By David Futrelle
It’s only been a month since the most stubborn man in the universe broke the internet by trying (and trying again at much greater length) to explain what he incorrectly saw as the correct use of the word “vagina” to a literally world-famous gynecologist.
Now a new mansplaining legend has appeared: A Jezebel commenter called Bagdash who has some choice words for staff writer Ashley Reese about, well, her alleged ignorance about her own labia.
Reese, you see, wrote a brief, three-paragraph piece for Jezebel gently mocking a new pleather “bodysuit” from Fashion Nova that “will probably give me a labial wedgie” and possibly a yeast infection to boot. As you can see from the picture above — or in much greater resolution at the Fashion Nova website — this is an outfit that really is remarkably thin in the crotch area; as the headline of the piece jokingly noted, it seems designed to “Only Cover 15 Percent of My Labia.”
Apparently that “15 percent” line was the camel(toe) that broke poor Mr. Bagdash’s back. In a comment that was literally twice the length of the original story, he offered Reese what he saw as some remedial vulvar education.
“It seems you need an anatomy lesson,” he began promisingly, because obviously only good things can follow when some random cis dude tells a cis woman who he doesn’t even know that he understands her body better than she does.
Labia are not the entirety of the groin. Whereas I can see where you are trying to compensate for the idea that the vagina is the totality of female genital, this is a little beyond what is necessary.
Not sure where this is going but continue.
Some women have large labia minora, which might not fit in this, but not everything in the word is tailor made to YOUR BODY.
Ah, that’s where it’s going: Man yelling in all-caps at a woman about her allegedly plus-sized labia.
You can’t expect for everything to fit you “just right”. Women with smaller labia are also just as normal as you are with whatever your labia size is.
Dude, regardless of the size or shape of a woman’s labia, that thing is going to wedge right up in there, where it will function much like floss between one’s teeth except in an area that definitely does not need flossing. Hence Reese’s remarks about a “labial wedgie.”
Whereas I could give a fuck a bout the Kardashians or this company, maybe some of them might like it.
Honestly, I’m going to guess that not even the Kardashians would much enjoy a 95% polyester, 5% spandex thing basically sandpapering their most delicate parts. I mean, it’s practically trench warfare.
I might want to be able to where pants with a 35″ inseam, but it will never happen because that’s not my body shape.
Sorry you’re not as … tall as you’d like to be, I guess? But that’s not really the issue here.
Instead of whining about shit that doesn’t meet your specific needs, why don’t you champion something that does instead.
This shit company, whatever it is, isn’t doing this to spite you, it just doesn’t fit you. So, like any normal, non-armchair social activists, just buy the shit that fits and don’t buy the shit that doesn’t. If this company is really that shit, which I’m sure it is, then let it be on the smaller-labia-ed women to decide if they like it or not.
Yeah, lady, stop complaining and go shop at the Big-and-Tall Labia Store!
As a short man, I wouldn’t comment on the designs of a big-and-tall store.
Oh, wait, he really is suggesting she shop at a store for larger-labiaed women.
And he really is mad about being short.
So you have big labia. Great. Keep it to yourself. D0 you want me talking about the size of my dick, big or small? For example, these jeans just wouldn’t be able to handle me.
Ok, but what are the chances that this dude has sent unsolicited dick pics to random women on the internet? Just asking.
It’s not for you, I get it. But who fucking cares really. The size of your labia and what they do or do not fit into is not a topic of conversation any more than you would like to hear about my penis and how it might be chafing from my clothes, which you have every right not to want to hear.
Dude, she referred to labia four times in a piece about a bodysuit that is pretty much guaranteed to turn into coochie floss about 30 seconds after anyone with a vagina puts it on. You’ve referred to labia eight times, including several snide references to her own particular labia. You’re the one who won’t shut up about it.
Now to get myself in trouble,
Ah yes, NOW is when you will start saying objectionable things.
a problem with feminism in this sense is that it tries to bring women to the level of men by acting like men.
TIL that cis women talking about their labia means they’re “acting like men.”
That being said, men acting like men has been the problem. We don’t need women to act like men in all of their bullshit.
Be a woman, not like a man—I think we would agree that what we’ve seen over the past couple thousand years and beyond of recorded history is that men are/can be total shit. Don’t be like us.
Well, don’t be like this dude, specifically.
And all that being said, yeah, this whatever it is is stupid.
Dude, “stupid” is a massive understatement when it comes to the “whatever it is” you vomited up into the Jezebel comments.
Can we just have a total shutdown on cis dudes lecturing cis women about their vaginas, their vulvas, their labia, that whole area down there, at least until we can figure out what’s going on?
H/T — @emilyofpratt on Twitter
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I was there! It was glorious. Cis dudes, please stop using the word “anatomy”. You just keep embarrassing yourselves with it.
Could you help me understand what the commenter meant re: “men acting like men”? I may be able to see his point if he meant “cis men acting like they’re the only kind of person in the world”*, but what does that have to do with the article he’s commenting on, which is specifically about an item of women’s clothing?
