It was carved in stone 35,000 years ago. Sculpted, painted, woven, hidden, celebrated. The vulva is one of humanity's oldest and most universal symbols — and one of the most fraught with contradictions.
In prehistoric art, the representation of the female genitalia is ubiquitous. Paleolithic Venuses, such as the Venus of Willendorf, celebrate fertility, life, and creative power. The vulva is not a taboo; it is sacred. It represents origin, birth, and the mystery of life.
This sacredness is found in many cultures: the Sheela-na-Gigs of medieval Irish churches, Mesopotamian fertility goddesses, Hindu yonis. Everywhere, the female sex is represented as a force — protective, generative, divine.
Then came the silence. With the development of patriarchal societies and Abrahamic religions, this body, so often represented, became an object of shame and censorship. What was powerful became taboo.
But artists have never stopped representing it — Courbet with his scandalous "L'Origine du monde" (The Origin of the World), ORLAN, Sophie Calle, the 1970s feminists who reclaimed the right to their bodies. Today, jewelry designers like Montesino Joaillerie are taking up this symbol again: not to shock, but to reaffirm that this body is beautiful, powerful, and deserves to be celebrated.