Today my 9 year old has been taught that as she grows older, hair will grow on her vagina!

The reason doesn't have to be nefarious - it can just be a case of people quite well-meaningly think it doesn't matter, but that attitude comes out of, as Whirlpool mentions, a sense that women's sexual anatomy is unmentionable and shameful. It's that underlying issue that matters, and teaching correct (basic!) terminology is be way, however small, of changing that.

I never told anyone that it should not be discussed, or it wasn't important that people have knowledge. Let's get that clear. I really only wanted to say that hiding knowledge from girls in school as part of a patriarchal plot was a little...melodramatic!

Rodger, nob, cock, dobber, winkie, blue-veined flute, pink oboe....there really are more names than just a willy. And balls are used to refer to the scrotum, which is wrong, and another common misnomer. When I was a kid there was hilarity in the north-west of the UK because some sweet manufacturer brought out a 'nudger' chocolate bar , and a nudger round here is a willy. And 'Wee Willie Winkie' used to bring the house down in pre-school....My point being that these things are usually regional. Willy in Scotland is a common boy's name.

There were lots of equivalent names for a girl's genitals too, and still are. It still seems to me like some people think there is a nefarious reason why girls are kept in the dark educationally, because a teacher has got something wrong. Someone made a reference right at the beginning to the vulva police. I thought they were joking.

But the picture that Yops linked to had words like "shaft" and "foreskin". Perhaps I'm very well educated in these matters but I would have thought that those were very well known terms to describe the different parts of male genitalia. So men do have words to describe themselves, and don't have to use epithelium. I bet all men know scrotum too.

I was just thinking it would be interesting to do a study on this, but of course someone has already had the idea here:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23518361

That's because we have more bits...we're generally more complex If you were to google names for penises then you'll see there are a fair few to choose from. My sons have enjoyed using many of them over the years!

Well, boys have words, willy and balls, and I imagine most know penis and testicles as well, and everyone knows what all those words mean. Willy especially is a "friendly" word that people aren't going to get upset about a child using. Boys never use the word willy to mean any bit of them that isn't a willy, same with balls.

Girls don't have this. They have flowers, and noonoos, and front bottoms, and vaginas (to mean the whole thing) and fairies, and all sorts of things. Many of these words would not be understood by someone not from that family / area of the country if the context was not very clear. Many of these words have other meanings too. To most people (around here) a vagina is a vagina and isn't used to mean "the whole thing" and so a situation like the OPs would be eyebrow raising as to all those people what that teacher said is nonsensical.

And all of this is because actually, most of the time, women's genitals and reproductive functions are (because history) rather unmentionable, because of associations with being unclean, unladylike, and so on.

I think it's a reasonable conversation to have.

And incidentally it was this post of yours I was writing about "As much as the terms I used. What differentiates vagina or clitoris from frenulum or epithelium?". And as I said, I don't think those terms are on a par at all, and females (and males for that matter!) damn well should know what a vagina and a clitoris are. Same as they should know what a penis and testicles are.

Okay. My point was that a lack of education on the finer detail of both male and female genitalia was apparent. If the education system is lacking, it seems to fail both equally. And so I did not think that this was because women were being treated as less important - this comment is from the first page;

Without wanting to be accused of over-thinking it, I do think it is the legacy of a patriarchal society where women were not expected to feel in control of their own bodies.

And to me, that is bollocks, if both genders are teated equally. And, of course by bollocks I mean testes.

It got picked up on because I couldn't see what point you were trying to make other than we shouldn't be teaching women and girls vulva and vagina because frenulum and epithelium weren't in common use.

Not the same point that Beryl made.

and this is a feminist issue ?

pedants corner is over there >>>

My initial post at 12:46 was that frenulum and epithelium were specialised terms. That was it. Then it got picked on because....well, whatever. Then someone had a go at me because I did't think vulva was a commonly-used term. Funnily enough, right after that post, Beryl Streep made the same point about vulva, but that wasn't picked up on because...well, whatever.

And then, because Puffins asked at 14:49 if I meant a different word, I published the source with not one but two warnings that pictures were present, but still someone has to make a snarky comment - because, well.....whatever.

