Sonja Czekalski
 Feminist Artist

Yes, it’s a Vagina Dress.

 

In the Spring of 2021, I read Unreported by Kaley Roberts and learned that nearly 75% of sexual assaults against female identified persons are Unreported. According to RAINN.org, there are 463,634 victims of sexual assault each year in the United States. 90% of these victims identify as female. This accumulates to 390,283 women per year, 1,070 women per day, and a population where 81% of women claim to have been sexually assaulted or harassed in their lifetime.  

 

These numbers are daunting. 

 

To quote an anonymous response from another community project of mine, “I cannot disconnect my being female from the trauma it has gifted to me.” Generations and populations of trauma, violence, pain, and rape. The sexual energy center on the body, called the Sacral Chakra, not only houses one’s sexual energy, but creativity, emotions, and pleasure. The act of sexual violence strips one of their power over their own body as a whole and permanently damages the power of their sacral chakra. As well as their right to creative expression, and their right to pleasure. 

 

In my research for this project I also found out about a British study in 2016 which found that 44% of 1000 women could not identify a medical drawing of a vagina. To paraphrase artist Sophia Wallace, sexual literacy is Cliteracy. As an artist and educator, and knowing that only 9 states require sex ed in schools, I hope that this project also offers a resource of sex education.

 

Ultimately, this was a project for self healing. Since self healing is community healing, and community healing is generational healing, I hope this project can inspire you in some way as well.

Between August 2021 and  July 2022, I constructed an evening gown made out of vaginas; 107 vaginas. One for every 10 out of 1070  female identifying persons who experience sexual violence per day in the United States. To do this, I committed to completing 107 sacral chakra meditations. Each vagina is a manifestation of each meditation. I created a Facebook group of about 40 women with whom to share the journey. 

 

Not every meditation was magical, or even worth remembering. Some were dark, others very light. I wanted to make sure the sculptures represented that. They are funny, quirky, and crafty. And more importantly follow no rules other than my own. The meditations were as much a healing exercise for the sexual component of the sacral chakra as they were for the creative component. I needed to create a space for healing and for me that needed to be filled with light and fun. This led me to think more about pleasure, specifically about women’s sexual pleasure. 

 

Did you know, that when describing sex, most women describe sex as a performance, rather than a feeling? Did you know that the orgasm gap is larger than the wage gap? Did you know that the clitrois is the only human organ made for the sole purpose of physical pleasure? 

 

When Roe v. Wade was overturned, I decided to more evidently expand the pleasure component of this project. For nearly 50 years women in the United States were able to take control over their sexual health and pleasure. With sexual violence rates continuing to rise, and women’s right to healthcare on the decline, this is not just a direct attack on women’s bodies, but on our voices, education, and human agency. 

 

So, I was driven to create 107 clitorises to attach to the dress. After I made the 107, I felt that it was not enough. It is not enough to just counteract the number of sexual violence with acts of pleasure, it needs to overwhelm and consume the number. I lost count of how many there are and I have not stopped making them. Every person holds the right to safe, healthy, pleasureable sex and sex education.