The Scandal of the Vulva

Even though the vagina is only part of the female genital apparatus, often people use the word "vagina" as slang for the whole. I believe I have an explanation for this synecdoche.

The vagina is the exact spatial and functional complement of the penis. Penis and vagina exist "for" one another. To characterize the entire apparatus in terms of the vagina, therefore, is to define it as in need of the penis, as intelligible only in the context of the penis. Correspondingly, women exist in order to be "satisfied" or "made whole" by men.

The scandal of the vulva is that it suggests the possibility of a world without penises. It's certainly not incompatible with the penis, but neither is it purely dependent on it. Rather, the vulva institutes a regime of womanly pleasure liberated from the capabilities of males, a regime with which any rapprochement is always of an improvised and factitious nature which eludes science.

From the Diary of Samuel Pepys, II

23 February 1668

This evening, my wife did with great pleasure show me her stock of jewells, encreased by the ring she had made lately as my Valentine's gift this year, a turky-stone set with diamonds; and with this and what she had, she reckons that she hath above 15olb worth of jewells of one kind of other. And I am glad of it, for it is fit the wretch should have something to content herself with.

From the Diary of Samuel Pepys, I

23 March Lords Day, 1662

This morning was brought my boyes fine liver, which is very handsome, and I do think to keep to black and gold lace upon gray, being the colour of my armes, for ever. To church in the morning. And so home with Sir W. Batten and there eat some boiled great oysters; and so home, and while I was at dinner with my wife, I was sick and was forced to vomitt up my oysters again, and then I was well.

R.I.P. W.F.B.

"The central question that emerges…is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas where it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes—the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race."

-William F. Buckley, 1957, National Review

Yeah, he was a great man alright.