Genital panics: Constructing the vagina in women's qualitative narratives about pubic hair, menstrual sex, and vaginal self-image

• Focuses on women's subjective experiences of their vaginas.
• Highlights pubic hair, menstrual sex, and vaginal self-image.
• Provides qualitative account of the contradictions women feel about their genitals.
• Traces sexism, racism, and homophobia in vaginal attitudes.
• Argues for adding genital self-image to body image literature more broadly.

An emerging body of research targets women's relationship to their genitals, particularly as pubic hair removal and the promotion of female genital surgeries increase in popularity and visibility. This study asked women to discuss their subjective feelings about three related but distinct genital attitudes: pubic hair grooming, sex during menstruation, and genital/vaginal self-image. Specifically, this study applied thematic analysis to qualitative interviews with a community sample of 20 women (mean age = 34, SD = 13.35) from diverse ages, races, and sexual identity backgrounds to illuminate seven themes in women's narratives about their vaginas: (1) “dirty” or “gross”; (2) needing maintenance; (3) unknown or frustrating; (4) unnatural; (5) comparative; (6) ambivalent; (7) affirmative. Overwhelmingly, women used strong emotional language when discussing their genitals, often evoking descriptions of anxiety, excess, and need for control. Fusions between sexuality and body image, and connections between “genital panics” and internalized racism, sexism, and homophobia, also appeared.