Taboos can make an image more powerful – but they can also lead to fearful depictions of the unknown, or to the erasure of a huge part of lived female experience. This inability to talk about female genitalia has certainly had its impact on Western art and culture. And wider culture attitudes to them run the gamut of sniggering, censorious, disgusted, objectifying, or actively oppressive. We are still crushingly bad at talking about all the bits between women’s legs – often ignorant or euphemistic, vague or embarrassed, even if we have a vagina ourselves. “A museum is a place where conversations can happen – the best way to fight taboo and stigma is with knowledge.” “The gynaecological anatomy is a very stigmatised part of the body,” points out Schechter. But the fact a Vagina Museum needs a bit of a glossary in the first place is proof of its purpose. The museum will look at the entire gynaecological anatomy – the inside (uterus, cervix, ovaries) as well as the outside – and consider its representation in culture and history. A Vagina Museum is, frankly, more eye-catching and conversation starting. “A lot of people don’t know the word vulva, and people are not going to engage with something they don’t know,” she says. Schechter acknowledges the frustration at how the word “vagina” is often used when people are really talking about the external vulva (the labia, clitoris and vaginal opening) – but they needed a term people were already familiar with. The art that stereotyped the Arab worldįirst up, a note on the name. “We’re going to be much more thoughtful and actually explore the topic.” “That’s kind of novelty, penises in jars,” Schechter explains. In fact, it’s a pretty different proposition to the penis museum. This month, in London, the Vagina Museum will be born. And so, the science communicator decided to do something about it. In 2017, Florence Schechter discovered that Iceland had a penis museum, but that nowhere in the world could its female equivalent be found.