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I had heard somewhere that some women have horizontal vagina. I didn't think it was true.

So I asked my biology teacher, "I've heard some women have horizontal vagina. Is it true?"

He replied, "Yes, some women of Mongolian race do. Not absolutely horizontal, though. I'd say slanted at some degrees."

I mean, as an abnormality, yeah I know it's possible. But "women of Mongolian race" in particluar! I don't think so. I searched Google, got results about Asian women having sideways vagina. The results don't seem very convincing either.

Back to question – Is that really true?

Examples of the claim:

6 Crazy Things People Used To Believe About Vaginas:

  1. Sideways vaginas = a thing.

Think of this as early "bro-natomy." The rumor that Asian women had sideways vaginas originated as racist humor amongst gentlemen visiting Chinese prostitutes in California brothels in the mid-1800s. The rumor was part of the larger cultural fetishizing of Asian women, and persisted through the Korean War, because some people enjoy their misogyny with a side of racism.

From Yahoo Answers

Is it true that Chinese girls have horizontal vaginas?

Sklivvz
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  • This question has attracted 2 upvotes and 4 downvotes, while [a question about race and penises](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2679/is-there-a-correlation-between-penis-size-and-race) attracted 33 upvotes and one downvote. I hope there's a rational reason for the difference. – Andrew Grimm Jun 24 '15 at 13:17
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    The question about penis size and race is a common claim that everyone has heard, and is plausible, whether it is true or not. This is implausible claim that it is hard to fathom that anyone old enough to be on this site believes. It sounds like 19th Century racism, and both the notability references quickly dismiss it as nonsense. – Oddthinking Jun 24 '15 at 13:27
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    The questioner in the linked Yahoo Answers question doesn't even seem to actually know what a vagina is. Possibly a topic for meta: nothing from Yahoo Answers should be acceptable as notable. – Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard Jun 24 '15 at 14:11
  • @Iamnotmaynard: Yeah, I rolled my eyes at his definition, but the descriptivist part of me shrugged and muttered that even if a doctor (or Sex Ed teacher) would not refer to labia as a vagina, that is the common understanding of the word. – Oddthinking Jun 24 '15 at 14:25
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    I don't understand why sexual questions get down-votes. Does it offend you? We are skeptics who investigate all kinds of claims; not just non-sexual. – George Chalhoub Jun 24 '15 at 15:09
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    @GeorgeChalhoub i think voting is more related to "i've heard of it" – Sklivvz Jun 24 '15 at 22:15
  • @AndrewGrimm - perhaps because men like to compare their genitals (using an overly broad generalization) while women don't care to do so? :) – user5341 Jun 25 '15 at 02:03
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    Perhaps the best way to answer this is to find an anatomy diagram from a Chinese Sex Ed/biology textbook. (Rather than my first idea, of linking to porn.) Does anyone have sufficient Mandarin or Cantonese skills to find one? – Oddthinking Jun 25 '15 at 10:46
  • @Oddthinking *"... question about penis size and race is a common claim that everyone has heard"* -- That's just an exaggeration. I can say the same about this question. *"...both the notability references quickly dismiss it as nonsense"* -- Which is why in the very first place I wrote *"[Google] results don't seem very convincing..."*. –  Jun 25 '15 at 11:11
  • I too am confused by the downvotes on this question. There is notability, it is (was) widely believed, and I think Andrew's edits made this a good question. – JasonR Jun 25 '15 at 14:06
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    @Sklivvz why did you change the title of the question? – Andrew Grimm Oct 29 '16 at 22:48
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    I can't address all Chinese vaginas but the one I am familiar with looks no different than a western one. I can't imagine how one could even be sideways, there isn't enough space between the legs. – Loren Pechtel Oct 30 '16 at 23:06
  • This question uses "vagina" as a euphemism for "vulva", and unfortunately people seem to be taking it literally. Don't use euphemisms when asking questions. – Ray Butterworth Aug 20 '19 at 13:23
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    @AndrewGrimm - The other question in question would have at least a foundation in a legitimate belief about racial differences in regards to body composition. This one is based on a racist stereotype ("slanted eyes") and is founded upon a bad, tasteless joke. That would be a reason for down-voting this and not the other. I find it a suspect claim that a biology teacher answered in the affirmative, as well. – PoloHoleSet Aug 20 '19 at 18:52
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    *"some people enjoy their misogyny with a side of racism."* I am afraid this is the only suitable conclusion. – Evargalo Aug 21 '19 at 08:20

1 Answers1

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Asians have vaginas that are the same as people of European descent.

