RKNet Blog... Thing

Yes, once again our first-ever contest, the Design-a-Vagina Contest (Redux), has come to a close. The results are already in and those results may be expressed with the following image.

If you can’t read that, and I don’t blame you if you can’t, it says “This Page Intentionally Left Blank” - which is to say that the second iteration of the Design-a-Vagina contest has come and gone without an entry. As such, I am somewhat grateful as it means I don’t have to shell out upwards of $150 on prizes, but I am also disappointed that I could not help the woman from North One who had encouraged me to rerun the contest in the hopes of fostering discussion on modern women’s body image issues.

Which is a subject that has been touched upon before by yours truly, although never really discussed outside of that post and mentions as part of the contest. Fun, games, and fabulous un-won prizes aside, are there any issues regarding elective cosmetic surgery and women’s body issues that anyone would like to talk about? If so, we would love to hear from you. No issues can be fixed or even identified unless they are understood, and understanding requires communication.

The comments and contents of this post are considered NSFW - Not Safe For Work - and we assume no fault if you get tagged for inappropriate conduct. Though we here at RKNet do not consider these contents inappropriate, we do not make the rules or the laws regarding your day-to-day life. Thank you for your understanding.

Welcome one and all to the second run of RKNet’s very first contest, the Design-a-Vagina contest. Previously we here at RKNet had provided a mostly blank sheet, in activity book style, encouraging people to create an image of a realistic or fantastic “ideal vagina”.

Thanks to the interest of a documentary team doing a film for North One Productions, we are proud to reopen the contest, with a few changes. The documentary is going to be called The Vagina Dialogues, with the goal of discussing female sexuality and body image, particularly as it relates to the Holiest-of-holies, the vag, the cooter, the hoo-hoo parts, the vagina, the vulva, the cooch and (depending on who you talk to) the cunt. With a focus on discussing the issue, the acceptable categories for entries to the Design-a-Vagina will be as follows:

1. 150-1000 words on your personal feelings regarding the “ideal vagina” and your thoughts surgery or other modifications to attain an ideal visual appearance. You may express this in fiction if you include a brief opening statement which declares it a fictional piece, and hopefully states the goals of the piece in a short and clear fashion. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender. Post your entry in the comments, or on your blog and link to it from the comments.
2. An original visual representation of what to you constitutes the “ideal vagina”, preferably with a brief description on your overall concept and thoughts surrounding the image. Photos, drawings, computer generated and mixed-media images appropriate. Link to your image (html image tags supported in the comments also) and share your comments. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender. This category will rely on the honor system in part, however we will be doing background checks on every image submission.
3. Personal (i.e. of yourself) audio or video submissions between 1 and 5 minutes, discussing what you consider the “ideal vagina” and your thoughts surgery or other modifications to attain an ideal visual appearance. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender.

Prizes will be determined in part by the number of entries in each category. If there are more than 10 in each category, then the chosen winner in each category will receive a $50 gift certificate to JT’s Stockroom (site NSFW) or Amazon.com - winners’ preference. Each category must have at least ten entries for this to apply. If there are less than 10 in each category (yes, even if it’s 10, 10, and 9), then one single winner will be chosen from all categories and be awarded a $50 gift certificate to either JT’s Stockroom or Amazon.com - winner’s preference.

Winners (in each category or in general if too few of each category are submitted) will be chosen at random. This is something I failed to specify before and many thanks to my good friend Matt for pointing out this grevious omission. The goal here is to foster communication, and as such I cannot very well propose that I have what it takes to judge the merit of people’s personal feelings.

Watch this post for updates: I will be trying to get backing to make the prizes more interesting for participants. Though I should hope that the opportunity to discuss these issues publicly would be the biggest draw of all.

There will also be bonuses and/or props available for people who demonstrate that they have promoted this contest. The person who can provide the most proof of promotion will receive a prize of their choosing, either many very public thanks and links by RKNet on your behalf or a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

The deadline for the contest is 06/30/2008, 12:00 pm EST.

Entries will be chosen within a week of the deadline. An update will be made after the close of the deadline declaring the number of entries in each category.

Thank you and good luck!

Friends of RKNet may recall our first attempt at a contest, the Design-a-Vagina contest. Friends of RKNet may also recall that the contest, minus Dr. Hypercube’s brilliant concept submission was a spectacular failure.

Perhaps the contest was simply too ahead of its time, perhaps it was simply released from the nest before it was truly ready to take to the skies. Whatever the case, the concept behind the contest did not go entirely unnoticed. I received a very positive communication from a woman from North One Television, who wrote in the hopes of finding out the results of the previous contest.

It was with great regret that I had to inform her that no results were posted on the site… because there weren’t any results to post!

However, every day is another opportunity to turn things around. A documentary is being produced called “The Vagina Dialogues”. In the interest of reaching more people and getting people’s opinions on what the “visually ideal” vulva is like and people’s opinions on the things people do to achieve that ideal, we will be posting the details of the new, improved Design-a-Vagina contest very soon. Changes will include a more cohesive, thoughtful theme, and the presence of real prizes this time. Suggestions for prizes are welcome. In addition to submission-based prizes, we are also considering promotion-based prizes. (Suggestions for this portion are welcome also.)

