Her Pretty Vagina (HPV): Turning Pain into Dialogue

Black women are expected to be strong through everything, but strength shouldn’t mean suffering in silence. The dark comedy Her Pretty Vagina (HPV) does the opposite—it starts the conversation. The short film follows Kaleigh,  a young woman navigating severe pain from undiagnosed endometriosis, alongside the emotional aftermath of a Human Papillomavirus (HPV) diagnosis and the systemic barriers that continue to shape her care.

The title Her Pretty Vagina may stop people in their tracks, but for creator, director, and producer Kiya Clingman, that reaction is exactly the point. “The title is what it is. It is a little provocative, but the subject matter is really, really important, very, very timely for women,” she says.

Clingman says the title came naturally, even before the script. “The title came so naturally to me, and when I realized Her Pretty Vagina’s acronym was HPV, I started infusing more of my personal story into the larger script. Originally, it was focused on my journey with endometriosis, but with that title, I knew I had to find a way to include both.” Drawing from her personal experience, she wanted HPV to serve as a conversation starter for both men and women, filling what she saw as a gap in how women’s health is represented on screen.

Taylor Polidore Williams, breakout star from Netflix’s Beauty in Black, stars Kaleigh and also serves as a producer on the film. Like Clingman, the story was deeply personal for her, as she has witnessed her mother’s experience with endometriosis, allowing her to connect beyond the role. “Taylor was able to convey the emotions that I feel like I’ve been feeling for most of my life, and that so many other women are feeling, and she was able to tell our truth in her performance.”

One of the major themes in Her Pretty Vagina is empathy. Clingman mentions encountering people not only in the medical field but also in everyday life who lacked it—people who treated her like “the girl who cried wolf” when she canceled plans or missed work due to pain.

“I got fired from my first job at KFC because I was in pain—literally, because I fainted at work,” she says. “If I can’t get the surgery I need because I can’t afford it, and I can’t get a doctor to be gentle and careful during an invasive, painful procedure, then I at least want people to listen to me and empathize with me.”

“Even if you can’t physically understand what I’m feeling, just listening is a breath of fresh air—and I really wanted Kaleigh to have that moment of relief.”

Beyoncé can’t fix everything, but she can get you through a colposcopy. Clingman recalls undergoing the same procedure shown in the film with her Black gynecologist in Atlanta. “I’m so blessed; Taylor and I actually share the same gynecologist,” she explains. “I had to get a colposcopy earlier this year, and she ended up playing Beyoncé just to distract me.”

“She talked me through it, slowed down when she needed to, and I never felt rushed, even though I knew she had a full schedule,” Clingman says. That kind of care, she adds, is exactly what she wanted to translate on screen. “It’s one of the most visceral moments—not because of what you see, but because of what you feel.”

​Clingman continues to center stories of people and lived experiences often overlooked. She co-produced a film called Color Book, which premiered on Netflix on Juneteenth. The film amplifies voices in the disability community and is deeply personal for her, as her father lives with ALS.

The momentum behind HPV has just begun. Since premiering at the American Black Film Festival, Clingman plans to continue its festival run and build a broader impact campaign, including community screenings to keep women’s health at the forefront.

When asked to sum up Black women’s healthcare journey in one word, Clingman calls it “exhausting.” Naming that reality so plainly is exactly what Her Pretty Vagina does, and exactly why this story matters right now. This work is bigger than one film; it’s about changing how Black women’s pain is seen, spoken about, and understood—and finally taken seriously.

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(Photo Credit – Veronica Bouza)