Originally published February 16, 2015.
Remember the psycho snack mom who came unglued and started screaming about about vagina pride when her kid’s second grade teacher refused to serve the anatomically-correct vagina cookies she baked? If she wasn’t wackadoodle enough for you, please meet Cecilia Westbrook. And her vagina yogurt.
Yes. I said vagina yogurt.
Ms. Westbrook is a self-described feminist (of course) and psychology graduate student whose research interests include the interaction of emotion and cognition in the development of mood (that would be mood not food) disorders. Apparently she got the idea to make vagina yogurt last August when she and a college friend were sitting around “riffing on vagina puns” (TRANSLATION: speaking amusingly about their vaginas) because duh… isn’t that what all what feminists do?
Anyway all that “riffing” led her to this serendipitous discovery: lactobacillus – the bacteria that makes yogurt yogurt – is also the most prominent bacteria in a healthy vagina. One thing led to another and before you could say “oppressive patriarchy,” Ms. Westbrook had whipped up a batch of vagina yogurt from (get ready) her own vaginal flora.
Now if you’re a normal person, learning lactobacillus is found in both yogurt and vaginas is the sort of thing that might make you swear off eating yogurt for a while. Or forever. Or you might find it mildly interesting, but I’m pretty sure you’re not going to think wow I really need to make some yogurt from my own vaginal discharge and promptly collect a sample with a wooden spoon (yes I said wooden spoon), but that’s exactly what Ms. Westbrook did because…
“of course the feminist in me wants to say something about how there’s a beauty in connecting your body to your food and exploring the power that your vagina has. Part of that is kind of a mystical hippie thing, but part of it is also just getting comfortable with your own body, especially in a culture that is so uncomfortable with women’s bodies.”
Seriously, that’s what she said and what’s worse is when it was all said and done, she actually ate two whole bowls of it… with blueberries… which, of course, attaches a completely new mental image to the phrase fruit on the bottom.
Anyway according to an interview she gave to the folks over at Jezebel, Westbrook admitted to expecting people’s reactions to this whole sordid “experiment” might include words like “weird” and “quirky,” but she didn’t expect the degree of outrage and disgust people expressed. Really? She really didn’t expect folks to be disgusted? “It’s kind of hard not to feel like that’s a little gendered,” she complained to the interviewer and followed up with, “Would we be so disgusted if a guy did something like this?”
Are you kidding me?! YES we would be as disgusted if a guy did something like this because it’s NOT GENDERED, IT’S DISGUSTING.
For the record, if you think I’m overreacting to all of this, think again. FDA spokesperson, Theresa Eisenman, weighed in on the matter and affirmed that in fact “vaginal secretions are not considered ‘food’.” Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Someone actually had to make an official statement. Heaven help us.