The Outing of the Bhaga

in Art and Non-Fiction Books

 

Although the bhaga has been displayed rather freely in paintings and sculptures of ancient cultures the world over - often in a religious context - the misguided morality (in sexual matters) of Judeo-Christian brainwashing has made such depictions impossible, if not unthinkable, in a world dominated by Christianity. Fortunately, times have changed and are changing still. Below is an effort at creating a timeline of all serious artists, authors and web-weavers who have aided the process of liberating the yoni into the light of day.

1866
Gustave Courbet paints his famous L'Origine du monde, generally credited with being the first full frontal view of the bhaga in modern history. After years of having been hidden away - and believed to have been lost - today the painting is part of the permanent exhibition in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris (France, not Texas!). See the complete painting in our Bhaga Art Gallery.

1890
Auguste Rodin works on his sculpture Iris, Messenger of Gods, probably surpassing Courbet in his open depiction of the bhaga. Rodin made various versions of Iris, and in in various sizes. One of the plasters and one finished bronze are in our Bhaga Art Gallery.

1939
Surrealist André Masson draws Terre érotique, showing a naked man running towards - and presumably diving into - the bhaga of Mother Earth. See Erotic Earth in our Bhaga Art Gallery. [Back to Top]

19xx
Sometime during the 20th century, Japanese Shinto priest Kubo Marimaru paints the Goddess Kuan Yin (Female Bodhisattva of Compassion) with open thighs; her bhaga clearly visible. The image is here, but I don't know its year nor anything about the artist. Does anyone? [Back to Top]

1948
Thomas L. Poulton, an English medical illustrator (1897-1963), began to produce many sketches and drawings of women proudly and exuberantly displaying themselves in ways shocking to conservative post-war Britain. He kept this secret, however, and it was only way after his death that the world came to see these images in a book called Tom Poulton. The Secret Art of an English Gentleman. (Taschen Books)
But don't run off now to order this right away, the book as a whole is not mainly about woman and her bhaga, it's very much about (hetero)sex in general - and some may surely call it pure porn. [Back to Top]

1966
Artist Niky de Saint Phalle creates The Figure Hon, a huge hollow sculpture of a woman into which visitors of the exhibition could walk - entering through her open bhaga. [Back to Top]

1970/71
Author Germaine Greer spearheads several attempts at reclaiming the word cunt. Among her publications in this regard are The Politics Of Female Sexuality (1970) and Lady Love Your Cunt (1971). [Back to Top]

1972
Igor Medvedev Mead paints his Yoni Series, only four images of which were ever published (Twentieth-Century Erotic Art, Taschen Books) while others disappeared into private collections. In fact, Igor was rather surprised to find his images on our pages (personal email communication), but he did not object - so they are part of the accompanying Bhaga Art Gallery. [Back to Top]

1973
Feminist activist and advocate for women's sexual liberation Betty Dodson starts leading workshops for women in order to appreciate the beauty of their genitals as well as to explore the varied experience of orgasm through practicing masturbation skills. She has also published books and video tapes on these topics, with Viva la Vulva: Women's Sex Organs Revealed probably the best known.
BD has also done drawings of the bhaga, some of which can be viewed on her website. [Back to Top]

1975
Tee Corinne creates B/W drawings of the bhaga and publishes them as Cunt Coloring Book, a classic which has seen many reprints and is still available after more than 30 years. [See also 1993] [Back to Top]

1979
Publication of The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, a textual and visual record of an artistic effort that was five years in the making. The artist and her collaborators made bhaga-shaped dinner plates (some more explicit than others), each dedicated to a famous and/or important woman. [Back to Top]

1983
Christo and Jeanne Claude realize an art project called Surrounded Islands. Several islands in the Biscaine Bay of Greater Miami, Florida, were surrounded by pink plastic sheets to resemble a bhaga. [Back to Top]

1987
Josephine Lowndes-Sevely publishes Eve's Secrets, containing evidence (and drawings) showing that the clitoris is much larger than is usually thought. This predates by almost 20 years the so-called sensational findings of Australian urologist Dr. Helen O'Connell the media so keenly reported during 2005 and 2006. [Back to Top]

