ABOUT
The Vulva Gallery is an educational platform centred around illustrated vulva portraits and personal stories, and a wonderful, supportive and positive community – celebrating the vulva in all its diversity all around the world. The Vulva Gallery is created by Sam Hil Atalanta, an Amsterdam-based illustrator.
All vulvas are unique – just like our hands, noses and eyes are. However there’s usually just one kind of vulva shape being displayed in popular media. Whether it is in magazines, mainstream porn, or even biology books, all over the world we are constantly confronted with a distorted image of the ‘perfect’ vulva, presented as ‘normal’. This has led many of us (who look different from this ‘perfect’ vulva) to believe that we don’t fit the ‘normal’ image. As a result, girls as young as 9 years old are researching labiaplasty surgery (the surgical procedure that alters the aesthetic appearance of the labia and/or clitoral hood) online, and over the past years we are seeing a sharp global increase in girls under 18 (and even under 15) undergoing labiaplasty surgery, making this procedure one of the fastest growing types of cosmetic surgery in the world.
So, what can we do about it?
We’ve somehow gotten the idea that there’s something wrong with us, but there isn’t. To show this, I started The Vulva Gallery in 2016. The Vulva Gallery is an online gallery and educational platform celebrating vulva diversity, aiming to improve sexual health education and opening up conversation about topics that are still being stigmatised. Since 2016, together with a steadily growing community of over 750,000 followers, I’ve been working on improving this stigmatised image of the vulva.
From an online gallery to a beautiful book for everyone
My next step is to bring The Vulva Gallery to the mainstream. In 2019 I published a book – called “A Celebration of Vulva Diversity” – that embodies everything The Vulva Gallery has touched upon so far. A book that can be used in medical practices and in health classes, that can be looked at in waiting rooms, or can be given as an empowering gift. This book is gender inclusive and encouraging and so it is for individuals with and without a vulva, for all who have ever struggled (or still struggle) with the appearance of their vulva, for parents wanting to open up conversation with their children and teach them about body diversity, and for all who want to hear a voice that is different to what we hear in the popular media.
In 2022 the German translation of my book, called Ein Fest der Vulvavielfalt, came out. You can buy the book HERE ✨
”By showing diversity and openly talking about our experiences and insecurities we can change the way we look at our bodies – and the bodies of others”
What I aim to achieve
With The Vulva Gallery I aim to raise awareness around body diversity, to inspire and empower individuals by sharing personal stories, and to provide information on anatomy and sexual health.
By illustrating a wide range of vulvas in all shapes and colours, and opening up conversation about diversity, body neutrality, and vulva-related topics I want to show that natural variety is a beautiful thing, and that the natural human body is something to appreciate instead of feeling ashamed about.
As seen in:
