Thursday, October 18, 2012

having a vuluva time...


(Via Groupon.com)


I have two words for you this week: knitted vulva.

So there I was, innocently mooching around Twitter when I decided to click on a link that someone had posted.  Imagine my surprise when I found that it was a knitting pattern for a (drumroll) ..... yoni! 

Whenever I hear the word yoni it reminds me of a friend I had at school whose name was Jon (still is, I’m sure) but you pronounced it ‘Yon’. His nickname was Joni, but you pronounced it ‘Yoni’.  I can’t imagine that he feels fantastic about being nicknamed after female nether parts. Or, in retrospect, perhaps he quite likes it.

Then someone told me the other day that you actually pronounce it ‘yoany’ as in ‘Joni Mitchell’. Either way, yoni has always sounded more like a yoga pose or a strong spice to me.  Truth be told, I’m not even sure if yoni refers to the ‘whole kaboodle’ or if it only refers to specific parts of the, er, yoni.

Anyhow, back to the knitted vulva.  The blog started off with:
        
‘It is nearly impossible to find a good pattern for a knitted yoni and I see lots of people in different craft communities asking for one.’

Who knew?

I imagine that men crafters – carpenters, iron-workers, ice-sculptors and the such – come up against exactly the same problem when they are looking to craft a lingam. Where are good lingam blueprints to be found when you need ‘em?

Far be it from me to scoff at anyone’s creative endeavors - I’m quite a fan of yarn bombing but be that as it may, I really have to ask: why? Why do they want a knitted yoni? What are they going to do with it?

For those who read one of my earliest blogs, we have touched on the joy of ‘wild knitting’ ("Hot Fuzz" Wed, 1 December 2010). It included questions around the likes of knitted garden displays, knitted fruit and even knitted cigarettes.

But truly, for the life of me I simply cannot imagine what one does with a knitted vulva. Granted, the blogger did use a very nice ‘velvet touch’ wool which looks awfully nice to stroke. Even so, is this knitted yoni for display - like a scatter cushion? Or perhaps it’s more a cuddle toy that you take with you to bed? Or maybe it’s the modern equivalent of a handkerchief and you give it to your lover as a keepsake – tailor made, so to speak.

Upon further investigation I found other sites that offer patterns for knitted body parts.  Namely, the cute, cuddly, uterus dolly. In one image, the bubblegum pink knitted uterus is hanging from a tree, in another it’s perched on a piano.

A TREE I say! What on earth is a uterus doing up in a tree? And while we’re at it, what is the connection with uterus’s and pianos? What exactly does my uterus get up to when I’m not looking?  Clandestine concerto composing?   Late night treetop trysts? I tell you, we’re but a hop, skip and a jump away from making a whole television series based on the secret life of the female reproductive system. (Joan Rivers would do a smashing job as the voice-over for the labia, what with all the excessive cosmetic surgery she’s had done on her lips.)

Funnily enough, it appears these uterus's do get around. If you Google “knitted uterus” you will see that a very proactive person sent a knitted uterus to a congressman to lobby for giving women better access to birth control.  I’m pretty sure he revised his policy just to get the thing off his desk.  Oh, to be a fly on the wall when he opened the package!

As I scanned the yoni pattern, the blogger went on to say that ‘Gauge is unimportant as this is totally up to you how big or small you want it to be!’

So there you go, size only matters if size matters to you.

And let me tell you, the blogger had a lot (yes, a lot) of very enthusiastic responses from readers who were going to “knit one immediately” or were going to “try it out in blue”. It seems cyberspace is teaming with women who want to knit a yoni. What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I want one?

The final instruction left off with ‘Continue this pattern of increasing every second and every second … until you get your desired width’. It was at that point that I had to leave the site. As intrigued as I was, I had to draw the line somewhere.