1988
Kit Schwartz publishes a book about the bhaga with the most unfortunate title The Female Member. [Back to Top]

1990-95
The late Vincent Dame produces several of his best known sculptures, for example his Cosmic Egg or his Kteis (Greek for bhaga). Apart from being an artist, Vincent was a driven collector of all things pertaining to the bhaga. I've seen his entire collection and his own work, but don't know just when he actually started working in this field. Three of his works are shown in our Bhaga Art Gallery. [Back to Top]

1992
Christina Camphausen starts drawing what she calls Intimate Portraits and soon publishes these bhaga images in several books and magazines. She does her portraits from photographs women send in by mail or email - and many do - or from photographs we ourselves take of friends. [See also 1997] [Back to Top]

1993
Joani Blank edits Femalia, published by the aptly named Down There Press. The book consists of large, close-up, color photographs of many a bhaga - contributed by Tee Corinne, Michael Perry, Jill Posener and Michael Rosen. [Back to Top]

1995
Exhibitons in this year and the next show that Tee Corinne had moved from simply photographing the bhaga to creating photo-collages made with solarized negatives.
Considering that the artist was very troubled (medically) when I created this timeline (August 2006) and busy to survive, I dared not bother her with asking permission to show you one of her images in our Bhaga Art Gallery. Shortly after, on August 27th, the creative spirit of Tee Corinne left her body. [Back to Top]

1996
Rufus C. Camphausen publishes The Yoni, a richly illustrated book about the forgotten role of woman and her bhaga in ancient traditions and Goddess-centered religions around the world. Apart from tribal and modern artwork, the book contains six photographs (by CCRCC) of the bhaga which were later deemed inappropriate for the (1999) German edition. Censorship Lives!
These missing photographs are among those in the Bhaga Image Gallery. [Back to Top]

1997
Christina goes online with her first small gallery of Intimate Portraits. Lots of fan mail comes in - 80% women - and a number of photographs to draw from. One person even orders all 9 prints of the Blue Series and tells us he's putting them up in his living room. There seem to be more people out there who like this than we had thought. [See also 2003] [Back to Top]

1998
Inga Muscio publishes Cunt: A Declaration of Independance. With this book, she tries to do - once more - what Germain Greer, Judy Chicago, Tee Corinne et al had already tried years before: attempting to liberate the dreaded word from its negative connotations and to reclaim it as a word of power. Now whether or or not this works this time around (we try to help), Inga is certainly a very active activist; and not on bhaga issues alone. Check out her website. [Back to Top]

The same year sees the publication of the Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler. Though this book was the more successful of the two (Monologues based on her book were staged in theatres worldwide), Ensler has done all of us a disservice by using the wrong medical term: vagina rather than vulva. An unfortunate error for a self-proclaimed Vagina Warrior. Having said that, the content of these monologues and the fact that they took the world by storm has certainly helped in raising awareness of the bhaga, of female sexuality and of issues such as rape. [Back to Top]

1999
A lesbian friend, Italian artist and photographer Carla Torino sends us several CAD images, saying that they were inspired by reading The Yoni (1996). Given the social climate in Italy (Rome - Vatican - Catholicism - Pope), she also asks that we publish her work under a pseudonym - so don't search the web for this name! See her work in our Bhaga Art Gallery. [Back to Top]

Year Unknown
Cydra Vaux - transcending her earlier judgement to keep her work hidden - publishes images of her unique sculptures on the Internet. Combining bhaga art, Goddess mythology and feminist symbolism, the Lady has both strong images and wise words to offer. With her permission, we have three examples in the Bhaga Art Gallery - for more you'll have to visit her WomanSculpture pages. [Back to Top]

2000
Rebecca Chalker publishes the important book The Clitoral Truth, probably the only publication that details the clitoris - and with her the bhaga - almost millimeter by millimeter. The clit has 18 parts, she says, and the labia minora are actually one of those. The author is no friend of Freud (neither am I) and she reminds those who need it, that sexuality has less to do with penetration than with playful attention to sensory detail. And detail there is: the clitoral glans alone has 6 to 8 thousand nerve endings - making it very sensitive, indeed. Chalker also makes it clear that ancient Chinese Taoists, Indian Tantrics, and early Greek anatomists knew almost all the relevant facts ... and that it is only since the 18th century that Western medicine and psychology chose to forget all about it. [Back to Top]

