If you look up the word “Pudenda” in the Merriam-Webster, you’ll see that the fancy term for the external genital organs is derived from the Latin word pudere—to be ashamed. As in, “the naughty bits,” “where the sun don’t shine” or the “unmentionables.” It makes me think our society’s spent quite a lot of effort hiding that wonderful lotus of life and pleasure; our twats.
So, when thinking of it in that historically misogynistic context, I guess it’s not so bad that my 26-year-old sister-in-law tells me that “everyone” shaves “everything” down there these days. It’s like we’re taking the beard off the beaver so everyone can see its face, or inviting the sun to finally shine down there. How liberating!
Well, it’s too bad I had to tell her that I, personally, cannot bear to shave my twat, because I don’t just have a camel toe—I have the whole camel foot.
I guess that means I’m ashamed of my pudenda.
A Veritable Forest
One day, many years ago, I got into a fight with my pubic hair.
I became overzealous with the razor when a crooked, patchy landing strip offended me to the brink of madness. I stooped over in the shower and furiously shaved and scraped and tweaked, yanking up the limp folds of my labia major in attempt to get every last patch of hair and stubble clean off my body.
I failed.
In the beginning, it felt delightful. A smooth, tingling-sensitive feeling, and when I touched myself it felt like I’d borrowed someone else’s twat. So exciting and new! Of course, when standing in front of the mirror naked, it looked like I’d borrowed the pre-pubescent twat of an overweight gorilla, but the happy tingly feeling distracted me from that horror for a short time.
That short time lasted about ten minutes.
After ten minutes, my twat was very upset with me. Facing me in the mirror like a sideways sneer, my twat grew teeth—short, bristly pubic teeth grinding against my delicate inner parts, like insurgent hair follicles rising up against the totalitarian I’d become after declaring a razor war. It felt like I’d masturbated with a hedgehog.
And it was heartbreaking, because I’d wanted a beardless beaver so badly.
See, I’m not one who’s jumped on the Anti-Twat-Shaving bandwagon yet. I love a shaved pussy. I think a shaved pussy is pretty, clean, and wonderfully exhibitionist in the way it pulls back the pubed curtains to say “Look at me!” (I have no problems with hairy pussies, either—although they are an elusive beast rarely ever spotted in the pornographic wilds.)
But, certain twats shave better than others, and—unless I felt like paying a stranger to shove their face between my legs and wax me—I had to admit that, yes, my twat is fat.
And, no, my fat twat does not shave easily. Or happily.
Someone Else’s Twat
The first time my husband and I had sex (it was our second date, if I recall correctly) I was horrified. This brilliantly sexy army guy with shoulders like brick walls peeled off my clothes and did something that no one else I’d slept with had ever done—he looked at me.
He looked at all my hidden places and my unmentionables, staring as he drove into me with a dizzy smile on his face. It was so wonderful.
Also, terrifying. Because my twat had retained the same Camel-Foot glory it had throughout all my heavy and light points. I couldn’t believe someone would actually be interested in looking at it. I was embarrassed, worried about turning him off, self-conscious to a ridiculous degree…and totally aroused.
It’s hard to be an exhibitionist when you have a silly-looking twat, but that doesn’t mean I don’t totally love it when exhibitionism is thrust upon me. (Literally and figuratively speaking.)
And, since marrying that wonderful man, he’s made my twat fatter. Not only because he’s a gourmet cook (he makes this orgasmic Fettuccine Alfredo), but also because he works very hard to ensure we have the simple pleasures of life with the free time to enjoy them. Sheer luxury! And every time I’ve ballooned to monstrous proportions, it’s been a direct result of having too much luxury available. Too much time to lie around and watch movies. Too much money to spend on dinners out. Too comfortable a job and too peaceful evenings spent lounging around in someone else’s arms.
The times I’ve been my lightest, it’s because I was so depressed, I lost that particular nagging survival instinct that compels us all to eat food.
So, the extra pounds that I carry today are most certainly happy pounds. When standing in front of the mirror naked, it behooves me to focus on how those pounds were gained, instead of taking them out of context. (And instead of putting them in the context of the unfamiliar habitat of porn and starved magazine models.) Because, like they say, it’s not what’s outside but inside that counts. It’s not the pounds themselves, but what they’re filled with that matters.
My twat is full of love. And Fettuccine Alfredo. But mostly love.
With a bit of steroids left over, which would explain her aggressive tendencies. Still, my pudenda hasn’t risen up to slay me yet, primarily because I try to keep her happy and warm under a downy covering of light red hair. And also because I keep putting things into her that she likes. At the end of the day, I’d rather have a happy twat than a sleek one—and if that means my twat can stomp around the desert for weeks without a drink of water, then so be it.