Many young people, and older people too, have questions about their bodies, like how they work and look. This text is based on RFSU’s text “Fittfakta”. We have shortened many parts and updated some of it. We have chosen to use the word “cunt”, but others use different words about their body, like pussy, vagina, or vulva. We usually change words depending on the situation and who we’re talking to. Only you get to decide which words you want to use about your own body!

The external parts of the cunt

All cunts look different from each other, like how everyone has differently looking faces. Cunts rarely look the way textbook anatomy pictures or cunts in pornography look. All cunts have more or less the same parts, and we’re going to give you a quick summary here.

The outer parts of the cunt, meaning the ones that you can see when you’re looking at a cunt, are:

• The pubic mound

• The inner and outer labia

• The clitoris

The pubic mound

The pubic mound is the protruding soft part by the pubic bone, it more or less consists of fat tissue. During puberty, it starts growing hair, which varies in amount and colour for different people. The hair growth is rarely limited to just the pubic mound, hair can also grow up towards the belly, towards the butt, between the butt cheeks, and down towards the thighs, and also covering the outer labia.

Some choose to shave, wax, cut, or remove hair round the cunt in other ways. Some choose to keep it. The function of the hair is to disperse heat and create some space between the skin of the pubic mound and the thighs. Shaving is not dangerous, but should be done with a new and sharp razor, and the skin should be kept clean. If your skin gets irritated or infected, it’s probably good to pause your shaving and find out if shaving is the cause of the problem.

The outer and inner labia

The outer labia start at the pubic bone and run on on each side of the inner labia. The labia are mostly composed of fat tissue, and are there to protect the cunt. During puberty, the outer labia gets an increase in pigment, which turns their skin tone darker than the rest of the body. They also grow hair.

The inner labia are positioned side to side as a protection for the urethra and the vagina. They are alway a bit moist to prevent chafing. When you are horny, the blood flow to the labia increases, which makes them darken and swell. They can double in size many times over and are separated in the process. 

The inner labia meet at the clitoris and form the clitoral hood. The hood is a foreskin to protect the glans of the clitoris. During childhood, the hood is joined together with the clitoral glans, but as puberty approaches, they separate.

The size and appearance of the labia varies from person to person, they’re often different in size.

The clitoris

The glans (head) of the clitoris is what is visible from the outside, most of the clitoris is inside the body and can’t be seen. The glans is located by the pubic mound, where the inner labia meet and form the clitoral hood, just above the urethra.

The clitoris has erections when you’re horny. It swells with the increased blood flow and gets both bigger and harder. The glans of the clitoris has, proportional to size, the most nerve endings of the entire body and the only function of the clitoris is to experience pleasure.

The internal parts of the cunt

The inner genitalia of the cunt, meaning the ones inside the body that can’t be seen from the outside, consists of, among other, these parts:

• the vagina

• uterus and fallopian tubes

• two ovaries

The vagina and hymen

The vagina is a pipe-like canal which extends inward and upward from the vaginal opening, ending as a space around the cervix. The cervix reaches a few centimetres down in the vagina. The vaginal walls consist of wrinkles like on an accordion. When you’re horny, the vagina widens and the folds are straightened out.

About a centimetre into the vagina is the hymen. It consists of folds of mucous membranes that start in the back-most vaginal wall and is thinned out closer to the foremost wall. Ignorance about the hymen causes a lot of anxiety as the conception of “virginity” is closely tied to the hymen. To be clear: neither gymnastics, sports or injuries to the outer parts of the genitals can remove any part of the vagina. The hymen is there from birth and throughout all of life, it doesn’t break or disappear the first time you have sex, neither the first nor any other time.

The vagina, just like the oral cavity, always needs to be moist. It’s important not to use soap in or too close to the vagina, since it dries out the skin and can irritate the skin.

Lubrication

Lubrication is a fluid which is produced in the cunt when a person is horny. It can happen very quickly, in just a few seconds. One second, the vagina can be wet, and the other, it can quickly revert to a feeling of dryness. A person doesn’t control their lubrication, it’s something the body does automatically and can also happen when they’re not horny.

More information about the cunt

There is a lot more to say about the cunt than this! You can read more about, for instance, genital mutilation at RFSU, more about the internal anatomy of the cunt at RFSU or UMO, and more about trans people’s cunts at transformering.se.

Original text by RFSU
Edited by Jona Mörn, Förenade tjej-, trans- och ungdomsjourer

Translated by Dannie Milve, Förenade tjej-, trans- och ungdomsjourer

Further reading:

The body

Dick dictionary

Sex

Trans and gender identity