In their own words: a qualitative content analysis of women's and men's preferences for women's genitals

Abstract

Research increasingly shows that genital attitudes have an impact on sexual well-being and health-seeking behaviours. This study explored what women and men like and dislike about women's genitals. Data are from open-ended items, part of a cross-sectional internet-based survey anonymously completed by 496 women and 198 men. Overall, both women and men had positive attitudes towards women's genitals, although there was overlap between likes and dislikes. Some of the most common likes for women were related to aesthetics and for men were related to tactile and sexual aspects. Men listed more likes than dislikes. The emphasis on both positive and negative messages provides a more complete image of the complex ways people interact with their own and others' bodies and can help tailor clinical and educational messages.

Keywords::

• genital images
• genital education
• genital attitudes
• vulva

Acknowledgements

The authors express special thanks to the coding teams who dedicated their time to the rigorous qualitative evaluation of the data: Michelle Burlington, Kelsey Britt, Morgan Eldridge, Meredith Davis, Monica Ramirez, Aubrey Rawlings, Courtney Neumann, Jackie Carbery, Christiana VonHippel, and Elizabeth Mallers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Margo Mullinax is supported by a training grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH19139, Behavioral Sciences Research in HIV Infection; Principal Investigator: Theo Sandfort). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIMH or the NIH.