VIVA LA VULVA is a documentary film that casts a glance right into the centre of female sexuality – historically, culturally, and politically. With a sense of humour, but earnestly and profoundly it examines this very symbol and indicator of women's self-determination, a mystic source of life and anarchic threat to patriarchal systems. Made a symbol of the forbidden, the vulva is attributed its due cultural significance only by being heavily negated, while its fictitious existence as a focus of male sexual phantasies and the pressure to adapt exerted on women make it a significant economic factor. From church to psychoanalysis: what women carry between their legs seems second-rate to the primacy of the penis. But VIVA LA VULVA can also give hope to those awaiting a turn towards a self-determined female sexuality and a new, confident self-definition of women. Not deadly serious, but with informative verve we tell the tale of the new self-awareness of the female sex.
VIVA LA VULVA is a documentary film that casts a glance right into the centre of female sexuality – historically, culturally, and politically. With a sense of humour, but earnestly and profoundly it examines this very symbol and indicator of women's self-determination, a mystic source of life and anarchic threat to patriarchal systems. Made a symbol of the forbidden, the vulva is attributed its due cultural significance only by being heavily negated, while its fictitious existence as a focus of male sexual phantasies and the pressure to adapt exerted on women make it a significant economic factor. From church to psychoanalysis: what women carry between their legs seems second-rate to the primacy of the penis. But VIVA LA VULVA can also give hope to those awaiting a turn towards a self-determined female sexuality and a new, confident self-definition of women. Not deadly serious, but with informative verve we tell the tale of the new self-awareness of the female sex.
