Hayley Morris Loves Dressing Up As A Vagina, Thanks For Asking

Even if you don’t recognize Hayley Morris’ name, you’ve definitely seen her on TikTok. Does the pink sleeping bag “penis” costume ring any bells? What about the “vagina hotel”? Morris has built an audience of 4.1 million for her singularly quirky brand of humor: dressing up as different parts of the body and putting voices to them. Her skits tackle everything from period jokes to intrusive thoughts to fake orgasms, all with an undercurrent of taboo-busting. Basically, if you’ve ever thought you were alone in something body related, she’s here to remind you that you’re not.

A former hospitality worker based in the United Kingdom, Morris started making YouTube videos in 2009 as a creative outlet. During the pandemic, she got on TikTok, and once her content started going viral in early 2021, she knew she had figured out her niche. “I want people to realize their body is normal,” the 30-year-old says. “We shouldn’t be ashamed of who we are.”

Here, she tells Elite Daily about her work as a content creator, along with her new book, Me Vs. Brain: An Overthinker’s Guide to Life, which was released in February.

Elite Daily: What made you want to start tackling topics like sex and periods in your videos?

Hayley Morris: Everyone in my family had IBS or would talk about toilet things, so I grew up being quite open in that way. I never understood why some people didn’t talk about it — these are all things that go on in my mind. Plus, as a younger person, seeing this kind of sex and period content would’ve helped me so much because I navigated puberty terribly. I honestly had no idea what I was doing.

ED: Where do you draw the inspiration for your skits?

HM: It mostly comes from my own experience, thinking “Is this normal? Does it happen to other people?” If I’m not sure, then I usually decide to make a video about it.

ED: Well, do you have a favorite “body part” character to play?

HM: I think Period’s one of my favorites to play just because she’s a little sassy. I also love Queef.

ED: What about costumes? How do you come up with those?

I mainly use items I already have. I did a menstrual cup video recently, and bought a Hula-Hoop. Now I always have a Hula-Hoop in the cupboard in case I need it again. My apartment is filled with props and costumes. I also have a cardboard cutout of myself to represent a fake orgasm.

ED: Your November 2022 video about fake orgasms has 38 million views. Why do you think it resonated with people?

HM: I was a bit worried people would take it the wrong way, and there was definitely a debate in the comments. Some men were saying that you should just speak up if you’re struggling to orgasm. And I’m like, “It’s not always that easy, babe.”

Sadly, so many women have faked orgasms or don’t really enjoy sex, so I think that’s why it sparked conversation. People were tagging their friends in the video, and I love that because everyone could finally be like, “Oh, my God. Isn’t this the worst?”

ED: Other than those negative comments you sometimes get from men, what are the most common themes in your comments section?

HM: The thing I love about my comments is seeing people sharing their experiences with each other. It’s mainly women supporting other women, and anyone with a uterus or vagina relating to the topic.

I try to go through my comments for half an hour after I upload every video. It’s really important for me to reply to people because they’re the ones building this platform for me. I’m so appreciative of them. Also, if I’m not sure what to make next, people will offer up ideas. It feels like there’s a whole load of us making these videos.

ED: How do you manage work-life balance as a content creator?

HM: I’ve set boundaries now: I don’t reply to comments or messages on the weekends. At the beginning, I was posting videos every other day and constantly wanting to speak to people, and then I was like, “I need to put my phone down.” Now, I just post once a week.

But that’s also the beauty of doing this — you’re always connected to people. That’s a really lovely thing, especially coming out of the pandemic when everyone felt so lonely. I was living on my own, and this made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore, in a way.

ED: I’ve noticed you don’t use algospeak to substitute for words like orgasm and penis. Have your videos ever been taken down by TikTok?

HM: I’ve only had two videos get flagged. In the first one, I was holding a bottle of champagne, which was weird. I represent my vagina on here, and you’re moderating a bottle of champagne? The other time I was holding a sex toy. Those videos never got taken down, but they absolutely didn’t get circulated widely by the algorithm.

Most of my videos don’t get moderated, and that might be because I don’t film on the app. I film on my camera, edit on my laptop, and purposely don’t use the in-app captions. But also, I find it so wild that TikTok would moderate those words. These things are so normal, so let’s not make them taboo.

ED: Tell me about your book. How is it different from what you post on TikTok?

HM: It’s basically a collection of everything I’ve ever overthought in my life: my health anxiety, my experience with puberty, the embarrassment of my first pap smear, the grief of losing my dad and him having dementia.

I’ve tried to find the humor, but at the same time, I want to show people how normal this stuff is. We all have our own version of these stories, and the book is there to normalize them and make people laugh.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.