The Onion has a hilarious article this week that epitomizes our relationship to the word Vagina. (Hat tip to Rachel). Renowned Hoo-Ha Doctor Wins Nobel Prize For Medical Advancements Down There.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.
The world’s foremost authority on ailments down south, Lazoff led a team of cutting-edge hoo-ha doctors to develop new strategies for detecting abnormal growth in…you know, that area.
What makes this article so funny is that it’s so true. We’ll do anything to avoid saying the word vagina, won’t we?
Of course, my sisters and I don’t call it Hoo-Hah. That’s too silly. We call it Virginia. (As in Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus… Oh, never mind….)
Seriously, though, why do we hate to say the word “Vagina”?
I think I have it figured out. Vagina is just not an easy word to say. Try it – Vagina.
Your mouth has to open for the “Va”, then go to the pucker of the soft G and then to the vertical open of the long I then back open for the “na” at the end. It’s a work out.
Now try saying it over and over again out loud – vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina…. It’s exhausting, right?
But guess what? It’s easier if you say it softly. Go ahead, try it – Vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina…
See? It wants you to say it softly. (Vagina)
Which has got me thinking that maybe the word vagina is just not meant to be spoken outside of an intimate conversation.
So when we hear it in a crowd, or spoken too loudly, or in mixed company, we get uncomfortable.
But What About the Vagina Monologues?
Hasn’t that play removed the taboo on the word Vagina by now? Brought it out of the closet and into the vernacular?
I’m not so sure. (And here’s where the Feminists kick me out of the club…)
My five sisters and I went to see the Vagina Monologues a few years back. We even had front row seats. No one was more suprised than me to find that despite the fact that I talk about this stuff all day with my patients, and say the word vagina at least 20 times an hour, I was very uncomfortable sitting in that audience. More so even than my sisters. It all seemed so – personal.
Save it for your shrink! I wanted to yell out. I don’t want to know this about you. Really. This is Broadway, after all, and I paid a lot of money for this ticket. Couldn’t you just sing “I Enjoy Being a Girl“, or something?
Of course, if one of these women were to tell me that stuff in my office, I’d jump right into the discussion. It seems right in a doctor’s office. And I think I could read it in a book or memoir. After all, a book is really a conversation between two people – the writer and the reader. (Just like me and you….)
But listening to vagina talk, right there on a stage, before hundreds of strangers (including a few men), it seemed – well, wrong.
Which is not to say that women should not learn about their vaginas, and feel comfortable with their vaginas and love their vaginas and all that. Because they should. And they should feel comfortable saying the word vagina.
But maybe the whole world doesn’t need to hear it.
Vagina.
So go ahead, say it.
But say it softly. And keep it private.
you nailed it, dr p – “vagina” is a pretty harsh word in English. when i had a Belgian quasi-boyfriend i was enchanted to learn its pronunciaton in French: le vagin – “luh vah-ZHAAN.”
so lovely!
great post!! The only shock I had was that bike link you placed so innocently at the end. 🙂 I don’t know, I have never had issues saying “the v word,” but I know many who have.
And, certainly, many things that I have no problem discussing with my patients in the office are another story outside. I am a hand surgeon, for God’s sake, and am amazed at the number of men who have approached me about a rash on their penis and the such. (I stop them before they drop their pants.)
TBTAM, I apologize about the length of comment ahead of time. 🙂
I love the French language. Everything sounds good in French. 🙂
Actually…even though I joke about vaginal euphemisms, I really have always said the V word…vagina. I have never had any euphemisms for it. It’s a vagina.
But here’s the thing… I never have a reason to say vagina. Everything works and so life just seemed to carry on without discussing my vagina. And women I know..never say vagina. Maybe they use euphemisms.. but there is never a need to say it. I must’ve said the word in reference to child birth or first time using tampons or sex… more so tampons.
Not intentionally ignoring my vagina and I am grateful for it… but I am thinking it is hidden away. Of course(forgive me for saying this-making a point), the clitoris is more out there and noticed…but we women don’t go around talking about that either. Am I right?
Oh sure…we all appreciate it too and know what it is… but I don’t know any women..even as young girls..that used that word either.
Now penis (making a point)…for some reason… it is more familiar to say. I have said that word a lot. I have a friend who can’t say it because it totally embarrasses her to say. I just always called things what they were. Although, have nicknames or euphemisms too for a various reasons. But if I am serious…I always use the words and taught our sons too also.
I know a lot of women who use the penis word but not vagina. I think that is because it is front and center. Whether your little babies/kids or your partner..it’s right there and somehow more easily noticed and discussed.
I will say that the first time my urologist used the word vagina did embarrass me slightly and I am not sure why except I guess I didn’t expect it.
In blogging I use “bajingo” for Vagina (credit to Scrubs writers), which I then decided that because of all my uro exams,procedures and tests that there was more to the area then just the “bajingo” and so nicknamed the area Bajingoland because that area includes places north of the bajingo and south of said bajingo. If you haven’t seen it…I wrote a post called “Bajingoland Brochure” in which I explain my theory. It’s on my side bar favorites, if you haven’t read it. 🙂
I have had so many Bajingoland displays because of all the urological work that has been done that I joke I am surprised that I don’t automatically assume the Bajingoland position every time I now see a doctor in blue scrubs or a white coat… but it’s a good thing I don’t because it would be really embarrassing in the waiting room. 😉
I have used humor to deal with my feelings about all the medical exams. helps to vent that way. 🙂
Your post and links were amusing and I appreciated the humor. 🙂
P.S. I wonder if that vagina on the street caused the children to run away? Just a bit big to be confronted with for the 1st time. 🙂
you really don’t here the word VAGINA much…or I ‘ve never been in the right circles. 🙂
You are right about saying the word softly. You don’t have to elongate the *i* and so not as strong sounding. 🙂
Dr B – After your comment, I had second thoughts and took out the bike link – It was exceptionally realistic, and exactly the kind of stuff I hate, so why link to it, right?
kcd- I love the sound of anything in French!
