title: Vagina by: Wolf, Naomi published: 2012-09-11 read: 2024-05-22 preview

My longest read ever. I started this book about 10 years ago, after a recommendation by a friend. And I admit, I was intrigued by the title, eager to purchase it, eager to start it… and then I found it somewhat long-winded.

My analysis in hindsight: it required a certain level of personal maturing to be able to appreciate it. Or perhaps even to understand it, I shamefully admit. Friend (male, mind you) wanted to teach me something? Or just be friendly? Or boast? So I read the first third or so in one go, then put it aside. Then, in a few occasions, read a bit more, until a week or so ago, deciding to give it another go, and suddenly it clicked.

The book is indeed about what the title suggests. Very literally. And then, situated around the vagina, the book is about women. (Who would have thought?) On how we understand women, and should understand women. The role of women in western society, and how men can be instrumental in making those roles work. Or can, in their selfishness, destroy that.

It is, of course, not an erotic book, or anything close to that. Instead, it is the coming to terms by the author with her orgasmic life.

But one may not take everything in this book for granted. There is a good part of user surveys by the author, none of which are shown to have scientific rigour where needed, and thus the reader is left with a handful of quotes by random women. Then there is a good deal of spotty science which may or may not be solid. On how women bond by smelling male sweat. How the absorption by vaginal walls of the sugar in sperm creates bonding and security. How absence of female orgasms leads to unfulfilled lives. Hard to prove any of these.

So, she is not scientifically rigorous, and that gives a point of attack for many of her critics. Read them, sometimes even ridiculing Wolf’s points. But she is always rigorous about her topic, about how she, as a woman, feels misunderstood, and tries to create a vaginal basis for that. And tries to put that forth as a basis for all women.

Even if the latter may not always work, the former does. I learned something at least, and isn’t that what reading is about?

I can’t tell you if I liked the book or not.