Remember how, in Sex And The City, Charlotte found herself using a mirror to take a look at her vagina? Things have been taken one step further by The Beautiful Cervix Project; they not only want women to look at their hmm-hmm, but they also want them to photograph them each day and track its changes throughout the menstrual cycle.
Oh, yeah, and they're also encouraging women to upload their cervix selfies to the website, so everyone can share in their glory.
Mmhmm, it's time to "know thy cervix". And you'll achieve that by charting it on a daily basis and photographing it with the help of the site's self-exam kit ($19.95), which contains a reusable plastic speculum (available in two colours, because why not?), hand mirror, flashlight, instruction sheet and lubricant packets.
It may sound gross / weird, but the project’s aim is a VERY good one:
"The Beautiful Cervix Project encourages women to learn cervical self-exam and fertility awareness as a revolutionary path of promoting respect, confidence, and health. We believe that this form of self-empowerment and education will help contradict shame and misinformation around women’s reproductive health and choices, affecting positive change from the personal to global levels."
Here’s how to feel your cervix:
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Wash your hands
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Squat or stand with one foot raised on a stool.
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Insert your longest finger into your vagina until you feel your cervix. It will feel like a protruding nub/cylinder toward the back of the soft walls of your vagina. If your finger is long enough, you should be able to circle your finger all the way around the cervix and feel a little dent in the middle of it (called the os, the opening to the uterus).
Note the following:
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How deep in your vagina is your cervix resting? (How much of your finger is inside of you?)
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Does your cervix feel soft, like pursed lips, or more firm, like the tip of your nose?
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Is your cervix angled to one side or aligned more centrally?
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Does your os feel slightly open and squishy or squeezed shut?
All very useful information, as we're sure you'd agree!
However, while all this in itself is a very good idea (who doesn't want to get to grips with their health, eh?), we're not sure we can handle all of the photos that have been uploaded to the site so far. A gallery of extreme close-ups, focusing on everything, from a cervix mid-smear or mid-period, to a cervix with IUD or post-abortion. And more. So many more.
It's pretty, y'know, intense looking through those photos - but there's no denying that, however much they may make our jaws drop to the floor, they're (kind of) reassuring. They help us to get some idea of what our cervix should be getting up to at different points in its life - and, if we ever notice anything odd while we're performing a self-examination, there's a veritable mine of information there to help us work out what's going on.
Would you take a cervix selfie? And, if you did, would you upload it to The Beautiful Cervix Project? Let us know via our Comments Box below - we're dying to hear your thoughts on this!