I first discovered VulvaLoveLovely when I was searching for visuals to use in a workshop I was presenting for women struggling with body shame. I was struck by the idea of wearing a vulva pendant around your neck as a badge of honor -- a way of claiming it and saying, "Look at this amazing beautiful thing! This is me!" I was curious how a unique venture like this began, so I sent Jessica-Marie, the creator of VulvaLoveLovely, a few questions. She was kind enough to respond, and to offer a FREE GIFT to one of my lucky commenters (see below for details). Q. What or who inspired you to create your first vulva pendant? How did that evolve into a business?

A. I love this question. At the age of 14 I experienced a really terrible sexual trauma. It haunted me for years, I treated my body like trash as a punishment to myself. My body was a bad omen. It got to the point that I couldn’t even bear to touch myself to wash off in the shower. I saw a counselor but the problem was that I had displaced all of my fear and shame onto my Vulva and my counselor wasn’t really willing to go there. She never used ‘the V word’ in our sessions and I really needed her to. One day I couldn’t deal any more. I could hardly function and my sex life was terrifying. I have always been an artist and always used art to restructure negative feelings. I figured I would try doing just that and the first Vulva portrait pendant was born. I hated that pendant. It was the ugliest thing I had ever seen. I kept it on my desk at home so that I would look at it every day. Over time I started noticing things that I liked about it, a curve or a color. Then finally about a month later I was able to look at it for what it was, beautiful and powerful. I was able to look at it and recognize that it wasn’t a bad omen or a black hole. At the time I was in working with a rape crisis center and I wore it in one day. Everyone wanted one and so they all got one. At this point a friend of mine came to visit and saw all of this Vulva art everywhere and suggested I try selling it. At first I thought the idea was crazy but later on I decided I could try it and donate the money I made to the crisis center. Within a week I was getting thank you letters from strangers who had found the site and it just sort of snowballed from there.

Q. Your message is "Love Your Vulva." Why do you think it is so difficult for women to believe that their vulvas are beautiful?

A. Everything we see and hear implies that we shouldn’t believe it. Just the word itself is taboo, which can only suggest there is something inherently wrong with the thing itself. When we start talking about sexual appeal women are told that their Vulva’s need to be a particular shape, color and size. The slang terms that we have for our Vulva’s are predominantly ugly representations: beaver, fish lips, camel toe, bearded clam, meat curtains… you get the idea. With synonyms like these it’s not hard to see why we as a society sub consciously adapt the belief that Vulva’s are ugly. Unlike men women’s Vulva’s are very hard to see, so often times the only point of reference women have is what they see in porn. And what they see is dyed, shaved, airbrushed and sometimes surgically altered. What they see does not occur naturally. So with all of this combined it is very difficult for women to see their Vulva’s as beautiful or even valuable.

Q. Now this is a pet peeve of mine, so bear with me, but why do you sometimes refer to the pieces as "vagina pendants"? It perpetuates misinformation about women's bodies. Vaginas and vulvas are not the same thing.

A. This is a perpetuation of the problem by the problem. The main way we drive traffic to the site is by google search, and 98% of the time people are searching for “Vagina Pendants, or Vagina Art” so our site has to be set up to catch those keywords. Google gives the most weight to title names, then descriptions. This means the only way to catch that traffic is to title the same way people are searching. The way we have tried to find a middle ground, so that we are catching that traffic while informing people that these two words are not the same thing is by alternating title names between vulva and vagina. In the descriptions we also use both, but again because google looks at the descriptions to determine search page ranking we have to use both.

I understand the whole Google search thing, but it is unfortunate that the vagina/vulva confusion persists. If you're reading this and you're not sure what the difference is, remember that the vagina is an internal structure and the vulva is the external area that includes the inner and outer labia, the clitoris, the urethra and the vaginal opening. More on that in a future post. Thanks again Jessica for sharing your story with me! I really appreciate what you do and that you are committed to ethical production and to giving back to worthy causes. You rock! Follow VulvaLoveLovely on Facebook and Twitter. Show your vulva some love! Win a Kick it to Your Yeast Infection vegan soap by leaving a comment below. A winner will be chosen, at random, on October 17, 2011. Be sure to use a legit email so I can notify you if you win.