel altogether comfortable with their vulvas. In a survey of over 3,000 women, almost half said they had concerns about the appearance of their vulvas.Women have complicated relationships to their genitals, and is partly linked to sexual shame. A surprising number of my female clients have never (or rarely) taken a mirror and looked at themselves down there.Unlike men, we can’t easily see ourselves the way our partner sees us, so unless we’re in bed with a “Bob,” we don’t get a lot of feedback about what our partner thinks about our genitals.“This is awfully intimate,” I said. “Can’t we just do it?” “No,” he said. “It’s who you are. I need to look.”“I held my breath. He looked and looked. He got breathy and his face changed. He didn’t look ordinary anymore. He looked like a hungry beast.”“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “You’re elegant and deep and innocent and wild.”“You saw that there?” I said. It was like he read my palm.“I saw that,” he said, “and more – much, much more.”When a woman feels safe and confident enough to open her legs for her lover, she gives them permission to take in her natural beauty. She feels seen and witnessed in the beauty of her womanhood. When she can see the look of awe on her partner’s face as they gaze at her feminine softness and when she can unselfconsciously hear their words of appreciation and adoration, describing to her what they see, she crosses a threshold into her own sexual empowerment. It’s a rite of passage that marks a turning point in every woman’s sexual confidence and awakening.“He stayed looking for almost an hour as if he were studying a map, observing the moon, staring into my eyes, but it was my vagina. In the light I watched him looking at me and he was so genuinely excited, so peaceful and euphoric, I began to get wet and turned on.”We all long for our lovers to adore our bodies, to drink us in like a fine wine and savor every inch of us. An adoring lover teaches us how to love ourselves. They hold the mirror of adoration up for us so we can see our own beauty through their eyes. The truth is, every woman’s vulva is completely unique and aesthetically perfect just as it is, just like our face or eyes or any other part of us. As Bob says, it’s who we are.The beauty of the vulva is reflected everywhere in nature – flowers, fruit, a mountain crevasse. Artists and photographers capture these sensually delicate forms, and poets have praised and adored the female form for millennia. The natural elegance of the female genitalia captures the heart of every awakened lover.“I began to see myself the way he saw me. I began to feel beautiful and delicious — like a great painting, or a waterfall. Bob wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t grossed out. I began to swell, began to feel proud. Began to love my vagina. And Bob, lost himself there, and I was there with him, in my vagina, and we were gone.”My wish is that every woman at some point in life finds a “Bob” to open her to her own beauty so she can see her feminine perfection through her lover’s eyes. And my wish for every man is that he learns how to become a “Bob” so that he can be initiated into the sanctity of a woman’s inner temple and learn to be the kind of lover to whom every woman dreams of opening herself up.* It’s worth noting that what was commonly referred to as the “vagina” in 1996 was often actually the vulva—a woman’s entire external genital anatomy. As our culture evolves so too does the importance of anatomical correctness and clarity.The Turned-On Couple Community is a reader-supported publication. 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