Lip Service
Begin forwarded message:
Subject: Re: Possible future Lip Service idea
Date: 5 June 2026 at 16:39:43 WEST
To: ...@vaginamuseum.co.uk>
Hi ...,
Thanks for your kind email. I agree, genital trivia is fun :) Your PhD sounds fascinating! Is it published somewhere?
I came across the legal/medical discrepancy of definitions many years ago whilst studying for membership of Faculty of Forensic & Legal Medicine of Royal College of Physicians of London. Fortunately I had learned the distinction before the first occasion I was summoned as an expert medical witness in a trial for rape, at High Court of Edinburgh. I appeared in court (for the first time in my life) on the first day of the trial and a cocky male lawyer in wig and gown - strutting around in front of judge and jury - tried to trip me up with his first question. Using verbose vocabulary, the lawyer (acting for the public prosecution service) explained to me that jury members would be required to form an opinion and decide upon "a very serious matter"; then he jumped without warning to an unanticipated question: “Dr Walker, please define for the court: what is a vagina?”. I was genuinely flummoxed by the question (was the term not in common parlance?); I knew the answer he wanted, but the lawyer could not reasonably have expected that I knew what answer he wanted. Looking back in time, that lawyer’s behaviour in court (quizzing a medical doctor - an expert witness, called by his own side - without warning, about a term re-defined within a niche area Scots Law only in 2009) was appalling. Perhaps he was trying to show off that he knew more about female mammalian anatomy than me; I still don’t know.
On 4 Jun 2026, at 13:44, ...@vaginamuseum.co.uk> wrote:
Hi ...,
Thank you so much for this. Apologies for my delayed response, I have been on annual leave.
I wanted to reply to both this email and your previous one regarding the legal and medical definitions. ... said thank you for sharing that information, as it was something neither of us had come across before. What a brilliant point!!
Similarly, I loved every second of reading this email. The way it ignited my researcher brain...thank you! This is such a fascinating piece of research, and one I would love to explore further. Unfortunately, I am not surprised that it may have been omitted due to perceived obscenity. I would be really interested to learn more about the specific reasons of that and who deemed it as indecent. Similarly, I wonder whether there were any social or political factors happening at the time that influenced the decision to tear the pages out. Some of my previous research explored morality laws and concepts of obscenity, mostly in relation to women's bodies, so this has definitely sparked my curiosity.
As we have already finalised and accepted the submissions for the zine, I don't think we will sadly have enough space to include it in this edition. However, I would love to explore it as part of a future social media thread once I have had the opportunity to dig into the research a little more. Would that be okay? Regardless, I will share any findings I come across with you :).
Also, if you ever want to exchange niche knowledge, my research and PhD focused on vulvas and vaginas in contemporary performance. It is a rather specific area, but it is definitely a special interest of mine!
Thank you again for this! We are so thrilled to have you as part of our community.
Warmly,
...
On Sat, May 30, 2026 at 10:30 PM ... wrote:
Hi ...,
Thank you very much for sending the box with copies of Lip Service. It was lovely to receive them, and I read them all today!
I realise the deadline has already passed for Issue 6 on The Pregnant Body, but I recently came across something that might have fitted that theme. The attached PDF shows Plate 112 from the first edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in Edinburgh in 1771. It is a midwifery plate: explicit, clinical, practical, and not remotely pornographic. The story I have found especially striking is that the page with Plate 112 was reportedly treated as scandalous and torn out from most copies. I don’t know the detailed evidence, but it seems interesting how public knowledge was considered indecent.
Best wishes,
...