• 3 days ago
"The way that people with clits are taught about their bodies is about shame."

Through her art, Sophia Wallace is fighting to celebrate and normalize the only organ in the human body dedicated solely to pleasure.
Transcript
00:00I want the icon of the clit to be recognizable.
00:03I want there to be sculptures, public sculptures of the clitoris in the world
00:08so that no one has to wonder what this part of our body is.
00:12And this joke about how no one can find it goes away.
00:15This is one of the first artworks I ever made for the project
00:33before I had any idea that I was going to spend almost 10 years of my life devoted to it.
00:39This is one of the 100 laws of clitorisy.
00:42I think this is a very important law and really gets to the heart of the work.
00:47This is also one of my laws of clitorisy.
00:50Some of them are very much about facts about the clit and respecting the clit
00:56and then other ones are just like, the clit is epic, f**k yeah.
01:00The project takes place in terms of billboards and text art and installations and performance
01:08and street art and sculptures and public interactive experiences
01:13and it's just like me trying in every possible way I can imagine
01:17to help this part of the body not be shamed, be known in its truth
01:22and be treated with respect and dignity.
01:24A long time before I knew I was an artist and before I ever thought I would be doing this project
01:40I remember having this psychic disconnect between where in my body I felt pleasure
01:47and what I was taught by health class or by the media
01:53about my vagina and how penetration is how pleasure exists.
01:59So I remember being like, maybe there's something wrong with me.
02:03Maybe my body doesn't work right.
02:05And that's like the first time that I think I started to understand
02:09that society is basically gaslighting everyone with a clit.
02:14I guess it was inevitable as a photographer and as someone living in New York City
02:18doing a lot of work for clients in Times Square where there's like billboards everywhere
02:22that at some point I was going to be like, wait a second.
02:24How come all of the images that I see of what sex is
02:28never acknowledge the clitoris as being part of how people with clits orgasm?
02:33I started doing research and that led me to finding out
02:36that the true anatomy of the clitoris is something that I had no idea about.
02:41Most important is the glands and that's this part.
02:43This is the part that we can see and we can feel
02:46and when it's aroused it sticks out of the hood like the hood, the clitoral hood is on top.
02:51For some people their gland sticks out even when they're not aroused
02:55but other people it only comes out when they're aroused.
02:57The rest of this is all inside the body.
02:59So these are the bulbs and they surround the vaginal opening which is right in here
03:04and they are erectile and they swell up with blood
03:07and these are the crura and these go on the inside like basically around our legs right inside here.
03:22I think it's so important that we can communicate broadly about the rights of our bodies
03:29and unfortunately this time it's illegal to have the word clitoris in any kind of public display.
03:38You break a silence that is reinforced everywhere it's like very powerful.
03:43Okay, this is going to be the last one.
03:47I see my role as alchemizing what I've learned in my life
03:54and the pain that I've experienced and the stories that I've heard
03:57from my grandmothers, teachers and friends and the women in my life
04:02and doing something with that that helps people and hopefully makes people feel good.
04:10People double, triple take and they stop and they go back and they take a picture
04:14and then they post it on social media because that's how rare it is.
04:17The way that people with clits are taught about their bodies is about shame,
04:22is about close your legs, is about down there,
04:25is about private parts and lady bits and euphemistic language
04:31that already says what you have is so gross we can't talk about it.
04:35If we do talk about it we will talk about how tiny and miniature and bits and embarrassing it is.
04:42Really what I want to offer with this word and why I think language is so important
04:46is instead of talking about who's a slut and who isn't,
04:50why don't we talk about if someone is ill clitorate
04:54and how definitely stay away from them and never have sex with them
04:57because it's a complete waste of your time.
05:01And really shifting the dialogue in terms of respect and pleasure and mutual enjoyment.