What Is the Best Vagina Emoji?

Updated 6/14/2022

Sexting with emojis: a notion as anti-erotic to me as sexting through Giphy or exclusively via Slack reacts, but I’m told people do it, and I’m trying not to be too bummed out about it. Don’t get it twisted — I’m not here to kink-shame, merely to question the efficacy of the method. It seems about as sexy to me as that in-out finger gesture middle schoolers do to mimic coitus, but what do I know about the technical wonders of modern romance?

One problem with emoji-sexting, it seems to me, is the imbalance of options available for people with dicks versus those with vaginas. We all know the dick emoji is the eggplant — it’s all but official, inscribed forever in emoji code. But what of the humble pussy? Too long treated as a mere receptacle for dick, its marginalization continues into emoji lexicography, where nobody can agree what little cartoon picture best represents it. I rarely have cause to use a pussy emoji, but when I do, I favor the oyster (?) and naively believed this preference would be universal. But after canvassing Twitter for other options, I feel more lost than ever. 

So join me in a rundown of five potential best vagina emojis as selected and vetted by me, Rax King, increasingly not cut out for this modern world with all its deviancies. 

Oyster ?

Accept no substitutes: This is the one. I don’t understand people who refuse to admit that. The oyster is as close as the emoji dictionary gets to a perfect pussy mimesis. The shape is right, the little bivalve calls to mind a highly appropriate brininess and texture and let’s not forget that the oyster is a famous aphrodisiac — so the inherent eroticism of the thing is a fine match for the eggplant, firm and tall. Plus, the hinge at the oyster’s top resembles a clit, and the desktop version of the oyster emoji even contains a pearl, which gestures toward the rarefied and luxurious conditions inside a vagina. No other emoji compares. Why even bother continuing?

Honey Pot ?

The poetic physicality of this one astonished me; I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of it before. For one thing, the “honeypot” is a famous term for an attractive person being used as bait in an espionage situation to compromise another spy. In that regard alone, the sensuality of the concept makes the emoji a solid choice — who doesn’t want to feel that their pussy is powerful enough to compromise an enemy agent? But the striking suitability doesn’t stop there, because the emoji itself bears an obscene resemblance to a pussy whose cup runneth over with desire. The soft round curves, the dribble of honey over the top, the phallic stirrer sticking out of the pot for good measure. Look: that little cartoon honeypot is straight up pornographic. I’m just sorry I needed a stranger on Twitter to point it out to me.

Cat and All Its Variants ???

I get this one, but there’s nothing sensual or joyful about it, the way there is with the raw eroticism of the honeypot or the winking plausibility of the oyster. It’s too literal, and I’ve never been one for literalism in sex. You know that angle that sometimes happens in porno, where the camera is gynecologically close to everyone’s genitals? I feel like this is your pussy emoji of choice if that sort of thing is what appeals to you most in porn. 

To me, the oyster and the honeypot are both vintage Penthouse — sly, pretty, forceful, with a glaze of Vaseline over the camera lens turning everything gooey and soft. The cat emojis (because a cat is a pussy! Do you get it?!) are blunt in a way that may appeal to you but doesn’t appeal to me. The cat is a direct translation, pussy-to-emoji, as if the latter were a language with a one-to-one conversion of concepts readily available between itself and English. The thing is, to me, that’s not the case! The beauty of emojis is that we can make them behave however we want, which is how we ended up with the eggplant-as-dick and the peach-as-ass. The fun is in the decoding. There’s no fun in pussy-as-cat, no wink, no tease. At the risk of sounding old fashioned, whatever happened to leaving something to the imagination?

Tent ⛺️

My friend and Low Culture Boil co-host Amber Rollo suggested this one, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since — not because I’m in favor of it, but because it creeps me out so much. 

The shape is right, but the vibes are fucked. I think the problem is that dark beckoning inside the tent, the shadowy area threatening to suck you in. I mean, my God, is that what you people think a vagina is?!?! Just some horrible empty thing, looming in the wilderness? It’s not inaccurate, exactly; more dismaying. 

But I can’t deny that the various draperies of the tent emoji do resemble labia majora and minora in a charming way, and of course the peak of the tent is the clit, which is clever. I’m not denying the artfulness of the tent-as-pussy emoji. I’m just wondering, has it really come to this? A pussy, to some, is little more than a void hoping to suck you in. I’m reminded of that scene in The Witch when the beguiling young woman lures the son of the house into the woods for a kiss, only to turn into a murderous crone the moment he kisses her, leaving him drained of life on the forest floor. I guess good pussy does have that effect on people.

Pie ?

This one filled my stripper heart with warmth, because: Sheeeee’s my cherry pie! Cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise! I do think that only strippers should be allowed to use the cherry pie emoji to denote pussy, since only we have such a profound symbiotic relationship with Warrant’s “Cherry Pie.” I haven’t been a shake dancer in years, and yet when I hear that song on the radio, I’m possessed by the urge to clamber up whatever pole is closest. But the point here is that the music video for this song forever cemented cherry pie in the collective consciousness as synonymous with good pussy. 

In that regard, I suppose this is a vintage pussy emoji. Do zoomers know this song? Do they know the complicated psychosexual metaphor of its lyrics? Or is this one just for old men and the ladies who make money by clapping ass in their faces?

So, what did we learn?

Mainly, I learned that there are about as many pussy emojis as there are emoji users. My Twitter research led to no consensus whatsoever — there is no best vagina emoji. I haven’t even covered the oddball outliers (?, ⛳️), the Georgia O’Keeffe devotees (?, ?) or the Megan Thee Stallion stans (?). Everybody has their own way of doing things. I suppose that’s fine, but I can’t help but wish people paid more attention to the form of the pussy, the logos of it. The eggplant was an obvious choice for a dick emoji. It’s phallic, it’s purple, no further questions. But where the pussy is concerned, we’re as lost in the emoji dictionary as we are in real life, many of us still learning how to attend to the flower’s many mysteries.

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Rax King

Rax King is a James Beard Award-nominated bitch. Her work can also be found in Glamour, Catapult and Electric Literature. Look out for her monthly column Store-Bought Is Fine for hot takes about the Food Network, and her essay collection Tacky (TK).