Page 57 - Healthy (March - April 2020)

theCLINIC

My life

in health

Founder of Pussypedia (pussypedia.net),
a bilingual resource dedicated to female sexual
health, Zoe Mendelson is encouraging
women worldwide to get to know their vulvas

The idea for Pussypedia came about when I was Our most popular article is on vaginal discharge. It’s
trying to find some specific information about female thought of as gross, nobody really talks about it and you just
orgasms. After Googling, I came across some really bad don’t know why it’s there, but it actually has a lot to tell you
quality information, so I started reading medical journals, about your bodily health and what point you’re at in your
but couldn’t understand them. I realised it was a huge cycle. So it shouldn’t make you anxious, you should just
problem that the high-quality information out there is so know that your body is working right. And once you know
hard to understand if you don’t have a medical background. the signs of an infection, you’ll go to the doctor sooner.
Because I’m a journalist, my work is often about helping Having a manual for our bodies helps us work them better
to explain complicated concepts – I realised I could do and take better care of them.
something about it.
One of the things I’ve learned is that when you ovulate
I called two of my best friends – María Conejo, who’s an you have a huge increase in oestrogen, then after you
artist, and Jackie Jahn, who’s specialising in gender in ovulate, you crash. Oestrogen and serotonin are linked,
her PhD at Harvard School of Public Health. We made a so basically you have a huge drop in mood right after you
concept together, launched a Kickstarter and almost tripled ovulate. That made so much sense to me, because even
our funding target, which was amazing. Over 200 volunteers though I have physical PMS symptoms during the week and
around the world contributed to the project. It was hugely days before my period starts, I do have these really awful
daunting as we began to realise the magnitude of what we’d emotional days even before that. It’s the oestrogen drop that
taken on, but it was worth it. makes you feel that way, and we’re not told that.

Because I was ‘the Pussypedia girl’, people felt I’m a huge fan of first-day menstrual leave. It’s a policy
comfortable talking to me about their problems. One of in a lot of countries now, and it’s championed by female
the things I learned and was shocked about was the number founders in Silicon Valley. I think it’s really important
of women who just don’t reach orgasm. I found that really to have it as an option, because there’s a huge number of
disturbing, and I suppose it has to do with shame, which makes
women who feel awful on the first, or second, day of their
Words Niamh Leonard-Bedwell. Photograph Monica Wise It’s enforced by the state, it’s enforced by religious institutions We shouldn’t be denied any information that exists
me really sad and angry. The stigma around women’s sexuality
period. It doesn’t seem fair to have to go to work when you’re
experiencing extreme pain.
is thousands of years old and enforced by many institutions.
– it’s changing, but there’s still a long way to go.
about our bodies. A lot of articles by the American College
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
I’M A HUGE FAN OF FIRST-DAY
are under a paywall, for example,
and I think, ‘Why?’ Why wouldn’t
MENSTRUAL LEAVE – IT DOESN’T
you want everyone to have access
SEEM FAIR TO WORK IN PAIN
to this information? I think it’s our
birthright. Having the information
helps us live our lives. I think that it causes a lot of anxiety
when we don’t know how our own bodies work.

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