Pussy, Shame and Reclamation: Our Relationship With Genitals, Gender & Body Image

I wrote the original version of this blog several years ago, at a very different point in both my personal journey and my professional development.

Back then, I was talking very specifically about reclaiming the word pussy as a woman.

I still understand that reclamation.

But my understanding of gender, sexuality, bodies and identity has expanded significantly since then, and so has the way I think about this word.

Not everyone with a vulva is a woman.

Not every woman has a vulva.

Some people feel deeply connected to their genitals. Others experience dysphoria, numbness, disconnection, shame, grief or ambivalence around them.

And not everyone wants to call their genitals pussy.

So why am I still using the word?

Because for me, pussy has been part of a reclamation.

Not because I think everyone should reclaim it, but because I am interested in what happens when we begin to question the meaning that has been placed upon our bodies and the words we use to describe them.

Why can the word “pussy” feel so loaded?

For some people, pussy feels playful, erotic or affectionate.

For others, it feels vulgar.

It may be associated with pornography, misogyny or being sexualised.

It has also long been used as an insult — particularly as a way of describing someone as weak or cowardly.

Cunt carries its own complicated history and, depending on where you come from, can provoke anything from laughter and affection to genuine horror.

My own family has a fairly ridiculous relationship with that particular word.

My mum rarely swears and absolutely hates it, while my brother has spent years using various versions of it as an affectionate insult towards me. At one point he even carved one into wood, painted it gold and used it as my place setting at his wedding.

It probably tells you quite a lot about my family.

But underneath the humour sits something much more interesting.

Why do words for genitals carry so much power?

Why can a word describing part of a body become one of the strongest insults available to us?

And what does that communicate about those bodies?

The messages we receive about our genitals

Many of us begin learning very early that our genitals are somehow different from the rest of our bodies.

“Close your legs.”

“Put some pants on.”

“Don't touch yourself.”

“That's private.”

Or perhaps our genitals aren't named at all.

They become bits, lady bits, down there, your private parts or some family-specific euphemism.

None of those phrases are necessarily harmful on their own.

What matters is often the meaning around them.

The facial expression.

The tone of voice.

The silence.

Whether curiosity was welcomed or shut down.

Whether our body was talked about with neutrality, affection, disgust or embarrassment.

Those experiences can become part of the relationship we develop with our genitals, sexuality and pleasure.

And that relationship can become even more complicated when gender enters the picture.

For some trans and non-binary people, particular anatomical words can feel affirming. For others they may intensify dysphoria or feel completely disconnected from how they understand their own body.

There isn't one “correct” word someone should use.

The important question is:

What language feels right for you?

What do you call your genitals?

This is something I sometimes invite people to explore in workshops and therapeutic work.

Not because there is a correct answer, but because our language can tell us something about the relationship we have with our body.

You might ask yourself:

What were your genitals called when you were growing up?

What tone accompanied that language?

What do you call them now?

Does that word feel erotic? Clinical? Embarrassing? Neutral? Affirming? Dysphoric?

What is your relationship with your genitals?

Do you feel connected to them?

Do you ignore them?

Do you experience pleasure, discomfort, shame, curiosity, numbness, pride, grief or something else entirely?

How do you feel about the way they look?

You don't need to arrive at “I love my genitals.”

For some people, that isn't where the work needs to go.

Sometimes moving from disgust to neutrality is enormous.

Sometimes being able to acknowledge a part of your body without dissociating from it is meaningful.

Sometimes the work is about reclaiming pleasure.

Sometimes it is about gender affirmation.

Sometimes it is simply about having more choice in how you relate to yourself.

There is no one “normal” vulva

One of the things I feel much more strongly about now is how narrow our cultural representation of vulvas can be.

Labia vary enormously in size, shape, colour, symmetry and visibility. Inner labia extending beyond the outer labia is entirely within normal anatomical variation.

And yet many people grow up seeing very little realistic representation of vulvas.

