Laura Dodsworth took 100 vulva portraits.

First it was breasts, then penises - now the photographer Laura Dodsworth took 100 vulva ports.

At the end of last year, Laura Dodsworth published a essay about her vulva in a book and then in Gardian. "25 years I've spent looking at the labioplastics and having sex with the lights off, because of what the unknown boys said, and some of my friends. "I felt a deep sense of shame for my body, which, in time, has become harmful."

This is the disgrace of the photographer of Laura Dodsworth, who seeks to overcome her latest project, Womanhood. In a book and an accompanying film for Channel 4 she tells the stories of 100 women and people who disagree with the floor through the portrait of their vulva. This is the third issue in the series: " Reality and courage " Dodsworth photographed and told people about their breasts and penis, respectively (both stories were published in Weekend magazine). The photographer said "unexpected triptich”; she didn't know that the project was going in that direction from the beginning (and when she was first offered it, she didn't want it). But the more she thought about photographing women's wolves, the more she needed it.

" I thought about this idea, but I continued to push it away " , she tells me. "And then I read three things in a few months. One was female genital mutilation. When I read about women around the world suffering from FGM, I got sick. " She read the news about nine-year-old girls asking British doctors about labioplastics. The leaflet on the health of the vagina was then described as a " front hole " , a language that it considered inaccurate and harmful. Finally, Dodsworth wanted to leave the penis project, which saw it as the champion of men: " How am I, the card feminist, the penis champion, but not women and wolf? "

Women ' s Lono rarely meets outside porn and childbirth, which dodsworth explains in part their position on the body.

"The kids are right there on the front. They're visible and there's no vulva. If you're a straight woman, you don't see many. And as she writes in her book, it's not easy to look at them: " Let's be honest, it's hard for us to corroborate our vulva, awkward top of the pocket mirrors, butts placed close to the mirrors to full growth, or selphie with the inappropriate objectivity of the smartphone. "

It is also part of the body we know relatively little about - historically there was a lack of scientific understanding; about the clitoris, orgasms, sexual pleasure. At the same time, the vulva causes general turbulence, which may be a factor in the fact that in England, the cervical test rates are at the lowest level in the past two decades. This knowledge gap can also be attributed to the growing number of people subjected to labyaplast: according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeries, in the United States, the number of procedures increased by 40 per cent between 2015 and 2016.

The pictures of Dodsworth's vulture were very different from that of male members. For many women, photographing was the first time they considered this part of their body in detail. “I feel that men have revealed themselves to a woman in a sympathetic space”, said Dodsworth. " This time, women have been revealed to themselves. Some women were trembling to ask me if they were normal.

Dodsworth was worried that it would be embarrassing to be in this intimate situation with her models. She said that she needed to overcome her " socialization of a good girl " and her internal self-censorship. In fact, she found an exoneration - posing for her own portrait. “I couldn't ask people to do anything I didn't do myself.” "so I am. And I remember when I took my picture and put it on my Mac screen, I just thought, "oh, there's a lot going on." I remember watching my epiziotic scar, and he looked tiny. In my head, when I touch this, it seems huge because I kept my memories of a traumatic birth. "

The stories in the journal " Women " are vast (even if they include a number of coloured people, who are partly selected by Dodsworth). Pages are filled with people of all ages and sexual orientation, to be honest with key life events. “Vulva often considers the place of sexual activity”, she said. “But we have spoken of many areas that are not sexual, periods, menopause, infertility, miscarriage, abortion, pregnancy, childbirth, cancer. In this sense, she saw herself as a " midwife helping women build their own stories " .

Dodsworth ' s vulva races are forced to laugh and cry, touched by openness, in which everyone speaks of sexual release, grief, loss, abuse and everything between them.

The very fact that the vulva seemed so controversial emphasized the strength of the project. Would you change your mind about the body if you read that book by a teenager? There's a scattering of shapes, sizes and frontal hair that you won't see in pornography, or in any context of the manifest. This shows that there is no “normal” or “non-normal” simply an endless list of variables.

Dodsworth thinks it's right to call a project on the vulture of " Women " , because it implies that sex is equal to the floor. She said that none of her projects was a manifesto or a dictionary definition of what it meant to be a man or a woman. "It's a voice choir. However, parts of the body play a very specific role in what it means to be a man or a woman. "

She said that the project had a profound impact on her own life. People have seen me a little different, writing in a book. " Unexpected proposals, eyes open - my own research led me to new sexual and emotional adventures. I'm approaching the perimenopause, just at that turning point, when society can think of me as predisposed in my power, but I feel freer, happier, more sexually powerful, more in the thrive than ever before. "

The book and Dodsworth movie show up at a time when the vulva seems to have a cultural moment. Lynne Anwright ' s book, Vlavaliche: Re-education ' , is about to be published, and live events aimed at rehabilitating the body are becoming increasingly popular, from the body to the “seminars of whiskey study”. In the meantime, such campaigns encourage young people to avoid shame for menstruation.

Does that look normal? Dodsworth thinks so. " Things are raised in collective consciousness at the same time. I think we're returning our bodies and our stories. Looks like it's time.

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