LILY Patchett was exposed to the world yesterday.

Lily was one of 18 young women who agreed to have their vaginas photographed and published on the cover of a student newspaper at the University of Sydney.

Four thousand copies of the Honi Soit paper were confiscated by the university's Student Representative Council after an edition was distributed featuring uncensored vaginas on the front cover.

The cover was supposed to make women feel better about their own bodies by showing them what normal vaginas look like.

"We are tired of society giving us a myriad of things to feel about our own bodies," the editors of Honi Soit said on Facebook. "We are tired of having to attach anxiety to our vaginas."

Social media was soon set alight under the hashtag #vaginasoit, drawing both praise and condemnation.

Lily, an 18-year-old student at the university, has no regrets. In fact, she's proud of her contribution to the controversial campaign.

"I'm proud to be a part of the project because I've already had women come up to me and thank me for helping them in the process of coming to terms with their own bodies, and how in some ways they don't fit the porn-standardised lie, but are still normal and still beautiful," Lily told news.com.au.

"To me the cover was honest. Every woman involved in the project and quoted in the article was speaking from their heart," she said.

Lily is a member of the Women's Collective at the University of Sydney. She was recruited to the Honi Soit project at one of the group's meetings.

"One day when I was sitting in on a meeting, Lucy Watson, one of Honi's editors, came in to tell us about the project and ask if anyone would like to think about participating," Lily said.

"No one had to lock in anything then and there, and of course they could drop out any time they wanted, but many of us thought it was a really good thing to do and there wasn't much trouble getting volunteers."

In fact, the paper's editors got more volunteers than they needed.

"I think initially they were thinking of only getting about 10 vaginas, but all up we had 18, so almost double that!" Lily said. She didn't hesitate to volunteer herself.

"I wanted to do it from the beginning," she said. "Despite all the odds, I'm pretty comfortable in my own body, and was eager to help other women feel comfortable in theirs.

"That matters more to me than all of the sexist pigs who've laughed and made awful jokes about the vaginas, you know?"

Lily wasn't surprised by the backlash against Honi Soit and the women who participated. Critics have called the paper's cover "inappropriate", among other, less polite things.

"I expected the criticism, but I can't understand it," Lily said.

"When is it going to be appropriate to show our bodies as they are, and not in some false, made-up way? Because if there is a place and time, not enough people know about it.

"The truth of the diversity and richness of our bodies is hidden from almost everyone. In 2013, I couldn't think of a more appropriate time."

Meanwhile, the reaction from Lily's friends has been overwhelmingly positive, and she has been supported well by others involved in the story.

"Jennifer Yiu (who photographed all of the vaginas featured on the cover) was very professional about the whole thing," Lily said.

"She made us feel like it was just another part of our bodies, which it is really, and that there was nothing to feel awkward about.

"All of the friends I have who've come up and said something to me about it have been very much supportive and proud of me," she said.

"The worst of it was just a guy friend of mine asking which vagina was mine, and yeah, ugh, that totally missed the point."

None of the snide remarks bother Lily enough to make her regret her involvement. She hopes the Honi Soit cover will help other women understand that their bodies are normal.

"I can get through that knowing there are women out there who are now feeling less hung up on the way their vaginas look."

"(The cover) is attention grabbing, yes, because no one expects to see real vaginas, even in porn, let alone on the front cover of a student newspaper! I'm lost as to how this is a bad thing though."

Lily Patchett has written about the controversial Honi Soit cover on Birdee. You can read her blog here.

Continue the conversation on Twitter: @SamClench | @francisfae | @honi_soit

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