German filmmakers Claudia Richarz and Ulrike Zimmermann explore attitudes about female genitalia in their provocatively titled film. Helga Seyler, a Hamburg gynecologist, says that her clinic discouraged her from using photographs of women's privates in her sex education classes (young women, in particular, found them “icky”). Instead, she employs a velvet model to explain the parts and their functions. Publisher Claudia Gehrke worries that this distaste may prevent today's generation from acquiring knowledge and experiencing pleasure, and she oversees a series of books (The Secret Eye) designed to celebrate the female form. Mithu Melanie Sanyal, a journalist and author, talks about Sara Baartman, the South African woman who fascinated England and France in the early 1800s with her prominent sexual features. Her handlers displayed her more like a biological anomaly than a human being (filmmaker Abdellatif Kechiche's Black Venus was inspired by her). Female discomfort with the labia continues and contemporary women can now undergo labiaplasty to achieve a smoother, more symmetrical appearance. Dr. Uta Schlossberger discusses the merits and complications of the procedure, which allows insecure women to feel more confident. As Gehrke puts it, “We're back to invisibility being an ideal of beauty.” Ulrich Grolla, a photographer and picture editor, reduces the size of labia in pictures to conform to that ideal (he also aims to deflect attention from the Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors, which finds some forms of nudity more objectionable than others). An intriguing documentary that also covers ancient myths and female circumcision, Vulva 3.0 is recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)
Vulva 3.0
(2014) 78 min. DVD: $390. Icarus Films. PPR. Volume 30, Issue 2
Vulva 3.0
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