Inspired by Oddthinking's suggestion of using Chinese Sex Ed or biology textbooks, I decided to use something slightly more convenient: Wikipedia.

The Japanese and Chinese editions of Wikipedia use the same diagrams for vaginas as those for European languages. They don't use a parallel set of diagrams for European and Asian vaginas.

From the Chinese edition of Wikipedia about vaginas:

女性內生殖器縱剖圖標示vagina位置即是陰道。

Google translation: Female genital longitudinal sectional view of the position that is marked "vagina" vagina. [Quotation marks added by me.]

Diagram from Chinese Wikipedia

女性生殖系統的器官，中心部份為陰道

Google translation: Organs, the central part of the female reproductive system, vaginal.

It also has two photos of actual vaginas. One of them is https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vulva_and_pubic_hair.jpg , which is also used on the English edition of Wiktionary along with other Wikimedia sites. The other is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Azvag.jpg , which has English-language labels.

From the Japanese edition of Wikipedia about vaginas:

Diagram from Japanese Wikipedia

女性器の断面図

Google translation: Cross-sectional view of the female genital.

Plus a photo of an actual vagina, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Female_genitalia_inner.JPG?uselang=en , which has a description in multiple European and Asian languages, and which is used on the Finnish edition of Wikipedia amongst others.

To satisfy those who distrust Wikipedia, I did a google image search for "女性器の断面図".

One page I came across was http://cancerinfo.tri-kobe.org/pdq/summary/japanese.jsp?Pdq_ID=CDR0000062964 , a page about Endometrial cancer treatment:

Anatomical diagram from a non-Wikipedia source

While the question seems to use the word "Mongolian" to mean "Asian", (a rather dated term for native speakers), I may as well include literal Mongolians as well. The Mongolian word for vagina is "үтрээ" according to Bolor Dictionary (Mongolia typically uses Cyrillic for its language nowadays). Doing a search for "үтрээ" came up with a diagram from a page titled Нууц хэсэгтэйгээ танилцаарай бүсгүйчүүдээ!, which Google Translate translates as "Explore the women inside khesegteigee!" (Google left "khesegteigee" untranslated - it corresponds to the word "хэсэгтэйгээ"). The web site domain name is Mongolian (.mn), the content of the page is Mongolian, and the text of the diagram is almost certainly Mongolian, because the first word is "эмэгтэй", which is the Mongolian word for woman. There's nothing unusual about this diagram indicating that Mongolian women have different anatomy from people of European descent.

Mongolian language diagram

Ideally, I'd like to cite a source that states that it's theoretically impossible to have a sideways vagina, or that there's no basis in fact to the claim that Asians have sideways vaginas, but maybe biologists think it a claim not worth the effort of debunking.

Andrew Grimm
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    Wow, that is quite a research! –  Jun 26 '15 at 19:57
  • While not a solid disproof note that vaginas are like just about all of the rest of the body--bilaterally symmetric. A slanted one couldn't be bilaterally symmetric, a horizontal one could only be so by duplicating structures. – Loren Pechtel Aug 22 '21 at 00:21
  • @LorenPechtel I'm not a doctor, but it's possible for the body to grow in a way that results in asymmetrical twisting. For instance, for male anatomy, there's Peyronie's disease, which causes the penis to bend and twist due to scar tissue, and there's scoliosis which causes the spine to twist. It seems plausible that some sort of condition could result in a malformation of the vagina and/or vulva - though I don't know if any such condition actually exists. – nick012000 Aug 24 '21 at 06:56
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    @nick012000 Yeah, it would be possible for something really weird to happen but you're talking about things going wrong, not something that hits a whole population. – Loren Pechtel Aug 25 '21 at 03:20