Dr. Oz introduced his segment on Vulvodynia by promising a “frank conversation” and a “no embarrassment zone.” He said the show was “blowing the lid off” of this condition and that “Nothing, I mean nothing, is off limits.”

Except for a vulva.

Maybe it’s just me, but if you’re going to do a piece about the millions of women who suffer from pain in their vulvas, and were going to show an image to educate people, I expect you to come up with something better than a traffic signal.

Dr. Oz told women the green light is their anus, the yellow is their vagina, and the red is their urethra. Um, okay. I’m sure that cleared things up for all of the women who have no idea what their vulva looks like. This would have been a perfect opportunity for him to do some actual education and de-stigmatizing about women’s anatomy. Instead, he chose to use a “metaphor.”

And once again the clitoris is nowhere to be found. So not only do women not learn about the clitoris in sex education classes, but they won’t learn about it from a doctor either. (Many diagrams in sex education do not identify the clitoris – after all, that’s about pleasure and people only need to learn about reproduction, right?)

You can watch a 5 minute segment of the show here. It does offer some good info and the treatment options listed on the site are a good starting point. However, if you want to know what an actual vulva looks like, check out this 3D Vulva site.

Or better yet, view this quick video for an artful, affirming approach to the vulva:

Disclaimer: I did not view the entire show, just the 5 minute segment linked to above. If he did a better job of talking about the vulva later in the show, please let me know.