SEXIS WRONG

a pubic triangle, with a line running down the middle. Amazingly,
cunnus just describes what you can see when you first
look at female genitalia. This is what de Graaf meant by the
great cleft, and he explains this clearly in Chapter II: “Concerning
the Female Pudendum,” when he says: “The great
cleft is called...the cunnus, because it looks like the impress
of a wedge (cuneus).” Cuneus, the term for the impress of a
wedge, is, I feel, the true origin of the word cunt. Moreover,
this etymology is underlined by ancient Sumerian pictorial
writing, cuneiform (c. 3500 b c e ). In cuneiform, the impressed
word symbol for woman or female is the image of cunt—a
downwards-facing triangle with a line cleft down its middle.
It seems it’s hard to separate cunt from woman. Woman with
her cleft cunt and horned uterus. Devil-woman. Is it any wonder
then that cunt went on to be considered such a wicked
word?
Does cunt derive from a global word
for woman—kuna?
The Palace of Delight
Looking at the various systems employed over the centuries
to classify and understand the interior of the vagina, it’s hard
not to get the feeling that genital measurement isn’t perhaps a
particular male métier, as some vaginal dimensions are somewhat
startling. Chinese sexual manuals, such as the Taoist
text The Wondrous Discourse of Su Nü, detail how vaginas
come in eight different varieties—each determined by the
depth of the vaginal interior, and each 2.5 cm [approximately
one inch] longer than the previous. However, some, such as
the Zither String, seem surprisingly short, while others, like
the North Pole, are somewhat on the lengthy side. In ascending
size, the Eight Valleys, as they are known, are:
1. The Zither String or Lute String (ch’in-hsien), 0–2.5 cm
2. The Water-caltrop Teeth or Water-chestnut Teeth (lingc
h ’ i h), 5 cm
3. The Peaceful Valley or Little Stream (t’o-hsi), 7.5 cm
4. The Dark Pearl or Mysterious Pearl (hsüan-chu), 10 cm
5. The Valley Seed or Valley Proper (ku-shih), 12.5 cm
6. The Palace of Delight or Deep Chamber (yü-ch’üeh),
15 cm
7. The Inner Door or Gate of Prosperity (k’un-hu), 17.5 cm
8. The North Pole (pei-chi), 20 cm
Chinese sexual manuals also classified the relative position of
the vulva—be it high (in a forward/upward location), that is,
placed more ventrally or towards the belly, to the middle, or
low (lower on the perineum).
So what is the average length of the vagina? Importantly,
what the above ancient measurements do not articulate is
that the interior of the vagina cannot be calibrated in this
way—with just one length. For every woman, the ventral or
anterior wall of her vagina—the belly side—is shorter than
the opposing, posterior, wall (adjacent to the rectum). This
is because the cervix, which sits at the apex of the vagina,
projects down into the vagina, making the ventral vaginal wall
shorter than the other. (The twin arch-like spaces that are
created between the vagina wall and the curving cervix are
known as the anterior and posterior fornices—singular, fornix—a
word that is said to derive from the habit in Roman
times of prostitutes renting vaulted or arched basements for
them and their clients to fornicate in—the Latin word for arch
being fornix).
And the average length from vaginal entrance to fornix and
cervix? Most recently, average vaginal length (when not
sexually aroused) has been placed anywhere between 7 and
12.5 cm [2.7 to 5 inches], with the posterior
length of the vagina from 1.5 to 3.5 cm [0.6
to 1.4 inches] longer than the ventral vaginal
wall. Importantly, just as all penises vary enormously
in size, so too do all vaginas. There is no standard.
And just as all penises lengthen when aroused and erect, so
too do all vaginas.
Seeing in the Dark
We’ve already seen that the vagina is an incredibly intelligent
organ—capable of sorting and selecting sperm with a remarkable
specificity. But can you credit that the vagina has extra
sensory perception (ESP), too? Startlingly, the discovery of
the role of the vagus nerve in human female orgasm suggests
that it does. In the studies investigating how women without
functioning genitospinal nerves (complete spinal cord injury,
SCI) perceived genital sensations and orgasm, two distinct
groups emerged. The first were women who stated that they
could consciously feel the genital stimulator in their vagina or
against their cervix, and it was this sensation, trans mitted by
the vagus nerve, that then triggered their orgasms.
However, there was a second group of SCI women who were
orgasmic, too. And orgasm in these women was more perplexing.
These women experienced orgasm with the genital
stimulator in their vagina or against their cervix, despite the
fact that they did not consciously perceive any physical sensation
from the genital stimulator or their genitalia. Somehow,
though, their vaginas sensed the applied vibrating genital
stimulation (even if they didn’t consciously) and responded
orgasmically. How can this be so? One suggestion as to how
this might occur is that the vagina may be capable of experiencing
the phenomenon known as “blindsight.”
Blindsight is the term traditionally applied to the ability of
272 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SEX IS WRONG