This is a fascinating history of the vagina and all it's aspects. At time this history can be a little gross, a little beautiful but at all times it's thought provoking! I'd recommend this to many people who need to learn more about their own bodies and the history behind them.

I wish I could say I enjoyed every minute of this book, but I didn't. BUT!! That was no fault of the author's! The lower points in my reading came during the (many, many) times it occurred to me that we could have some ridiculously nice things right now if history hadn't been analyzed and recorded through the lens of white, (often) heterosexual, cisgender men. So yeah, reality brought me down. But otherwise, this book was a trip!

Where was this book when I was growing up? I would have bought it for girls in my family as they were growing up. Loads of useful info. Should be used in a classroom during sex ed. I was always shocked and dismayed to learn, when I was growing up, that all medicine was geared to average white males and just adjusted for the rest of the human race. It hasn;t surprised me in the least since, that most male doctors know so little about how our bodies work. I mean, really, who wants to exercise to ease cramps???How exactly does THAT work?? And childbirth was made into an illness after males took over birthing. Gah!
Kudos to the author!

A fascinating foray into the nether regions of the "fairer of the species". Rachel Gross carefully recounts the history of women who struggled to understand their anatomy and orgasmic experience (or lack there of) when it didn't match the norm. Personal accounts of women who suffered from cultural practices meant to help them are aided through the help of doctors helping recover patients' mutilated bodies. Carefully written and painstakingly researched, Ms Gross delves into some other examples from the animal kingdom to analyze their copulation adaptations as compared to humans. Popping back. and forth through history, the author intricately weaves the patchy scientific research and assumptions together with modern-day elements that shed light and provide for new understandings of female reproductive anatomy. Navigate from the macro of sexual selection in populations to the microbiome that keeps everything ok "down there". This book helped me better understand myself better than any class ever could have...and I feel like some of my tissues have superpowers. A great, comprehensive read with endnotes and exhaustive citations for further reading.

Really interesting and helpful especially if you, like me, have health concerns. There is some very interesting history about women's health and the graphics were neat, I have endometriosis among other problems and this is a book all gyno's and women's health doctors should own and STUDY!!!!

It’s highly ridiculous that vaginas are such a tense topic. Do you know how miraculous the things a vagina can do are? I appreciate this book and all of the knowledge it contains. I’m always going to support the furthering of knowledge, and this book is an excellent starting point into all things vagina. Several mothers come into my work looking for helpful guides to explain sex/anatomy, so this will be my go-to recommendation from here on out.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

As a man I can be expected to have limited knowledge of this particular part of the female anatomy which is why I requested and was fortunate enough to be given an advanced copy, as a health care worker I have relieved a few babies and wanted to be able to help more so I attended a course in perineal repair post partum, to be honest that was better than this book

The female genitalia are a wonder of nature. This is their story.

Vagina Obscura covers the history of our (lack of) understanding of the female sexual and reproductive organs. Since ancient times, ignorance of the form and function of these organs has influenced the treatment of women in ways both comical and harrowing.

Science journalist Gross’s writing is meticulously researched and supported by case studies.

Enlightening.

My thanks to NetGalley and W W Norton & Co. for the ARC.

Amazing, well researched, fascinating, wonderful book. I will now look for everything Rachel Gross writes, because I loved it.

I enjoyed this book and would give it a 3.5. It was informative and very interesting. There was a lot of information in this that I did not know before. It’s shameful how little is known about the vagina.

That being said, I expected something a bit different - there was a lot of focus on animal vaginas and anecdotal stories rather than anatomy. Some sections were more interesting or easier to get through than others. I found myself wanting more info at some parts and less at others.

Vagina Obscura is a fascinating look at the history, science, and politics of female sexual and reproductive anatomy (as the terms may be used to describe a variety of cis-gendered, trans-gendered, and non-binary bodies), tracing what we have learned about these body parts from the time of Hippocrates (who called them “the shame parts”), through Darwin and Freud (who both dismissed the “passive” vagina as less important to reproduction than the “dynamic” penis), to modern researchers (whose work was most surprising to me by virtue of its very recentness). This is a highly readable book — author Rachel E. Gross writes about the maddeningly long history of the dismissal of female intimate health concerns without anger or stridency (or any of the other words used to dismiss women’s writing about “women’s issues”) — and whether or not one is looking to learn something about the science of female anatomy, the research, interviews, and history all make for a captivating reading experience. I learned much and thoroughly enjoyed the writing; I can’t ask for more.