Pornography, cosmetic advertising, edited imagery and wider beauty culture can all contribute to ideas about what genitals are “supposed” to look like.

Labiaplasty does exist, and people seek it for different reasons. Some have physical discomfort or particular medical needs, while others seek surgery because of dissatisfaction with appearance. Professional guidance emphasises that vulval anatomy varies widely and that cosmetic genital surgery carries risks and should not be presented as the solution to normal anatomical variation.

This part is personal for me.

There was a time when I thought my own labia weren't “neat” enough.

I looked at labiaplasty.

That was during a period when I had a very difficult relationship with my body.

Later, while doing my own therapeutic work, I remembered that following rape I had tried to hurt my labia with scissors.

For a long time I also experienced numbness there, something I hadn't fully recognised until sensation began to return.

I understand that experience differently now than I did when I first wrote this article.

Trauma can affect our relationship with sensation, arousal, touch and particular areas of the body. Some people experience numbness, dissociation or disconnection. That does not mean trauma is literally stored inside a body part, but our nervous system, memory and embodied responses can profoundly influence how safe or connected we feel within our bodies.

For me, reconnecting with that part of myself became part of a much bigger process of healing.

Reclamation isn't the same for everyone

For some women, reclaiming words like pussy or cunt can feel politically or sexually liberating.

There can be something powerful about taking a word that has been used against you and deciding that it belongs to you instead.

That remains part of my story.

As an AFAB (assigned female at birth) person, I have lived much of my life being shaped by the expectations placed on women. How I should look, how sexual or sensual is acceptable, how much pleasure is allowed, what makes me desirable, respectable or “too much”.

Reclaiming my sexuality and my body has therefore been inseparable from my experience of womanhood.

I don't want to erase that.

But I also don't want to universalise it.

Regardless of your gender and your anatomy, your relationship with your genitals and the language you use for them should be entirely yours to choose.

Yoni, cunt, a personally chosen word or no specific label at all.

The language belongs to the person whose body we are talking about.

Your body does not owe you empowerment

This is perhaps the biggest change in how I would write this today.

The original version of this blog was very focused on loving your pussy and stepping into your power.

I still love reclamation.

I still love pleasure.

I still believe there can be enormous liberation in feeling more connected to our bodies.

But I no longer think everyone needs to arrive at body love.

You don't need to believe your genitals are magical.

You don't have to experience them as a source of femininity, creativity or spiritual power.

You don't even have to like them.

For some people, particularly those navigating trauma or gender dysphoria, being told they should love a particular part of their body can become another pressure.

The invitation I am interested in now is gentler:

Can you develop a relationship with your body that belongs to you?

Not pornography.

Not your family.

Not a partner.

Not religion.

Not beauty standards.

Not gender expectations.

Yours.

That relationship might eventually include pleasure.

It might involve curiosity.

It might mean finding language that fits.

It could involve grief for what your body has experienced.

It may involve medical or gender-affirming choices.

Or it might simply mean becoming a little less at war with yourself.

So why “pussy”?

For me, the word still represents reclamation.

It represents a period of my life when I was learning that my sexuality didn't need to belong to anyone else.

It reminds me of challenging shame, reconnecting with my body and allowing pleasure to become something I could choose rather than something defined by other people.

But I no longer think pussy is a universal word of empowerment.

It is a word.

One that some people love and others don't.

And perhaps the deeper reclamation isn't the word at all.

Perhaps it is the right to decide what your body means to you.

To decide what you call it.

To understand what feels pleasurable or uncomfortable.

To notice where shame came from.

To explore your gender and sexuality without being forced into somebody else's framework.

And, wherever possible, to have more agency in the relationship you have with your own body.

The invitation is to become curious about what lies underneath our relationship with our bodies, genitals, sexuality, pleasure, identity and shame.

And to discover what becomes possible when that relationship is genuinely our own.

Big love,

Nicky x