So if you were referring to me with the 'arcane' comment, Whirlpool - no, you didn't read that.

Telling a doctor you have a problem with your epithelium would not narrow down where the problem was see here

Saying you have a boil on your vulva would be pretty specific though.

Did I really just read a post from a bloke telling us that vagina and clitoris are fairly arcane, unusual and barely used words that girls and women don't need to know?

Frenulum can also refer to the piece of skin that restricts your tongue movement (or any other piece of skin that restricts another organ's movement e.g. your lower and upper lips have frenulum). Just putting it out there.

And epithelium has a much more general use as one of the four basic types of tissue in the body.

There we go.

What this all has to do with teaching girls and women the correct terminology for their body parts I don't know. But Yops got to show us a picture of a penis.

If you want to argue that frenulum and epithelium should be in common use for boys and men then feel free. If not, then that still doesn't mean we shouldn't be teaching women and girls the correct terminology for their genitals.

I wonder how many terms there are for parts of the genitals, of female and male varieties, which are not Latin words.

Incidentally, I recall reading a while ago that "vagina" in Latin as it would be understood in ancient Rome, meant "sheath", and it only became an anatomical term in the 18th century. To a Roman, a vagina was "cunnus" (root of certain obvious words in English). I don't know how specific that word was in Latin, though.

Fuck me I always thought it grew on your Noonie.

Learn something on here everyday!

I meant epithelium, Puffins. It is referenced here - beware, there's a picture of a co...., sorry, human penis as soon as you open this link, and more within;

Wiki link - here be willies!

It makes up the shaft and foreskin, apparently, so is touchable.

The frenulum, aka the banjo- or budgie-string, is the spot underneath the glans with the concentration of nerves is highest. It's the equivalent of the clitoris in terms of sensitivity. And it really doesn't attract half the attention it deserves in the popular press.

Wow, this is a conversation I never expected to have on FwR.

Well said Sinclair.

We need to have really good quality sex and relationships education in schools, with anatomical parts being given proper names right from very early on. Luckily, for most children, the information gained will just be of interest, but for enough it will be extremely important.

The same goes for adults. If there is this much confusion over what the vagina and vulva are then....

The judicial system is a minefield for victims of crime, none more so than survivors of rape. The defence vampires barristers will use any means possible to create credible doubt.
When women are so badly educated about their own bodies that they are unsure of how many openings there are, let alone what to call them, their evidence can sound uncertain.
Women should be given the tools so they can stand tall in the evidence box and state clearly what assault was perpetrated on them.

Fanny Price was possibly the most annoying Fanny in literature, Norah

Nah, you're all right Sinclair, Lass could start a row alone in a locked room. She gets off on it, ignore her. What you said was really valid btw, one of the major difficulties psychologists have when interviewing CSE or CSA survivors is that they have often had their anatomy described in euphemism, it's one of many forensic countermeasures that child abusers use, because at trial, their defence can make out that the adult has put a false construction on the words the child has used.

Yops, did you really mean epithelium? Because, if you're going to tell people that someone touched the cells lining your gut, then you really do have worries. Perhaps you meant epididymis? The duct that conveys sperm to the urethra? Also difficult to touch, although you can feel it through the scrotum

No, you bring the frenulum and I'll bring the vulva.

Ah, Basil has arrived. Now we can all be corrected - hurrah! Tell us how we just don't get it, Baz . I'll bring the straw, you construct the man

Fanny was a nickname for Frances in the not too distant past.

Fannie featured in an Enid Blyton book, now changed to Frannie in the Magic Faraway tree.

I'm not sure when it became offensive - I would say it's just a slang term like willy

Oh you haven't upset Lass, she's just looking for a fight.

It's hilarious to see the contortions some blokes will go into to try and demonstrate that feminists are wrong wrong wrong all the time.

Epithelium forsooth.

D'you ever feel embarrassed by the utter nobbishness of your arguments, those of you who think epithelium is as well known and familiar as vulva?

Or do your testicles of objectivity provide a shield to ensure you can't see how embarrassing you are?