Interview with Starlight Magik, On Power, Pleasure, and the Body

Interview conducted July 2025

After speaking with Starlight Magik, I’ve been thinking about the way she described the difference between her uterus and her vulva.

She spoke about them as parts of the same body, her body, but with very different relationships to her. Her uterus, she described as internal, rhythmic, cyclical, physiological. A quiet organ doing its work whether she pays attention to it or not. Her vulva, though, she said meets the world. She described it as external, visible, vulnerable, symbolic. And over the years, she shared that it has had a much more animated journey.

She told me about her early midwifery training in Colorado. Apprenticing at home births, earthy, hands-on work. One of the first things she had to do was look at pages and pages of vulvas. Not stylized, not curated, not “beautiful” in the way media teaches beauty. Long labia, short labia, hairy, wrinkled, swollen, dark, pale asymmetrical. It was, as she described it, almost shock education.

“This is what they look like, Learn them, Understand them, So you can care for them.”

And something shifted in her then, not dramatically, not theatrically, but quietly. She became comfortable looking. And that comfort, over time, became reverence.

Listening to her, I was struck by the way she described her relationship with her vulva not as something that radically changed, but something that expanded. She spoke about understanding her more deeply, protecting her more consciously, validating her more openly.

She often refers to the vulva as a microcosm of female power, Not loud power, But steady, undeniable power.

In birth rooms, she said she loves reminding women: do you see how powerful she is? You don’t have to give birth to know that, but birth makes it undeniable.

And yet outside of those spaces, she reflected on how we are still taught not to look, not to name, not to explore. Women in their forties still learning basic anatomy for the first time, still surprised, still disconnected. That disconnection, as she described it, feels generational, Cultural, inherited.

Through her work, she has witnessed how patriarchy embeds itself not just in policy or religion, but in flesh. In silence, In shame, In the ways women internalize messages about their bodies.

And she posed a question that has stayed with me: What if we simply decided she was beautiful?

Not performative beauty. Not filtered beauty. Not curated softness. But real beauty. Sweaty. Hairy. Scarred. Torn. Healed. Cyclical. Alive.

What if we stopped looking away?

She spoke about exploring pleasure more consciously in her own life, not as indulgence, but as orientation. As leadership. As information. About reclaiming the vulva as reclaiming authorship.

“I get to decide what this means,” she said in different ways throughout our conversation.

“I get to decide whether I shrink or expand.”

“I get to decide whether I look at my body with fear, or with curiosity

“I get to have one.” That line felt radical in its simplicity.

In both of our work, whether through midwifery, nursing, abortion care, coaching, or art, we see how much power women hold and how often they are encouraged to forget it. How we are socialized to be agreeable. To stay small. To prioritize comfort over truth.

But the body doesn’t lie. The body remembers.

And in listening to Starlight Magik , I was reminded that when we reintegrate mind and body, when we allow ourselves to look at what we were told to hide , something soft but strong returns.

This isn’t about shock, It isn’t about provocation, It’s about integration.

About remembering that power does not have to be sharp or aggressive to be real. It can be curved. It can be soft. It can simply exist. And that is enough.

I felt deeply honoured to paint Starlight Magik's vulva and celebrate her in a colourful way, a way to honour her and her journey.

It was a beautiful moment at a recent festival in early 2026, when I handed her the artwork in person and saw her joy and love for what I had created.

At that same festival, I attended a workshop Starlight Magik ran on feminist domination. The experience was incredibly moving for me and added another layer to knowing her. It deepened my respect and my honour for who she is and the work she brings into the world.