Creating these vulva pies has been one of my greatest pleasures as an artist. If anyone had told me that one day I would put together all of my baking skills and art skills and make pie art featuring vulvas, I would have laughed and thought they were crazy. Yet, here we are.
As vulva owners and women, there is a lot of focus on our reproductive organs. Legislation and political debate, societal norms and stigmas, sexual choices and lifestyle, pleasure and reproduction. Everyone has an opinion and often, our own desires are disregarded.
The objectification of women is common. They separate us from our body parts and serve us to the public, much like a pie. Women are sexualized and throughout the world the injustices against women are too many to list.
I have never met a woman who hasn’t experienced sexual harassment, whether verbal or physical. Our shared experiences of navigating a world where we are easily victims and vulnerable conflict with the sexual power that we often learn to wield instead of enjoy.
I say all this not to whine, but as a matter of fact. I do not feel like I have a lot of power to change any of it, but as an artist, making these vulva pies is one way I am processing it.
Pie as a symbol
Pie is a well-known euphemism for the vulva, at least here in the United States. However, it’s usually not used in an empowering way. It’s used in place of the proper term for vulva or vagina. At worst, it’s used vulgarly by people who see vulvas as consumable products with words like hair pie, pussy pie, cream pie, and vagina pie.
In my vulva pie art, I am referencing the all of those uses of the word pie. I am internalizing it and reclaiming the layers of symbolism. The layers of meaning here are as important as the layers of pie crust.
My life as a woman with a vulva, an artist, and a baker culminates in creating this artwork. Truly, I am following a tradition of feminist artist who have also used food as art. (Here’s a great article, “8 Women Who Turned Food Into Feminist Art” over on Artsy.net.)
The whole women, kitchen, food thing is huge.
Seeing Vulva Diversity Makes a Difference
It causes me great pain to see us (vulva owners) burdened with the stigmas and taboos associated with our bodies. We have all these voices from the entertainment industry, our families, our friends, and the omnipresent social media presenting us with beauty standards, hygiene products, and unsolicited information.
We often end up with a negative view of ourselves before we even reach adolescence.
Pornography is where most of us encounter uncensored views of naked bodies. However, those bodies aren’t there for educational purposes. Pornography exists for entertainment and fantasy. It can have the same impact on us mentally as comparing ourselves to movie and magazine standards of beauty.
This vulva art is based on real vulvas without censoring size, shape, wrinkles, or appearance.
Creating these pies is a reclamation and a celebration of natural beauty and diversity. Presenting the vulva in this way doesn’t objectify it, it glorifies it. All of my fellow yoni artists and vulva artists get this. There is an entire community of artist paying homage to divine feminine energy and celebrating vulva power!
Vulvas don’t have a gender
Although, my personal perspective as an artist is from my life experience as a woman with a vulva, it’s essential to say that not all people with vulvas are women and not all women have vulvas. This is important to understand when talking about bodies and gender.
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