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Mini,vagina,labia,vulva,nunee what are you calling it?

52 replies

Skybooks · 20/01/2020 22:25

I'm at a point I need a word to describe the female equally of willy for my son. We used willy and not penis as it is just as commonly used however now he is asking what girls have I'm stumped and realise there doesn't seem to be a universal word.

Mnetters with young children, what are we calling it?

OP posts:
namechangingtime · 21/01/2020 00:45

We used fanny as children, but I'll be teaching my children the proper names because that's what I started doing in secondary school so it's a habit.
Can't imagine the problems that could arise by a child saying chicken nuggets or tiddler. "Uncle jimmy touched my chicken nuggets" "oh dear did he also touch your chips" "no but he touched the tops of my liquorice sticks and tiddler" Hmm

MAFIL · 21/01/2020 00:53

BrightonBB it may be a regional thing, but in all my 53 years (and I have been medically qualified for 30 of them) i have never heard a single person call the female genitalia a noonie or foofty. I guess I might be able to figure it out from context but I can't guarantee that, and as isolated words I wouldn't know what they meant. I think foofty sounds like it is a mispronunciation of footie, so I would probably think it was something to do with football or the feet. Noonie I would have absolutely no clue about. Could be an affectionate term for a grandmother perhaps - a bit like Nana or Nanny. Or a child's word for the moon. I don't think I would guess it meant vulva unless the context was very clear, and that may not be the case if a small child is talking.
This is the whole problem with euphemisms. What is perfectly obvious to some people can seem like an obscure foreign language to others. Of course it doesn't just happen with terms for parts of the body, there are loads of regional variations in language and plenty of families use their own particular words and phrases. We can all forget that our way of saying things isn't universal. How many different words for bread roll must there be in the UK for example? The difference is that asking for a bap in an area where the usual word is cob is likely to get you a funny look and possibly leave you hungry, but a child who can't get people to understand she is talking about her vulva could be at real risk. Plus,nobody would deliberately try to prevent someone from asking for a bread roll by using obscure or confusing language, but some abusers do encourage children to keep secrets and use language others can't understand.
I am all for regional identities and variations in language but I think this is one area where where we really do all need to be speaking the same language. I think the safest thing is to use the proper anatomical terms, but if that is a problem I would think that private parts or privates is less likely to be misunderstood than any of the other suggestions on this thread.

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