https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/20/vagina-is-not-a-rude-word-catherine-blackledge-raising-the-skirt

Twenty years ago, Catherine Blackledge’s history of the vagina The Story of V broke boundaries. As it is reissued, she talks about anasyrma as activism and why we lie about the clitoris

Catherine Blackledge immediately knew what her first book, a cultural history of the vagina spanning more than two millennia, should be called: Vagina. But two decades ago, this decision didn’t go down well.

“I’ve always liked the word vagina. I think it sounds regal. But the publishers were having none of it. They were horrified by the idea,” says Blackledge today. “Some of the men in the meeting couldn’t even say the word.”