Spotlight: Melissa Martin

Spotlight: Melissa Martin Moderates: VaginaPagina Women's health activist for: 8 years Work: Entertainment, music and features journalist, Winnipeg Free Press

Many people might not know about VaginaPagina. Can you orient us a bit?

The VagPag phenomenon began life as a community on the LiveJournal blogging site. The community is dedicated to promoting accurate, non-judgmental information about female sexual and reproductive health. In the last seven years, we have grown to include more than 20,000 members. To better serve these members (as well as our off-LJ readers), we created the VaginaPagina.com website.

Our core value is our refusal to recognize the many social stigmas that attach themselves to female sexual and reproductive health and choices. These stigmas -- whether they involve contracting an STI, an unplanned pregnancy, having sex on the first date, or even your choice of contraception -- hurt so many women. Women can make the best choices if they are given the tools to do so. All VP wants is to help them get those tools.

What are the most popular subjects/questions that come up?

It's not breaking news that sexual health education in many parts of the developed world is woefully inadequate. Because of this, our most common topics often represent areas in which women are being underserved. Our most common questions tend to be the "am I normal" type -- for instance, "is it normal to have long inner labia?" is an extremely frequent one. A close second would be anything and everything relating to pregnancy and contraception efficacy.

What motivated you to join the VaginaPagina team?

Becoming a VP maintainer allowed me to take a leadership role in putting our collective foot down against the barriers to female reproductive health education. It enabled me to stand up and say “no more shame, no more stigma, no more repressed information.” Being able to guide the community in this direction is incredibly meaningful to me.

VP members share their personal experiences so openly. Does this come naturally to you?

I’ve always found it liberating to share personal struggles and triumphs with large audiences. But on VP, this instinct is magnified because the community observes no boundaries of bodily shame or secrecy. Whether I’m talking about my thick butt crack hair or a sexual choice I regret, it is met with a grateful chorus of "me too!" By putting our experiences out there, we are making a statement that women do not need to be ashamed of their bodies or choices, that we are normal. And there are so many people in the world who have waited so long to hear that.

Any surprises?

Our members consistently surprise me by their dedication to preserving our core principles. We as maintainers set the tone, but it really is the members who maintain it. For instance, our community has a policy against using the word “clean” to mean STI-free. So many members value this policy that when a new poster uses the word in that context, three or four members will usually speak up politely before we maintainers have even seen it.

What’s the best feedback you’ve received?

With our Everyday Bodies Project -- a collection of images of various body parts sent in by members -- we get an incredible amount of feedback from females who finally learned that their breasts or vulvas are normal and beautiful, and who are finally finding self-esteem and sexual confidence because of seeing those images. It's an incredible thing to be able to facilitate that. The EBP is available to anyone with a LiveJournal account who is a member of VaginaPagina. You’ll find the link on our sidebar.

What are the biggest challenges?

To be progressive without evolving past our member base. For instance, right now we are working on becoming more gender inclusive in recognition of our transgender members. This has been a difficult process to develop, since the general public is not informed about trans issues. We have to negotiate how to educate and be trans-positive without being too harsh on people who don't have that awareness.

As an example, recently we have been discussing the frequency of the greeting “hey ladies” in VP. Understandably, it makes our trans members feel excluded, or that their involvement isn’t valued. We don’t want them to feel that way – but at the same time, we don’t want to come down too harshly on members who are excited to come to VP and seek the support of other female-bodied people. So when “hey ladies” comes up, we have to be careful to promote education without being punitive.

Do you actively try to grow the community?

It grows itself! Online word of mouth means dozens of new members each day. Because we want this community to grow the right way, we don't actively promote -- it takes a while to acclimatize to our safe-space guidelines, and we'd rather grow at a medium pace and allow new members to immerse in our culture slowly, than promote and deal with a large influx of people who are not familiar with our rules.

Has your involvement in VP affected your offline life?

My experiences on VP have given me the confidence to reach out and support other women in their reproductive health concerns. Now I am also a volunteer unplanned pregnancy counselor at a local feminist women's health clinic.

Who do you admire in the women’s health community?

I have tremendous admiration for the advocates of women's health in the United States. Opposition to abortion access is much more organized, better funded and more powerful in America than here in Canada. I am constantly amazed by the efforts of the men and women who have dedicated their lives, sometimes even risking their lives, to protect women's access to abortion in the United States.

In particular, I am inspired every day by the work of the various chapters associated with the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF). In Canada, elective abortions are free, as they are covered by our universal health insurance system. I am aware of how expensive abortions are in the United States, especially past the first trimester, and it scares me on behalf of the women who need to obtain them. The people who work so hard to help women afford and access abortions set a standard for all of us.

What’s the team’s goals for the community?

We'd like to grow beyond a basic forum -- for instance, we've been tossing around the idea of starting a sexual health podcast. Maybe someday we'll write a book about the VP phenomenon. When we aren't so busy!

Learn more about Melissa.

Who inspires you? Let us know who we should feature in our next Spotlight Interview. Write us at community@wegohealth.com