Last year I made a big career move. I started up Blackbird Books, a publishing imprint incubated by Jacana Media.

With looming media announcements, I knew I had to go home to explain this new move to my father. I didn't want him to read about it in the papers.

I sat on the edge of the bed that morning explaining this development to him and my step-mom.

At the end of the conversation, I suppose when he figured he had asked enough questions about my new move, he asked: "I hear you are running events. What kind of events are these?"

I was caught completely off guard. A million things ran through my mind as I tried to find an answer, the right answer.

"I think you said they were motivational events?"

I didn't remember telling him that, but I was grateful that I had and that he could step in then.

My dad and I have never had a discussion about sex. In 1999, when I was in Grade 12, he brought home a bunch of Soul City booklets. He walked into my room, told me to read them and walked out. That was it.

That was the only "sex talk" we ever had. As a result, I have no vocabulary to use when I talk to him about sex, orgasms, blow-jobs and how much I enjoy them.

He didn't know I enjoyed them so much that I even run events that will allow women to enjoy not just those things but also have a safe space to talk about how to own their sexual experiences and ultimately their right to orgasm.

In hindsight, my step-mom wasn't too far off the mark by calling the events "motivational". In a way, they are ... except that the idea that women still need motivation to own their sexual experiences is one that unsettles me.

Who owns sex?

I worry that we live in a society that simultaneously ingrains in girl children to not only aspire to marriage but that sex is a male right. Parallel to this is the boy child who is being taught of his power, the power of sex and the pleasure of sex. By the time these two meet and enter into a relationship, the power dynamics are skewed and the girl continues to give away the little power she comes with - in the bedroom.

The unduly ownership of sex that has been afforded men has bred many a societal problem, chief among them being the rape crisis.

What I want to talk about, however, are the conversations on how the vagina is prone to defectiveness and needs ways of fixing.

Those soap bars that supposedly make vaginas tighter exist because there is a market for them.

The market exists because women have been failed by a society that seeks to protect masculinity, even if it must sacrifice its women to do so. If a man tells you that you are not tight enough for him, then I'm willing to bet my right toe that you are not having that much fun with him either.

Find a partner you don't need to become tighter for my sister. I personally know of people who put ice cubes in their vaginas after sex to make them retain some ideal size.

I have watched one tell us of her ritual with so much conviction that the recollection of it leaves my vagina cold. How is it that we have to put our vaginas through some sort of management to make the elusive man stay? How is it that you were born with a complete vagina yet somehow yours is permanently under construction?

At a friend's wedding last year, I must have looked distressed because one girl came over to me to tell me not to worry as my turn too would come. She went on to tell me that the next time I had a boyfriend I should use flygel as that would make my vagina tighter and make him stay. One, flygel is an antibiotic. Why are people wilding with their vaginas? Two, why would I be trying to keep someone who doesn't want to be kept?

Luckily, it is not too late for women everywhere to start changing the question from "how can I make it better for him?" to "what can my vagina do for me today".

Before it pleases anyone, your vagina must please you. When you believe this, you automatically assume the power to ask and in some cases demand better.

We have a responsibility to change this gross injustice for our daughter, we need to take a resolution that under our watch, no girl child will put either ice or flygel in their vaginas.

Mahlape is a publisher