When my friend Laura Dodsworth asked if she could photograph my vulva, I did a double-take. The invitation was delicately phrased. Contextually, it was untouchable: I love her photographs. Womanhood, the latest in her series of anonymous body-part portraits with accompanying interviews, normalises, rather than sexualises, the vagina. But my reaction to her proposal was visceral: the prospect of a camera between my legs felt like an assault. While I masked this with humour, my instinct was to snarl.

Why had I felt so disturbed? Laura hadn’t pressed the point. Her request was uninvested, a comment made in passing. This wasn’t Harvey Weinstein in a knotted bath towel in the half-light of a hotel room. It wasn’t even the first time I had been asked.