My story starts in high school in Mona Vale, Australia.

I was thirteen and had just begun puberty. I was sitting in class when a boy tapped me on the shoulder and passed me a note. I opened it and was confronted by the question, “Do you have an innie or an outie?”

Outie? No he wasn’t talking about belly buttons. This was the first time I had heard the word. Today, I know it describes a vulva with an inner labia that hangs below the outer labia or where the outer labia is considered ‘long’. 

At this age, I had never seen another vulva so I had no idea where I sat on the vulva spectrum. This is when my vulva anxiety began as thoughts ran through my teenage girl brain:

My vulva anxiety grew throughout my teens, eventually evolving into self-hate as the words like ‘kebab’, ‘upside down volcano’ and ‘octapussy’ were thrown around the schoolyard to describe vulvas.

In my teens, I started researching labiaplasty; a surgical procedure that alters the labia minora and/or labia majora. At age 20, I took the plunge and booked two consultations in Sydney, Australia. Still, when I reflect on these experiences, I am filled with rage. Both surgeons that I saw were more than happy to slice into my vulva without even seeing what it looked like. There was no discussion of why I wanted the surgery, if I had consulted a therapist or explored other treatments for my body insecurities.

All these surgeons saw was a dollar sign on my forehead, so it’s no surprise that labiaplasty is currently the fastest-growing cosmetic procedure among young Australians.

While today I know that I didn’t need expensive cosmetic surgery to change how I felt about my vulva, these experiences alone didn’t stop me from pursuing labiaplasty. A year later, I moved to India and decided it was the perfect place to have my labiaplasty as I could recover without anyone noticing. 

As I entered my third consultation, I still didn’t know how to describe what I wanted as I didn’t have words for my own anatomy. I was so nervous that I blurted out ‘I want liposuction’, and pointed to my crutch. We went into the doctor’s office, and he began drawing on my inner thigh with a yellow highlighter. There I was, standing in my undies in India, looking at this doctor, confused as to why he was drawing on my legs and not my vulva.

Finally, I spoke up, asking shyly, “Why are you drawing those lines on my legs?” 

“You want liposuction, don’t you,” he responded. 

“On my vagina, not my legs…,” I said, embarrassed. 

He asked me to take off my undies and show him my vulva. So, I did. As he looked at my vulva, he said the words that eventually led me to create Comfortable in My Skin:

Yes, I’d seen a few. But not many. The few I had seen didn’t quite look like mine. And in that moment, what this man did saved me from cutting off half of my labia: he educated me.

He kindly explained to me that vulvas are all unique and that it’s normal not to have the “Barbie vagina” that is portrayed in porn, movies and magazines. What I asked to have liposuctioned was a completely normal vulva. He told me to go home and Google what vulvas really look like.

I am grateful each day for this man. He could have easily agreed to give me the Rolls-Royce of vulvas, but instead, he sent me home. Inspired by this experience, in 2018, I embarked to create the Flip Through My Flaps book and pledged to photograph 500 vulvas. The aim is to show how unique and beautiful each vulva is and educate people about their own bodies.

And hopefully, help vulva owners accept themselves rather than go under the knife. Thank you to everyone who spread their legs to spread the word.

Love Ellie xxx