Details on the documentary are below for those interested in getting a jump start on considering the overall theme of the contest.

In the last 5 years more and more women are choosing to have both aesthetic and reconstructive surgery. Surgeries such as vaginal tightening, labiaplasty and vaginal rejuvenation are being performed in NHS hospitals and in numerous private clinics around the country and this documentary aims to understand why women are becoming so concerned about the way they look and feel down there that they are resorting to plastic surgery.

Over the next few months our presenter will meet a number of people with differing views about vaginas – ranging from medical experts to mums and teenagers. She will look into how sex education is taught in schools, how men feel about women’s vulvas, how different cultures feel about vaginas and how over the past 20 years women’s perceptions of their bodies appears to have changed so dramatically - surely our grandmothers would never have considered having genital surgery?

We are very keen to address the issues that still remain taboo and make vagina-related topics not something to dismiss and laugh about, but a part of the body to understand, appreciate and admire.

With all the talk of female body augmentation and supplementation, I felt it was high time somebody treat the subject with the respect it deserves… by turning it into a children’s workbook sheet and making a contest out of it.

Below are 2 PDFs and a JPG version, meant for 8.5×11 standard printing. I opted to keep it black and white so as not to disappoint those sans color printer (like myself). Photoshop and meatspace entries are welcome. Due to an alarming lack of popularity of RKNet, I’ll run this contest for 2 weeks, starting today. (This also gives me time to determine prizes. Reasonable suggestions welcome!) The last entries must be in by February 27th at noon (EST). After that, I and my esteemed colleagues will proceed to pass them around, get piss drunk, and pick one at random. Which means, gentle readers, that it doesn’t matter how “good” or “bad” you actually do at this activity, because winning isn’t so much based on merit, as it is favoritism and inebriated whimsy! Isn’t that great?

• 480k JPG version
• 1.9mb PDF
• 171k lower quality PDF

Edit: I’ve resized some of the images, and added the blog URL to the bottom. Please feel free to print copies and leave them about.

If I may be so bold as to quote Animaniacs…

“It’s time for another good idea, bad idea”

Good idea:
A device that allows folks with female sex organs to pee standing up.
Bad idea:
Fashioning said device to look something akin to a giant golden dildo.

It’s certainly a device that’s an invention of necessity. Yet I fail to see the need for it to be - as the site describes it - 12 inches long, and golden. And as it’s stated on the site “The Ebony model is due out soon. It will be significantly larger than the gold model, come with wheels and is…priceless.”

I’m absolutely positive that concept of this device could be executed with a LOT more discretion. I can’t picture wasting that much space in a hiking or camping pack, much less a purse with something that huge. A plastic funnel would probably serve the same purpose, at that.

Plus, I’d bet a nickel they’ve done SOME kind of keyword research, too. On the “Blog On” page, I couldn’t help but notice the sub-header stating: “The Shenis fits all designer vaginas”. The designer vagina issue seems to be coming up a lot more lately, probably due to changes in surgical proceedures and promotion. (I distinctly recall complaining about the very idea, in fact.) They could probably do more to optimize for that particular keyword, but I find it’s placement and presence in general to be highly suspect.

Conclusion: This is a pure novelty item and I’m not terribly impressed, to be honest. Campers, hikers, and road-trip travelling ladies, just make sure you have a plastic funnel (or good directions). You’ll be fine. Don’t throw money at this silly attempt to provoke in the name of convenience.

Pointed out by Ectomo: From the blog Next Nature comes an article discussing Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation surgery and Designer Laser Vaginoplasty. (Caution: If you’re at work, there’s a big picture of a woman’s pubic area at the top of this article. if you turn it sideways it looks like a frowny mouth with a five o’clock shadow!)

This has to be one of the least intelligent surgical developments I have heard in quite a long time. It’s just another item in a long line of things subtly encouraging people to assume that sex has nothing to do with personal happiness and everything to do with how one’s sexuality will be judged by others. Barring any actual deformities, such as those caused by functionally limiting accidents or birth defects, I can see absolutely no reason for this procedure. Anyone who encourages this be performed on healthy women is - to say the least - very disappointingly short-sighted.
As a part of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, sex ranks directly with food, sleep, and breathing as one of the most important needs for a human being. I myself am in agreement with that sentiment.

Esteem? That which would make one desire a purely cosmetic change in the first place is a much smaller piece of the pyramid. Rightfully so, as the interactivity one elects to have with other humans is as optional as this “designer vagina” surgery. I can’t really picture a scenario in which the likeness of my pubic area to that of one seen in a magazine or film would really be that important. Even for those in the habit of posing for said magazine photographs, there is indeed photoshop and other such techniques which would prevent the necessity of voluntary genital mutilation.

Ladies, the next time you start to feel insecure about the appearace of your genitalia, just remember: “Who really has any business giving a shit besides me?”

Relevant to topic:
South Park: Plasty

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