Real Talk:  Volume. 1 - 'Vagina Monologues'

Welcome to our monthly Q + A series - ‘Real talk’. An online space to promote empowerment within our community, where we will be holding monthly conversations with huns who truly inspire us!

 

 

This month for our first ever edition we’ve been chatting to body honesty advocate Jess Greenash, about the often over-censored and taboo topic of genitals. Jess fearlessly opens up and discusses her journey with all things vagina related, from discharge to plaster casts

 

Vagina questions you've been too afraid to ask?

Q: Hey Jess, thanks so much for chatting with us today! To start things off could you give us an introduction into how your journey with body honesty advocacy started out?

A:  "it started out when i was getting into the space on youtube of sharing shit about myself that I hadn't really shared with anyone before and talking openly about the things that i disliked about myself. I'm all for body positivity but i feel like for a lot of people, being positive is actually sometimes unattainable. It was realising that I cant be super positive because that feels super unattainable for me, there's no way i can love my body right now. But I don't want to hate myself, I'm bored of hating myself, that shit is so boring. So i thought, what can i do? at least accept myself."

Q: You’ve labelled yourself as a ‘discharge enthusiast’, why do you think the open discussion of discharge is important?

A: " I have indeed labelled myself a discharge enthusiast. I really feel like the conversation of discharge is so fucking important, for people of all ages. We need to be teaching these things from a very young age, even before puberty. I've had messages from people saying they're in their 30's and that they've found my video and had never realised they were normal. That's why I love social media because you can just have these open conversations and share information. No I'm not a doctor, but I'm a fucking human with a vagina, who discharges every single day. And I really wish that i'd known these things and that it was normalised from a young age."

Q: Recently you shared that over the past year you’ve learnt a lot new things about your sexuality, do you have any advice for others looking to discover more about their own?

A: "So, over the past year i have discovered a lot about my sexuality and fucking hell has it been a whirlwind? Yes it has. a little background; I was with men for a long time from when i became sexually active in my teens. I had curiosities about being with woman, but never had the courage to actually go for it. Then when i was 19, I said fuck it. I started seeing girls and it was the most wonderful experience, i loved it, it was amazing. with all my heart and soul I believed I was a lesbian and I was that way for about 5 or 6 years and then I started having thoughts creeping in. Thoughts about people that were not woman. I shut them off for a long time and then i actually just had to listen to them. Honestly my best advice to you is to just try things. So yeah, moral of the story is that life's too short, grab it by the tits and go for it."

Q: Do you ever face negativity in response to what you share online? And if so how do you respond to that?

A: "So I've been content creating now for 5 years, and I've definitely gone through the notions of receiving a lot of backlash. I mostly receive a lot of hate and negative comments when I post a certain type of video that is more controversial and brings in different types of people. Thankfully, I haven't received so much recently. But when I do, I honestly just try to ignore it. What I bear in mind is that these people do not know me.

Q: What do you hope people will take away from seeing your content and activism?

A: "The overall theme in my content and the message that I put into it, is that I really don't want people to feel alone, in anything they're going through. I don't want people to feel like they're the only ones with flappy flaps or the only one that discharges everyday. I spent so much time as a teenager, thinking that I was alone in the things that I was going through. So, I just really want everyone who watches my content to realise there are other people that also experience these things. And I hope that they find comfort in that."

Q: If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?

A:"If I could give myself one piece of advice, it would be...It's not that deep, you're normal, don't spend too much time worrying about it. Your vagina, your vulva and your discharge is normal. And don't be afraid to dive into those fancy curiosities you have about woman...sooner."

Q: SO! You’ve cast your vulva, not once, but twice! What initially inspired you to do this and how was your experience?

A: "I've cast my vulva twice now and I tell you what, each time was an amazing experience. It was...interesting, I was nervous as fuck. But I really wanted to do it. My motivation behind it was that I wanted to have something physical in my space that i was confronted with every single day. I find that when it comes to accepting our bodies and the parts of ourselves that we don't like, we tend to just not look at them. So, if you do have insecurities about your vulva I really do highly recommend getting it cast. Having that bitch sit in your room, have it like a fucking golden trophy on your mantlepiece. I'm honestly so grateful that things like this exist for us so we can face and accept ourselves in different ways compared to what we're used to. Honestly, it works wonders for your mental health.

Is my vagina normal?

If you've enjoyed hearing Jess talk vaginas as much as we have or you're still fretting about whether you have a 'normal' vulva (which...by the way hun, doesn't exist). Then tune into the full IGTV interview here. ALSO, don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for next months edition, where we'll be interviewing another glorious hun, on another glorious topic.