The funniest satire is closest to the truth, so naturally I got a big laugh out of last week’s Onion article entitled “Renowned Hoo-Ha Doctor Wins Nobel Prize for Medical Advancement Down There,” which reads:
STOCKHOLM—In recognition of her groundbreaking work treating life- threatening diseases of the privates, renowned hoo-ha specialist Dr. Victoria Lazoff was awarded the Nobel Prize in Lady Medicine this week.
We should be encouraging an open dialogue with our young women, one that isn’t constrained by some outdated facade of 1950s morality,” Lazoff said to a crowd of people looking down at their shoes. “I cannot say this clearly enough: Ladies, please, make an appointment to get your annual [looksie-doo], especially if you are [seeing a fella] or have experienced pain or sensitivity in your ['Hello, my baby! Hello, my darling! Hello, my ragtime gal!'].”
Added Lazoff, “It is time for this country to begin having a frank discussion about the [sound of loud, extended train whistle].”
Ah yes. Our vaginas, our vulvas, our uteri and all the things we call them–or don’t call them. This is a major feminist pet peeve of mine, which is undoubtedly why I found that Onion article so funny. Whether it was my college roommate’s AME church-lady grandma who calls it—disturbingly—“your pocketbook” or my best friend in elementary school, who genuinely thought it was called a “woo-woo”, it seems that most of womankind has been raised to feel uncomfortable calling a vagina a vagina.
Fortunately for me, I was raised in a very body-casual kind of house, where we used the V-word all the time and never gave it a second thought. My mother had never forgot her acute embarrassment when she went for her first pelvic exam at age 19 and mispronounced the word “vagina.” It had never been spoken aloud in her very proper, church-going home and she was mortified to discover that the first syllable didn’t rhyme with “bag.” Mom was determined that my stepsister and I should never have any kind of confusion or embarrassment about our bodies, and that included making sure we knew the correct names for all our parts.
It was a lesson I learned so well that when I was for all intents and purposes a stepmother, it used to make me crazy that my boyfriend, when talking to his 6-year-old daughter, called her private parts her “pee-pee.” Frankly, I think that using diminutive, babyish word had everything to do with Daddy wanting to avoid the fact that his daughter even had a vagina, lest he somehow mentally group hers with the grown-up vaginas he was so enthusiastic about. I wasn’t having any of it, though. One day his little girl wandered into the bathroom to chat with me when I was showering, looked me over and observed: “You have hair on your pee-pee.” Seeing a teachable moment, I replied matter-of-factly: “That’s not my pee-pee. That’s my vagina.” (and yes, I realize that the hair is actually on my pubis and vulva, but I wasn’t going to get into the minutiae of genital anatomy with a first grader). When her little brow wrinkled in confusion, I added, “Pee-pee is a baby word. Vagina is the grown-up word.” Not sure if she ever shared that wisdom with her father, but dammit, it needed to be said.
As for non-scientific terminology, we’ve chatted with commenters in the past about “cunt,” “pussy”, “vajayjay” and various other slangy or pet names for our privates. The consensus among the Harpies is definitely not in favor of “cunt.” SarahMC is on record as not caring if women use it to refer to their own…ahem…c-words. But using it as an insult? No. The insulting use of “cunt” seems to be where the trouble really starts. Quoth PhDork:
I’m not a fan because I’ve almost always heard the word used as an insult, to mean something low and dirty and shameful. To be a pussy is to be weak, but to be a cunt? That’s the worst. A dude might be interested in getting some pussy, but he’s never after cunt. Not that I give a shit about dudes trolling for pussy, either, but there is very little good ascribed to the term cunt, by anyone.
I agree. I know there’s been a move to “reclaim” the c-word, and women are welcome to try, but I won’t be on that bandwagon. There’s something about “cunt” that just raises my hackles. I’ve never heard it used as anything other than a nasty bit of hate speech, and that really turns me off, so much so that I don’t even use it when I’m talking dirty. “Pussy,” “snatch,” etc. are fair game, though. And we here at Harpyness are not above snickering about our ladyflowers, hoo-has and naughty bits. Given that women of previous generations could barely whisper a euphemism about their genitals–if they discussed them at all–we’ve come a long way (thank you, feminism!). But I still think we have a ways to go.