*Which, since he, a cis man, is literally dictating to a woman how to behave, is fucking rich.
That…is the kind of thing I’ve seen on a big bunch of female superhero/supervilian characters from about the mid-1990’s onward. I’ve heard that, when real life models wear similar outfits at comic cons, they use some sort of clothing tack to keep their tops on. I think that in order for the buttfloss to work in real life, some sort of stiff pad would have to be sewn in down there to keep it from riding up her crack.
Hopefully that outfit has that, ‘cause otherwise I don’t think many women are going to wear that thing. Ever.
David, that first paragraph of yours is a dreadful mammoth-tease. Appalling clickbait. I thought the most stubborn man in the universe was back! What do you mean, there are other idiots of his type in the world?
Finally, the hero that all small labia’d women need!
@ David:
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I just don’t… I’m completely embarrassed by my peer group. Great bleeding shit, even the boorish crowd I worked with in the machine shops would look at that article (if they saw it at ALL) and go “nice lips… heh, heh” and go about their day! This wormwood has to write in to criticize… oh, fuck, we all know he just hates feminism and thought he’d found some concrete reason….
or polyester/spandex reason….
I’ve said many, many bad and/or stupid things in my life.
But this,…
Weird (and tired of trumplings) Eddie
How surprising. Those fuzzy camel toes are…….absolutely so cute.
TMI alert: I have pretty small labia. And that leotard thing is not getting anywhere near my bits.
First, I’m intrigued by his use of ‘labia minora’. I mean, yes, that thing will slip in and start irritating those too in short order, but I’m assuming she was complaining about the thing not covering the majora adequately.
Secondly, he thinks there are women with dainty little labia that this thing would actually cover up? Who? Tinkerbell? Women buy different types of clothing to suit whether they’re tall or short, fat or thin, or large-chested or small-chested. Not the size of their labia. Good Lord.
Damn, that bodysuit reminds me of a time I went to the beach, put on my swimsuit once I got there, looked down, and…let me put it this way…saw I had sideburns. My swimsuit was cut high on the leg, tho nowhere near the one in the illustration. I pulled on a pair of shorts over my swimsuit, and swam like that.
If this happened to me today, I honestly wouldn’t care.
How does he know to use the term “labia minora” but not know that also means there should be a majora? Which, even in the pic, is not well covered, so it’s pretty hard to claim the thing would fit the labia of the target demographic (???) unless the model is not a part of said demographic.
icwatudidthar, David.
(cringing in the meantime)
I am a ladyperson. Except to change them, or take a shower, I rarely remove my underwear. This is because no one likes me.
@Ariblester
Honestly I have no idea. I guess it sorta follows his “feminism makes women act like men” shit, but feminism doesn’t, and women don’t, so I don’t know what he’s on about
It’s very telling that the bodysuit model is clenching her thighs together. If she relaxes, it’s totally going straight up into her nethers.
OT, but I am really getting worried here.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/20/pers-m20.html
Not worried in a “what’s that lump” way, or even worried in a “this politics makes me genuinely worried they’ll come for me in the night” way, but worried in a “where’s the nearest fallout shelter? Just in case” way.
“A swimsuit cut higher than the human mind can comprehend!”
[It’s Oglaf, so it’s NSFW, but there’s no sex in this particular strip.]
He can’t even use the right “where.” I mix up homophones on occasion when I’m typing faster than I’m thinking, but I’ve never made that particular swap.
@Meteor
I like you. But you can keep your underwear on.
I appreciate it’s a bit meta me (as cishet wm as they come) commenting on this; but I know a few fitness vloggers, and they swear by pant liners to avoid the camel toe effect.
In the spirit of the “How to Wear” column in the UK Guardian,* I suggest this for the owner of this item of polyester clothing, which cannot be recycled even in San Francisco:
Cut straps from the top of the pleather bodysuit and braid them into a chic necklace.
Pair this necklace with a crisp white cotton shirt for daytime or a soft black velvet tee for evening.
Pull on a pair of light-blue jeans (daytime) or a pair of slouchy, silky, environmentally friendly Tencel pants in black (evening).
Red vegan running shoes (daytime) or comfortable red vegan flats (evening) complete the look.
Cut the remainder of the bodysuit into wide strips and braid them into a stunning bath mat.
Et voila!
*https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/mar/22/how-to-wear-sweatshirts
On a related note, please enjoy (sic) this thread of classic mansplains I recently found on Twitter. You’re welcome.
Only very slightly tangentially, this recent Guardian article – which, I suspect you can glean even from its headline (never mind the substance) is a perfectly serious piece about a distressing side-effect of prolonged cycling on a sensitive part of the female anatomy – attracted this tweet in response.
I think I have had an epiphany: is it possible that this dipsh*t thinks the original article is the author humblebragging about the size of her ladyparts in the way that he then goes on to boast about the size of his d*ck?