Writer Shannon O’Malley was having dinner with her friend Keith Wilson at a Thai restaurant three years ago when the conversation turned to the topic of vaginas.
O’Malley asked Wilson, who is gay, to draw what he thought a vagina looks like and he came up with a wildly inaccurate picture, which led to her explaining the female anatomical part to him.
The pair decided to take their funny conversation further, and the ‘Gay Men Draw Vaginas’ Tumblr blog was born.
The pair started a series of “public vag art booths” around their hometown of San Francisco, inviting the gay community to draw their own versions of vaginas.
The drawings range from anatomically correct illustrations to more creative and whimsical examples, like a pair of sexy legs, a river flowing between two mountains, and even Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.
The project has since branched out to include submissions from gay men around the world, and O’Malley and Wilson plan to turn it into a book, which is currently raising funds on Kickstarter.
Beneath the blog’s obvious humor is a more serious underlying message about human bodies and sexuality that they want to spread.
“We hope it brings up questions like ‘how do people respond to discomfort or ambiguous expectations through art?’ ‘What are the preconceptions we may have about what a “gay” man is or thinks?’ ‘What are prevailing ideas or archetypes we layer on body parts—women’s bodies, in particular?’”, Wilson told BuzzFeed.
Check out more illustrations on Instagram and pledge for the project here.
[via Salon and BuzzFeed, images via Gay Men Draw Vaginas and BuzzFeed]