Fanny and Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England

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I first met Laura, a photographer from Surrey, in 2015 following her exploration of 100 women’s relationships with their breasts. It got to the point where I was obsessive in my desire to have a child. My mum told me I needed some counselling. I started to re-evaluate what womanhood could look like for me, outside of my biological capabilities. I think we kind of take for granted that we’re going to be able to have children. Not being able to conceive doesn’t reduce your value as a woman, it doesn’t make you less of a woman – but that’s kind of what society tells us. My early experiences of womanhood started with the women who raised me: my nan taught me about enjoying yourself, your body and who you are. My mum is my best friend, there’s nothing that I don’t share with her. I decided I wanted to wax my vulva, and I asked [her] to do it. My mum gave birth to me so there’s nothing that I have that she hasn’t seen. And I trust her. Although Laura admits to being nervous at the beginning. “I hadn’t knelt before a woman with her legs spread before.”

I never wanted to have children until I developed reproductive health problems. When I was 19, I had a Mirena coil fitted and that caused me to get pelvic inflammatory disease, which was excruciatingly painful. I grew a cyst on my right ovary very rapidly. I was in and out of A&E and I had to suspend my studies at uni. In the end I had emergency surgery that resulted in the loss of my right ovary and fallopian tube and they drained five litres of fluid from the cyst. With that in mind, she couldn’t not confront her own vulnerabilities. “When I first looked at my vulva I thought, ‘Whoa, there’s a lot going on there!’ But taking part has been transformative for me: I’m more comfortable in my skin as a woman. It’s a pivotal experience to do something like this because it’s so exposing. I was afraid of penises my whole life. First I wanted to have one. Then I entered puberty and my breasts grew, and I knew there was no way I was going to be a boy. Then I was hurt by penises. I was molested by my father and I had teenage interactions with boys who put pressure on me.I didn’t grow up with my father but I thought he was incredible. When I was a teenager, I’d go and spend the weekend with him. One night he got into bed with me and started touching me. The next day I confronted him. His reasoning was that he wanted me to realise that I had a beautiful body and that sex was a wonderful thing. I was like, ‘You’re not the right person to be teaching me any of this because you’re my father.’ Dr Naomi Crouch, chair of the British Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology, has also noticed a “marked increase in girls and young women seeking labiaplasty” over the last few years.”

I feel like I’ve been a creative warrior for women, helping them reclaim their bodies and their stories – and I’m fiercely protective of them. I hope it’s a game changer, especially for young women. If I’d seen and read this when I was 18, I think my entire life would have been different. I continued having pain, but I kept being told it was normal. It turned out I have endometriosis, uterine polyps and fibroids, which was a blow on top of a missing ovary. The really big deal was finding out that if I waited too long, I would be unlikely to conceive naturally, if at all. Photographing this intimate area led to some unique and deeply personal stories. “Each one has stayed with me,” she says. “The 46-year-old virgin. The woman who endured FGM. The woman who had her vagina removed because of cancer.” Where would you normally see another vulva?” photographer Laura Dodsworth asks me. “Mainly only in porn,” she answers. “Especially if you’re looking online. But there’s a world of difference between how you see vulvas in porn – and how you see them in real life. It’s so important for women to know what vulvas look like. It can help with body image anxiety. We really need to talk about them because many women haven’t looked at their own. They don’t know what’s down there.” The labia minora are usually first, and sometimes more prominent during the early stages. But it can be hard to find accurate information about this.”The idea that women are turning away from pleasure because they’re worried about what they look, smell and taste like has unearthed a fundamental message for Laura. Shame is a really big problem for human beings,” she sighs. “Where I’ve found that, generally, men are under pressure to be ‘enough’ – big enough, getting laid enough, rich enough, man enough – women feel like they’re ‘too much’ – too fat, too hairy, too saggy, too female. Frankly, we just need to be as we are. Yes, you can look at the photos and go ‘Wow, we all look really different’, but it’s also about connecting with the honesty of these stories. Because if you find yourself feeling admiration, pride and inspiration for another person, it becomes easier to apply that to yourself, too.” Having endometriosis means that my periods are irregular and can be excruciating. It’s like a hot, burning sensation in my uterus that radiates throughout the lower half of my body, into my hips and down into my knees. People think I’m exaggerating, but sometimes I can’t work. I also get a sudden sharp shooting pain in my vagina, which catches me off guard. It’s exhausting having to live with a level of pain that never really goes away. Consultant gynecologist Dr Pandelis Athanasias says “there’s no such thing as a normal vagina – they naturally vary in size, shape or colour.”