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

DD went for wee hole, poo hole, baby hole when she was younger. These were all located "at my bottom". She is a matter of fact child.

Aged 7, she sat through my powerpoints for full information.

I am a Science teacher BTW. I don't just have sex organ powerpoints

DH doesn't: have a hairy willy though
I got really annoyed with school using loose terminology with DC and it took a lot of work to unpersuade them that they peed out their vagina. They were also unconvinced about the existence of a third hole.
I gave up on the school and consulted an obs / gyn friend of mine for NHS resources which turned out to be just as woeful.
I bought them a US book and explained it all myself while they put their fingers in their ears.
Pubic area or down below work for me in this context.
Why the need to introduce complex biological terms at all at this age?

Yep cut in half woman, one knee hoisted - probably the same pics as 30 years ago - they certainly look just like the ones I looked at back when I read the instructions for these sorts of things.

I agree - round my way fanny is perhaps just a little bit nicer than fart. Something that nice children wouldn't say and you wouldn't use when talking to adults unless you had to. I'd use it in preference to twinkle or flower any day though

As a student nurse I trained years and years and years ago, that 'area' in was (coyly) referred to as 'down below' to both male and female patients, e.g. doing a bedbath the patient would be asked "Would you like to wash down below." Never had anyone not understand where we were referring to. Catch all phrase for HCP's then was 'external genitalia'.
Neither particularly user friendly in this context though.

And that's the problem--it is apparently the Nameless Horror.

Fanny, if you're an American, means bottom. You fell on your fanny means you landed on your butt. My first day of work in the UK office I walked in drenched and announced I had fallen on my fanny and now had wet pants. So much sniggering. So much confusion, on my part.

Around here women don't use it that way (I've never heard a woman or girl use it) and for me anyway it's a bit "rude".

I think a lot of this is dependent on where you live etc. I don't think it's just me - the "what to call it" threads seem to indicate there's no commonly used word as well!

If fanny were used then I'd be happy to use it but round here I reckon it'd get a raised eyebrow.

TBH women and girls round here don't really use a name for it at all, you usually get what's being talked about from context!

The word "vulva" creeps me out... I couldn't say it in real life, and have never had any reason to.

Pudenda always sounds a bit droopy and depressing to me. Also it's obscure - would take ages to become universally accepted and used. Everyone in the UK knows what a fanny is (in the US it means bottom/arse, so there's potential for confusion there).

Also (sorry, I'm harping on) fanny is never used sexually, is it? It's not like men go around saying, "oh god, I want to fuck your fanny hard?" It's a word teenage and adult women use in a non-sexual context (eg, "I'm off to have my fanny waxed"), so why shouldn't little girls use it too?

pudenda or "pud" for short! They are quite friendly sounding words

It is really important they use the correct terms.

In cases of child sex abuse there needs to be clarity about what has actually happened. Little girls needs to know the difference between their vulva and vagina.

How about 'pudendum plural pudenda ?
OED: the external genitals esp vulva
How about that for a catch-all term?

I'm not a parent but I think the word "fanny" needs to be reclaimed. It IS directly equivalent to "willy" - or it would be, if we weren't all so damn squeamish about talking about women's genitals.

In my ideal world, little boys and girls would have a willy or a fanny and a bottom, and once they got older and needed to talk about testicles, vaginas, labia etc, they'd be given the vocabulary to do so. It's MAD that little boys can use one twee word that's accepted and little girls have to skirt around with dozens of obscure variations because people think "fanny" is somehow crass.

Yeah it's not really used around here. That I've heard anyway. Not that you hear people talking about female groins much!

If fanny were widely used I'd get on board with it, for sure! Just there isn't a "willy" equivalent - look at all the threads on here with parents of girls saying "what shall I call it?" and there is never consensus,.

Whirlpool, I didn't think fanny was considered coarse, but I guess it's a problem if words have different meanings in different areas

Fanny is rather coarse isn't it? It's not used as an equivalent to willy in this neck of the woods.

I suppose the problem is probably society's attitude to female genitals / reproductive bits rather than the words. Whatever word is used becomes "rude" because of what it's describing. Well unless it's twinkle or flower, or similar. But then the risk is that people don't understand what the child is referring to.

Interesting, chunky.

Do they still have the cut in half woman with the leg up on the toilet seat pic or has it moved on? I must admit I haven't perused tampon instructions for about 30 years

About an equivelant of willy, isn't that what fanny is? A simple non offensive word

Whirl I just checked my tampax pearl (hate the environment me ) and it's purely pictorial. The only writing is about toxic shock

hair will grow on her vagina! Wow! At least it's not teeth..

The grammar police are even more harsh than the vulva brigade ;

Oh god - please don't let the grammar police get me for apostrophe crimes!

Actually and I do use vagina to mean vagina when I've talked to DD about periods (she's only little). Don't tampon instructions and things use the word "vagina"? I think the correct words should be used, really, otherwise there can be confusion and it's not the sort of thing you want to be confused about when you're young as it's all a bit embarrassing and you might not have anyone you feel comfy asking etc.

Well, if it's anatomical then that's just plain wrong. I don't think it's like quads - it's more like calling your whole nose your nostril. It's a school it's raison d'être is to teach people things rather than follow the herd of incorrectness

Mind you I have a son that even at 4 insists that his nipples are called elbows (I have no idea how he came to think this

I wonder if it could ever be possible to say "Lots of people find the female genitals extremely embarrassing, and they'd pull their heads off rather than refer to them in any direct and honest way. So let's try to do better."