“I Have a Nice Gross Vagina”: Understanding Young Women’s Genital Self-Perceptions

Abstract

Women’s genital self-perceptions encompass their subjective thoughts and feelings about their own genitals. The goal of the current study was to enhance our understanding of the complexities of women’s lived experiences of their genital self-perceptions. Participants were 20 women (ages 19 to 35 years) who first answered a single quantitative item, which asked them to rate their global feelings about their genitals, and then participated in a semistructured interview. Transcripts were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. On average, the women felt moderately positively about their genitals. However, few of the women’s qualitative descriptions would be characterized as “moderately positive.” Five major themes emerged from the qualitative data analysis: (a) women’s global genital self-perceptions are diverse; (b) each woman has mixed specific genital self-perceptions; (c) women’s genital self-perceptions fluctuate across situations and people; (d) women’s genital self-perceptions evolve over time; and (e) negative genital self-perceptions can have consequences for women. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for researchers, educators, and clinicians.

Acknowledgments

This study was conducted in partial fulfillment of the first author’s doctoral requirements under the supervision of the second author. We thank the women who participated in this study, as well as Samantha Fizell, Kirstian Gibson, and Kaylee Fillmore for their assistance with the methodology.