Mons pubis

A man and a woman in the Pioneer plaque. The woman's genitals are not depicted, only the mons pubis.

In human anatomy, the mons veneris (Latin, mound of Venus), is the soft mound of flesh just over the vulva in females (more generally in mammals it is called the mons pubis), raised above the surrounding area due to a pad of fat lying just beneath it. After puberty it is normally covered with pubic hair to a greater or lesser extent. The labia majora or large lips extend on either side of the vulva, and may also be covered with pubic hair.

The title of John Cleland's erotic classic, Fanny Hill, or the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, is a punning reference to this anatomical feature: 'Fanny' being a British English slang term for the vulva.

The aesthetic structure created by the crease-like indentation of the vulva into the mons veneris, is sometimes referred to as a "cameltoe", due to its visual similarity to the area between a camel's toes. An irreverent website devoted to this particular aspect of human anatomy can be found at cameltoe.org

Pioneer plaque

On board the unmanned spacecraft Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 is a plaque with a pictoral message from mankind. The plaque shows the figures of a man and a woman along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecrafts.

According to Sagan (Murmurs of Earth, 1978, New York, ISBN 0679744444), there were many negative reactions to the plaque because the human beings were displayed naked. The Chicago Sun Times retouched its image to hide the genitals of the man and woman. The Los Angeles Times received "angry letters" from readers which accused NASA of wasting taxpayer money to send "obscenities" into space.

Furthermore, one can see that the woman's genitals are not really depicted, only the mons veneris is shown. It has been claimed that Sagan, having little time to complete the plaque, suspected that NASA would have rejected a more intricate drawing and therefore made a compromise just to be safe. (Alan Fletcher, "The art of looking sideways")