Matthew Hunt finishes a most insightful dissertation with the title Cunt: A Cultural History. He traces the word's roots, censorship, usage, and feminist efforts to reclaim it in a positive sense. Cunt awaits publication on paper but is available - unabridged, referenced, the works - on his website. [Back to Top]

A woman named Sarah starts a website with the title All About My Vagina. Apart from the misnomer - rather common among English speakers - she verily describes her bhaga in all detail - and her relationship with her. Meanwhile - 6 years onward - the site has grown immensely, both in content and in popularity. Visit her site for discussions of taste, scent and other intimate matters. [Back to Top]

In the same year, Alexandra Jacoby creates a website named vagina vérité™. One aspect of the site is a project in which she photographs many women's bhaga in order to celebrate the individuality and beauty of all women. The project shall lead to exhibitions and a publication; an unabashed exploration of the plain, ordinary, mysterious matter of our vaginas. [Back to Top]

2002
Vulvovaginal practitioner, researcher and teacher Elizabeth Gunther Stewart, together with writer Paula Spencer, publishes The V Book. Although mainly health-oriented, she does pay attention to - for example - how women view their own bhaga and what they think about her. The book features an interview with Christina about her art. Check out the V Book website. [Back to Top]

Karen Salmansohn and her collaborators publish a book called The Clitourist: A Guide to One of the Hottest Spots on Earth. Although the book contains no information not already in print, the title is funny and the book must be mentioned here. [Back to Top]

2003
Nick Karras publishes his book Petals, a loving collection of sepia/duotone close-up photographs of the bhaga of many women. [Back to Top]

Taschen, the famous publisher of books about both art and sexuality, publishes Pussycats (edited by the late Gilles Neret). The book contains a collection of paintings by many famous artists that show the bhaga or - as the book's advert says - labial splendour. [Back to Top]

Less visual but very important is the publication of The Story of V by Catherine Blackledge. The author combines mythological and ancient themes about V (smart; could be Vulva or Vagina) with most recent scientific studies about the female reproductive system - of humans and other mammals. The original UK edition has several color photographs of women's bhaga, but various publishers of translations have found them inappropriate and left them out - or printed them in B/W only. Censorship Lives! These missing images can be found in the Bhaga Image Gallery. [Back to Top]

Christina and myself get the domain name www.yoniversum.nl, expand her gallery, begin the YoniVersity and include many other features. As you see, the work continues. [Back to Top]

2004
French Photographer Antoine Péluquère publishes a DVD entitled L'Origine du monde. It has the feel of a movie - with music - and consists of an everchanging landscape based on digitally manipulated photographs of many a woman's bhaga - sometimes clearly so, sometimes very abstract. Since he needed more images than he could find models for, he asked women - over the internet - to contribute their own bhaga-photographs - and many did! [See also 2005] [Back to Top]

Albert Normandin contributes to our site a number of his superb B/W infrared photographs of several women's bhaga. It is weird that no publisher as yet has seized the opportunity to make a book featuring these images. [Back to Top]

Bob Thornburg starts a website with his photographs - some very playful, some truly artistic - and calls it Celebrating Yoni. He's taken such images since about 2002, and he's one the few people (at least OnLine) using the word Yoni exclusively - even the filenames for his images read as yoni 009 or yoni 277. Our congratulations! View three of his works in our Bhaga Image Gallery. [Back to Top]

2005
The Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, also known as Beaubourg Museum, in Paris stages Antoine Péluquère's work L'Origine du monde, accompanied by an exhibition of huge still images from the DVD. [Back to Top]

2009
We publish Yoni Portraits: The Intimate Art of Christina Camphausen. [Back to Top]

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Concept and Text:
Copyright © RCC, 2006

Thanks to Matthew Hunt and Gary Regester for bringing several items to my attention.