Seaspray – You are right – most of us don’t have the need to use the word. I tend to use it a lot just because of what I do for a living, and think I am pretty much immune to it. That means I sometimes forget that others are not. Writing this post got me thinking about that, and I intend to use the word less outside the office in the future.
Can you do a post informing ladies that there are actually 3 holes down there. I am utterly surprised at the amount of woman who don’t know this.
PS. I kind of call the vagina the va-jay-jay or the funnier lady garden.
After a while, if you say it often enough, the word vagina is just plain boring. I prefer “hoo-hoo” or “sissy”.
– OBS Housekeeper
It’s not so easy for guys to hear or say penis either. The correct names for genitals bring the privates right up front and center as the previous poster said. I think it is a cultural thing, where for many previous generations we weren’t supposed to discuss our genitals at all. So it’s a harsh guilt thing I think.
My wife went with a crowd of girls to see Puppetry of the Penis. She was equally embarrassed there as with the Vagina Monologues. I don’t think that vagina has the discomfort exclusively.
The word penis is also difficult to say. You have to widen your mouth for the long e and the P is not soft – it nearly pops out at you with prominence. Hence the seemingly 50 million nick names for it.
Come to think of it, why are there so many (non-profane) nick names for the penis and almost none (non-profane) for the vagina?
As the mother of two young daughters (7 & 9) and an outspoken feminist, I thought long and hard about the terminology I would teach them. Nothing silly or demeaning; something accurate, that they could understand and say. The general area between the legs, we call our vulva. They know about their vaginas and all the rest, but our vernacular is vulva. They also know and use without embarrassment the word penis.
The first time my older daughter saw a naked baby boy, she looked at me in amazement and asked, "what kind of bottom does he have? There's no vulva!"
When she first learned to read, she saw a Volvo and asked if that car was a girl car.
Hoo-hoo, as in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles…?
The Onion piece is so funny. Some people shorten vagina to vage (which I kind of like… I think) or is that just here in the UK? Doesn’t work so well in French (la vage)…
Oh, I disagree. The kidney is all hidden away too, but we aren’t embarrassed or uncomfortable to say the word kidney, for god’s sake. The discomfort comes down to shame, or thinking the vagina is something dirty or secret. It’s no more dirty or secret than our damn gallbladders! Vagina also literally translates as “sheath for a sword”. I hate that a healthy organ is defined only in relation to a man’s genitals. People — we ALL have a vagina or a penis. (and a ureter and a thyroid and a ulna and an adrenal too. I can’t say I understand medical folk stumbling over this at all.
I saw Vagina Monologues three times over three years — My alma matter’s women’s center put one on every year. …and because my school had a Deaf college as one of our 8..or 9 now colleges the entire show was done simutaniously in voice and sign.
Everyone ends up learning how to sign vagina and clitoris.
i’ve been pondering, and i think that my problem with public vaginas is mostly that i don’t want everyone else to think they own mine. i use the word itself appropriately in appropriate settings, but i pretty much think my sexual parts are my own damned business.
a lot of this is pure righteous feminist anger, from the context in which i was raised and live. even more than 50 years into female humanhood, it seems like a whole lot of people are willing to define and condemn women based on their gender, and believe they have the right to dictate what’s best for the stupid sex.
owning breasts has meant that random strangers urged me to participate in wet t-shirt contests, or comment, or try to feel me up; and that even in professional settings, some people could not look me in the eye because something a foot lower was the main event for them.
just being female has meant i’ve been assigned to train less-experienced lawyers who were hired for more than i was making. the chief justice of a state where i was admitted to practice gave a welcome lecture that included advice to women lawyers, that they should “not wear those dangly earrings.” i was once asked in open court, before 200 strangers and people who knew me professionally, about the results of an obstetrical procedure. a judge threatened to toss me off a big case, should any complications arise with my pregnancy. everyone on earth wanted to touch my belly and predict the sex of the baby and tell me exactly what i should and shouldn’t do during pregnancy.
behind all of these is a chorus of folks who feel anyone who becomes pregnant unintentionally is a “nasty slut” — generally the same group who would deny comprehensive sex education and birth control and health care to my children. and deny everyone owning lady parts the right to a safe legal abortion, regardless of their medical situations or other compelling factors.
“private parts” is quaint — but i actually do want them to be private.
Interesting comment thread. I will come back to it when I can. I may link to this of alright with you TBTAM.
Vagina and Penis. Those are the proper names and they go along with Kidney, heart, brain, pancreas. The more we say it, the easier it sounds so get over it! Vajayjay?,Hoohoo, sissy? Women, stop with the cutsie names and embrace your body.
Sorry to sound strident but this is 2009, not 1955.
dr. tony, i hear you and agree — but in appropriate contexts.
there is not disgusting slang for kidneys, though [unless i’m more of a dinosaur than i think], and that slang is not slung to humiliate and villify the owners of kidneys. nor do people think they own the rights to somebody else’s kidneys.
i’m perfectly happy with my vagina and uterus and clitoris and ovaries and breasts, even if somebody in that lineup is giving me hot flashes right now. but in ordinary life, i prefer to just be human — and i stridently prefer that my daughter not run into the nasty situations that make me so angry. i’m just not seeing enough progress on equality and privacy in real life to make me comfortable.