The Brain Mandorla

In order to discover new ways to celebrate women’s anatomy and to push back against efforts to commodify it or erase it, I recently began reading about vulva iconography, or archetypal expressions of the vulva or yoni. In the process, I learned about apotropaic (protective) badges that medieval European pilgrims used to wear on their lapels and hats. Historians believe that pilgrims wore the badges to ward off the evil eye or the Bubonic plague thought to be spread through eye contact. These badges were called bawdy for a reason. Some depict a walking phallus with wings wearing a crown, a procession of phalluses carrying a vulva wearing a crown, a ship of phallus sailors with a phallus bird on the ship rigging, or a musician riding a phallus creature.

One very popular badge called the Pudendum (Genitals) Pilgrim depicts a walking vulva wearing boots and a hat, carrying rosary in one hand and a phallus with gonads tipped walking stick in the other hand. Curious though it may seem, relatedly, medieval carvers frequently added vulva iconography to infrastructure. Vulvic apotropaic carvings such as Sheela na gigs or frog goddesses holding open vulvas appear over the entrances and windows of many churches or other sacred sites. The origin of life was thought to ward off evil. It is not surprising that given this context, pilgrims wanted to use similar iconography to protect themselves while travelling.

After reading about this intriguing phenomena, I decided to paint my own bawdy badge, pictured above. This re-imagined vulva iconography illustrates the brain power of the vulva, the normality of its folds, folds that do not cause reprehension among people like the vulva folds seem to cause. A shell symbolizing transformation takes the spot of the clitoris because the clitoris creates the conditions for women and men to evolve and, based on the pioneering insights of Margo Anand, manifest what they want in life. The tree depict the vagina because they symbolize Mother Earth. The image is framed by laurel leaves denoting wisdom.

This painting is called, ‘Brain Mandorla’. Mandorlas are almond-shaped frames around religious iconography such as that depicting Mary. The Oxford Dictionary describes mandorlas as “a pointed oval figure used as an architectural feature and as an aureole (circle or halo of light) enclosing figures such as Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary in medieval art.” The almond-shape also happens to be the shape of the vulva. I really love it when symbolisms unexpectedly intersect.

Beyond folds, why associate a brain with the vulva? First, the vulva has a profound capacity to interpret sensation. Not including the minora or majora labias, the clitoris alone has 11,000 nerve endings, twice the nerve endings present in the penis. Anatomically speaking, the clitoral glans is the same structure as the penile glans. This glans is similar in female and male embryos and only begins to differentiate in size and appearance in the mid-stages of gestation. Many experts believe that the G-spot is actually the root of the clitoral glans extended down. When doctoral or crude surgery is performed to remove the clitoris from a woman or girl, that is the equivalent of removing the penis from a boy or man.

Second, medical publications note that the clitoris has a neuroanatomy. Clitoral arousal affects the central nervous system and nerve endings in the spinal cord. Such arousal sends impulses to the spine which are interpreted by the woman’s brain as pleasure. Researchers have found that women’s orgasms activate several brain regions including “the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus, the medial amygdala, the anterior cingulate, the frontal, parietal and insular cortices, and the cerebellum.”

Neural Impact of Clitoral Stimulation

To give readers a sense of the neural impact of clitoral stimulation on these different regions of the brain, here is a summary.

1.  Clitoral stimulation affects the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus which controls stress, metabolism, growth, reproduction, immune system function for specifically the gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and renal systems.

2. It affects the medial amygdala which controls the olfactory system.

3.  Clitoral stimulation also stimulates the anterior cingulate which affects motivation, decision-making, learning, cost-benefit calculation, conflict management, and error monitoring. The anterior cingulate helps integrate information from past experience, and affects thinking, judgment, social behavior, and social conditioning.

4. Orgasms also affect the deeper parts of the brain including the frontal, parietal, and insular cortices.

   1.  The frontal cortex is responsible for higher mental function: concentration, planning, judgment, emotional expression, creativity, and inhibition.

   2. The parietal cortex governs sensory perception and integration, including the management of taste, hearing, sight, touch, and smell. It is home to the brain's primary somatic sensory system.

   3. The insular cortex is one of the brain’s reflective systems. It is the neural basis for subjective feeling states and is thought to provide a basis for the ‘self’ which, according to mainstream science, is awareness of the physical self as a feeling (sentient) being. These feeling states influence the importance that people place on their experiences and how people prioritize their mental resources in response. Feeling states encode perceptions of important events into memory and associate such experiences with joy, sorrow, pleasure, and pain. The insular cortex also influences reasoning, the fixation of beliefs, and explicit motivation such as the conscious or subjective desire to engage in certain actions, and how and why people pursue rewards, or seek to avoid pain.

5. Orgasms also stimulate the cerebellum which is responsible for motor function, balance, posture, and muscle movements.