What about y’all? Were you raised with the proper Latin verbiage? With silly or Freudian or icky euphemisms? Inquiring minds want to know, so flash your terminology in the comments…
RE: “pocketbook” first time I heard that term was while reading “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
I’m from a medical family. Dad’s an ER doc. Mother is a nurse practitioner. Stepmom is an RN/LPN. For the most part, we used real names for everything. Stepmom is sometimes prone to euphemisms, in particular “tutu” but my sister and I would just laugh at her and say VAGINA. (But she’s a woman who calls the bathroom the “little girls room” and the remote control “the flipper” so there is no hope there.) I used to drive my college friends crazy by using the word VAGINA loud and proud in the dining hall. If they gave me funny looks I’d say, “It’s just a body part. Head, shoulders, knees, toes, and vagina.”
True and slightly related story: a childhood friend of mine thought that everyone, male and female, had a “peenis” and a “pooness.”
Oh, one more slightly funny story that a friend told me about her 2 year old son. The other day while using the potty, he grabbed his scrotum and said, “Mommy, what’s this?” She said, “That’s your scrotum, honey.” He asked, “What does that do?” She said, “It holds your testicles.” He replied, “THAT’S COOL!!!”
For some reason, my fiancé thinks that “snatch” is the absolute worst word you can use for ye olde ladybits. He thinks it’s more offensive than the c-word. Not sure where he picked this up…
Get a load of this. My three favorites for weirdness: “clown pocket” (wuh?), “nethermeats” (ewww), and “panty hamster” (AHAHAHAHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!).
Oh God. I’m way behind on work right now so I can’t go into my full-length tirade on the idea of “reclaiming” the word cunt.
It is totally bogus. Everyone I know who has claimed to do this has Missed The Point in at least capital letters, if not all-caps. Those people are, in my experience, overshockers (if I may borrow PSoul’s term). So, what happens is, these people say the word cunt as often and loudly as possible with precisely the standard meaning of something or someone dirty, low, nasty, etc. “She’s such a cunt” is about the worst sentence I can hear, and my heart breaks a little every time I hear it from a self-proclaimed feminist (this is not an infrequent occurrence).
Yeah, kithkin, I fail to see how using the word “cunt” the same way dominant culture uses the word “cunt” counts as reclamation.
Cunt, pussy, vagina, vulva -whatever the genital name- used as insults are of course, insulting– to the person they’re directed at and to the lovely body parts they refer to. I personally like the word cunt as a term for my vagina, if not as an insult. When my boyfriend murmurs “I love your cunt” during sex it in no way resembles the word tossed around as a more egregious form of “dickhead.”
But I totally agree otherwise– when discussing bodies with children, correct terminology should always be used.
I say vagina. I have no idea why I would need some other word. Maybe this comes from being a Vagina Monologues alumni, I don’t know.
Huge huge huge pet peeve of mine, though, is when people say “vagina” when they mean “vulva.” e.g. “Her skirt flew up and she wasn’t wearing panties so I saw her vagina!”
“Her skirt flew up and she wasn’t wearing panties so I saw her vagina!”
Yeah, c’mon, that’s where “panty hamster” would be appropriate.
I’m sorry, but I can’t stop laughing and saying “panty hamster.” Assonance makes me giggly.
My mom called it a “puny” or “punny”. It’s like her own faux-Yiddish name for it, which is disturbingly close to the Yiddish for “face”. I guess my mom thinks I’m a twatface. Which is a whole other issue. And she actually hates the word vagina. So I admit I still have some of that stigma towards the clinical word thanks to mother.of.a.lesser.god, although I never use any euphemisms. I just feel weird saying the word. I am trying to get past this.
1) I’m going to be muttering panty hamster to myself all day. Which may be a problem, since I’m hosting a playdate.
2) The first time the toddler next door saw my son naked (ah, summer sprinkler time), she ran to her mother and gasped “Jappers has a tail!” We’re going to be telling their first dates about that.
3) Growing up, we just never mentioned genitalia in any context past potty training. I learned vagina from a book (my mother’s preferred teaching method) and that’s what I used. My husband and I, however, refer to each other’s boy parts and girl parts when we’re being cutesy.
4) In retrospect, my mother was very strange. I don’t believe she ever said the word sex out loud to me, but she did buy me “Our Bodies, Our Selves.” She was a die hard feminist, she just preferred to never talk about anything that might make her blush.
