Misty Media Sex Blog

October 30th 2005, 18:08 Jeff Sela

In a rather horrifying, but not particularly surprising decision, a chain of grocery shops in America, called Albertsons, has pulled an issue of Seventeen Magazine from its 2,500 stores. The reason? An article called Vagina 101 which features a diagram (no explicit pictures or anything) of what the readership are likely to have between their legs, with helpful labels. It was followed by information about what is normal, and advice such as not to trim pubic hair (apparently the hairs keep bacteria away).

From an article in The Seattle Times, thanks to Amorous Propensities.

To me this sounds like exactly the sort of information that teenage girls will want and need. It may not be advisable to tell younger girls about how to have hot sex, but they're going to notice that their vulva has more than one function, and it seems only fair to let them know that it's normal to look like that. And no, you can't rely on parents to tell their kids about this sort of thing, and in America at least you certainly can't rely on the schools covering it.

This an important part of children's education, which is being tragically neglected, even here in the UK where abstinence-only education hasn't caught on (yet). It's not even sex education, but basic anatomy. We all figure out pretty quickly what arms and legs are for, but some things aren't so self evident, partly because they develop later, and partly because we all conspire to hide them away.

There, rant over for now. Glad I got that out of my system.