Mandy Nolan’s Soap Box: Year of the Yoni

A few years ago I had a vagina. It was fairly common. All women I knew had one. I was pretty happy with it, I think. Like most, mine was standard issue. It did the job nicely, thank you very much. I never really thought I needed the upgrade, but sometimes you don’t get a say in it.

Like a cosmic cootie coincidence, all at once we had our vaginas upgraded to the new, improved, more spiritual and endlessly more complex model: The Yoni. Who decided this should happen? It’s like I fell asleep with a regulation-issue vag and then suddenly woke up with some sort of spiritual vagina cave womb that now requires massage and worshipping and lots and lots of workshops to keep it happy.

It seems to be very labour intensive. From what I read in The Echo each week and spy on the web, I realise I could devote my entire work week to yoni worship and still not touch the sides. Yep, it’s all about the yoni. In fact, when one looks at word usage over time, it’s clear we are at peak yoni. And in some cases, peaking yoni (that’s if you know the special 15-minute regulation yoni massage). Yes, 2015 was the definitely the Year of the Yoni.

Personally I think the good old-fashioned vagina was a lot easier to manage. It didn’t require quite so much reverence, and it certainly didn’t get its own special pants-off yoga class. Our sexual partners were much more at ease dealing with a vagina. While at times confusing, perplexing and with some startup problems, most had worked their way into a basic level of proficiency.

Not so with the yoni. Yoni work takes mastery. To operate a yoni you need to be certified. It’s like sitting on a temple. Shoes off at the front door of my yoni, thank you very much. And by the way, yonis don’t do porn. Far too sacred for something as cheap and degrading as that. Yonis do sacred stuff such as birthing babies, multiple orgasms and universe creation. I’m hoping we’ll eventually find a yoni that can solve the climate-change riddle and reduce world hunger.

For those of you who don’t know, yoni is a Sanskrit word which basically means to unite. I get that bit, being metaphoric and labial all at the same time, but it gets a bit weird when you really go deep. According to one definition, ‘the yoni is the crucible where things are combined, where creation and re-creation take place. Where the unseen world takes material form.’ Wow, that is some multi-functioning device we girls have down there. No wonder it requires so much attention.

And there I was thinking its purpose was purely biological with a penchant for pleasure. As an owner-operator of a vagina I will admit it’s some impressive engineering – in fact, may I be so bold as to suggest that it’s the original 3D printer? We girls have been printing small humans for years. On the yoni. Don’t even need ink cartridges. We are 100 per cent organic people printers.

While that’s clearly worthy of a Nobel prize or at the very least an episode on Grand Designs or the New Inventors, I have to say I didn’t actually want a yoni. I was more than happy with my very ordinary non-sacred easy-to-please vagina. You can do as many workshops as you want, but you will never please a woman with a yoni. Not possible. We’re talking one man (or woman) up against a force of universal creation. Talk about intimidating. It’s like doing a spontaneous one-man show at the Sydney Opera House hoping for a standing ovulation.

So if we girls have the yoni – what about the blokes? Interestingly I don’t see a lot of lingam worship workshops on offer. (Lingam is Sanskrit for the shaft of light aka the erect penis.) This lack of lingam could be owed to the fact cock worship has been going on for so long we no longer need to give the poor old Ganges worm a spiritual name, as ‘cock’ is pretty well dominant culture. That being said, after much careful consideration I have decided to not take up the offer of a yoni and have sent it back. Instead I have stayed with the vagina. While it’s not hands-free, it’s much more user friendly.