EDINBURGH 2023: HIGH STEAKS Blog

GETTING THE WORLD TO TALK ABOUT LABIA (AT EDINBURGH FRINGE)

Have you ever had a conversation about labia? Have you ever had a conversation SPECIFICALLY about labia? 

Not many have. 

Despite frequent, open conversations about labia being rare, behind closed doors, there is an abundance of labia shaming that happens especially amongst young people. Many experience comments from their peers, parents and even doctors about their labia looking ‘too long’, ‘too big’, ‘too on the outside’, ‘not normal’. This has led to a huge rise in people requesting and getting labiaplasty - the surgery to make the labia smaller or more symmetrical. But where does this shame-fuelled language come from? Medical professionals put this down to a lack of visibility of varied vulvas in popular media, pornography (where a lot of the labia are surgically/digitally modified) and education (labia or the whole vulva are not shown in most anatomy textbooks). So how do we spread the visibility of varied vulvas to show people that most labia are wrinkly, spotty, smooth, pink, brown, red, big, long, small, tucked in, tucked out, hairy, thin, puffy, wonky, uneven, lovely and NORMAL? And what has any of this got to do with Edinburgh Fringe?!

I’m an award-winning performance artist and clown and this year I'll be bringing my show HIGH STEAKSto the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It is a show which calls for everyday open conversations about labia, without shame or judgement. And it's f*cking funny. In a rebellion against the school playground slur of ‘beef curtains’ when referring to labia, I hang two beef steaks from my labia, butcher them up and cook them…alongside my mum. This show is a celebration of vulva variation celebration and a look at how we are taught and learn shame. 

I started making this work because I wanted labiaplasty when I was 10 years old. I remember wishing for smaller labia on my 10th birthday because of comments I’d received from other labia-owners my age who hadn’t developed as much/were naturally smaller. When I first made a 5 minute cabaret version of HIGH STEAKS, I expected it to be a one-off. I felt like it was a pretty niche insecurity and also felt quite shameful wanting this surgery so young. However after the show, over ten people (from an audience of about sixty) approached me to tell me that they too had experienced a lot of labia shame, and one had even asked her parent for money for the surgery when she was just 13 years old. 

From those conversations, a whole world of shame lifted from me, knowing this wasn’t something only I thought about. So I dedicated the next four years to getting the world to talk about labia. 

I have interviewed numerous labia owners including my mum, cis women, trans men, non-binary people, gender queer people, opening dialogues about their experiences of shame around their labia and their bodies in general. All of their voice recordings are the foundation of the show. It is important that this show encompasses the experiences of an extremely varied pool of people to highlight how prominent this issue is, as something that is very rarely spoken about publicly or even with friends. Every single one said if they’d have seen more vulvas displayed to them, in an educational/nonchalant way, they may not have experienced the same shame. 

So I share my vulva on stage, without shame, with the aim to give people a reference point if they are feeling like there is something ‘wrong’ with theirs. HIGH STEAKS has left people saying: 

“This has changed my life.” 

“I have looked at my vulva in the mirror for the first time eve” 

“I wish I saw this 50 years ago.” 

“I spoke to my daughter about her labia for the first time ever” 

“I spoke to my partner for the first time, after being together for 30 years about my insecurities about my vulva and I felt safe in doing so.” 

HIGH STEAKS is about spreading awareness of varied vulvas and promoting everyday conversations with our friends, our children and our partners about them being beautiful, lovely things to be in awe of. 

HIGH STEAKS is part of a movement of incredible vulva variation artists such as Lydia Reeves who is a vulva caster and creator of the ‘Vulva Diversity Project’ which shows casts and tells stories of over 100 people with vulvas and has stopped people from going ahead with surgery. 

Labia lovin’ is something we need to shout about. It’s something we need to whisper gently to ourselves when we are alone, thinking about cutting up our bodies for the gaze of another. Labia lovin’ is something that is necessary to speak about, with our friends, children, parents and partners because it can fundamentally change somebody’s life. It has changed mine. And it will change others’ who have seen the show. 

Raise a glass to your labia and the labia of your loved ones. It’s as simple as being open about it. That’s all. So let’s openly talk about it at Edinburgh this year. 

HIGH STEAKS

2nd - 13th August 

16:30 - 17:30 

Anatomy Lecture Theatre, Summerhall 

BOOKING LINK: https://festival23.summerhall.co.uk/events/high-steaks/ 

MORE TOUR DATES HERE: https://www.eloina.art/upcoming-shows

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