I honestly have no memory of my mother referring to my vagina as anything. I’d imagine that if it ever came up in discussion for whatever reason it would have been “down there” with appropriate gesturing. I tend to refer to my own as The Beverly, or The Bev for short. Am not sure when I started using bev, but it is the least offensive word I can think of. “Fanny” makes me want to crawl out of my skin and roll around in salt, likewise for “pussy”. I have just heard those terms used far to often by gross guys to be able to use them myself. And the beauty of using a term like “bev” is that most people who know me know what I am talking about when I say it, but anyone who make be in earshot is none the wiser. Most of my girlfriends have now also adopted The Bev. Wicked.
In retrospect, my mother was very strange. I don’t believe she ever said the word sex out loud to me, but she did buy me “Our Bodies, Our Selves.” She was a die hard feminist, she just preferred to never talk about anything that might make her blush.
My mom would be happy to know there are others just like her out there. She was exactly the same. Once I started needing deodorant, she left a copy of our bodies, ourselves and another girl-puberty-specific book in my bedroom and that was that.
My mother did a LOT of things wrong, but at least she managed to teach me about my lady bits without scarring me for life. She wasn’t overly cutesy, but neither was she offputtingly clinical: She just matter-of-factly told me the names of the three different holes that comprise my private parts. So it seems like I’ve always known that “my vagina is the one in the middle,” and therefore it always bugs me when people refer to the entire area as the vagina.
Also, I occasionally use the word “cunt,” but I only use it about people like Anne Coulter. And really, what else are you supposed to call someone like her? [Written with tongue partly in cheek...]
@PhDork: PANTY HAMSTER! I love it!
@peenerbambina: The Beverly sounds like a luxury hotel with a really good spa and restaurant. Which makes it even more appropriate, now that I think about it.
@kithkin: Agreed on all counts. All those “sex-positive”, quasi-feminist “overshockers”–and gosh, I can’t think of ANYONE who fits that description–who use the word cunt are basically doing it in a juvenile “tee-hee, I’m so liberated by being so naughty!!” kind of way. Which is neither funny nor feminist, IMHO.
My mother INSISTED my brothers and I never “peed”, we urinated. My brothers had penises, I had a vagina, and we defecated (not pooped) from our anuses, never our “bottoms” or “fannies”. Cute little terms were never tolerated and quickly corrected. My aunt was always horrified when we would use proper terms. I told her once (at kindergarten age) that my vagina itched and I needed to excuse myself. (Hey, she asked why I was leaving). I always found it silly when my friends had odd little names for their anatomy, I even got in trouble at school for correcting them.
About “cunt” though, for me, Cunt is a word of absolute power. It used to hurt and degrade women. By taking that word back, by using it with frequency, by OWNING it, we take the power to hurt us away. When you own it, and someone uses Cunt to find it doesn’t work, they are stumped. They have no clue what else to throw at you and you have won that small victory. Pussy though…I do not like. I really don’t. It bothers me. Comparing my vulva to a cat? And then juxtaposing my vulva with a weak and powerless man? Are we saying that he weak like a woman? Or are we saying that vaginas are weak because they are so easily penetrated? Are we saying both? It…bothers me.
Weird, I suppose. I relish in the word Cunt, Pussy bothers me, and you had better NEVER call me a Whore.
So how do you use cunt, if you don’t mind me asking? What kind of a sentence would this word of absolute power show up in?
Referring to my own vulva as a cunt tends to work. Any time you would “bitch” in a positive way, you can use cunt…almost. Cunt Please! simply doesn’t work. It’s simply about owning the word and embracing it so it can no longer offend you.
“My cunt itches.”
“My cunt has an odd odor.”
“My partner loves my cunt.”
“I love my cunt.”
My mom is a “down there” type of a woman–she’s just bashful about any and all private parts–and my sis and I grew up calling our bits “private parts”. Didn’t start using “vagina” or “vulva” until college–I like the word “vulva”–it’s correct, and it doesn’t sound so jarring to my ears as vagina.
I think “pussy” is great when used affectionately, as in, “I love your pussy”, but I never use it as an insult.
I could be persuaded, a la Bekka, to use “cunt” in a nice manner…but there is a lot of history behind that word, very little of which is positive.
[...] masochism” — Nooo, “panty hamster.” Get it [...]
Well, my mum is a nurse-practitioner and works in public health, and my dad’s a retired science teacher. We were always very frank about such things. I don’t think I ever even heard any other terms than ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ as a child. I wasn’t even aware of any euphemisms until I got a little older and started hearing them from others.
[...] are utterly convinced that language matters. We’ve gone on record with our feelings on the multitude of names for ladyparts, for example. And we’re always up in someone’s grill about the way language contributes [...]