In Defense of the Camel Toe

Trends come and trends go. Some are less savory than others, and yet we passively participate, like sheep. There was a year or two there where we were all wearing black chokers for some reason, and that was kinda weird, but I have no regrets. “Designer vagina” surgery, however, is where I fucking draw the line.

More and more women, the Daily Mail reports, are flocking to get labiaplasty—a procedure that can fix the appearance of “camel toe,” or the visible outline of labia when pants or shorts are too tight around the crotch—in order to wear Kardashian-inspired ultra-tight leggings. Labiaplasty apparently shrinks the labia minora, or the “flaps on the inside of the vagina,” per the New York Post, with a sticker price upwards of $4,000. One U.K. surgeon, Dr. John Skevofilax, told the Daily Mail on Tuesday while he performed just 50 labiaplasties throughout 2021, he’s already surpassed that number this year, and it’s only August. He attributed this at least in part to the recent surging popularity of both athleisure and extremely fitted bodysuits, pioneered by clothing lines like SKIMS, which basically show every fold and contour of the vulva in detail.

Of course, there’s long been a stigma around showing camel toe—as if the mere suggestion of anything existing between our legs besides a smooth, plastic Barbie/Ken doll crotch should be humiliating. But what if we just...stopped caring? People are now wearing the world’s tiniest bikinis, which—as Megan Reynolds has previously noted—create about four feet of space between belly button and crotch and often straight-up show the labia majora. On this season of The Kardashians, Khloe made points in a conversation with Kim about SKIMS: “You guys make fun of me for having a bigger vagina than most,” she said, adding that the crotch of SKIMS’ bodysuits is a mere “sliver” and asking if it’s “just supposed to cover my [clitoris]? The vagina needs a little more fabric, just a little wider.”

Fashion wants to simultaneously erase women’s vaginas while showcasing them front and center. We’re supposed to wear ultra-fitted full-bodysuits sans camel toe; we’re supposed to wear the most nonexistent of bikinis and somehow neatly tuck away any sign of labia. Impossible beauty standards have already policed every other aspect of women’s bodies—does this really have to include the size of our actual vaginas?

I, personally, am not really a leggings person and have never really cared about accidentally flashing anyone at the beach. But I’ve just about had it with the camel toe stigma and tiny-vagina-worship in general—especially from the same society that just a few years ago worshipped Mr. John Hamm for his famous “moose knuckle” (a term, I learned from my colleagues this week, that refers to the outline of men’s genitals in tight clothing). Here at Jezebel, we celebrate your genitals at any size and whatever outline they may accidentally make through your clothes.

In that spirit, I offer you some of camel toes’ (and moose knuckles’) greatest hits, for some positive inspiration: