To stick up for Fanny

[bluebeach]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/features/magazine-38749364/38749364

I have always called my vagina/vulva my Fanny. My 5 year old does too. To me it is the natural equivalent to Willy. It's a shortened girls name. However I if I refer to it as this amongst Mum friends and my own mother, It's like I'm calling it something disgusting, vile and shocking.

The more I think about it, most names for Vagina/vulva somehow end up being really bad words. Cunt, Pussy, Twat are all thought of as pretty shocking words where as Knob, Plonker and Dick are much milder insults and kind of jovial.

Most women I talk to seem to try and call it non words or sounds or things that are so euphemistic you don't even know what they are talking about. One friend calls it her 'hmmm hmmm', another just silently points to it if it ever needs acknowledging.
It's like we have to be so ashamed of our Fannys that we can barely even refer to them. How many men refer to their Dicks as their 'front bottoms'?

So in light of this BBC article asking for a new name to be thought up I just wonder what is wrong with Fanny?

Tink not think!! Ffs

I just call mine my bits. Fanny seems rude to me. 3 year old Ds calls his penis a "winky". I'm assuming he got that from nursery as dh and I always say penis.

Fanny is every bit the equivalent of willy. The only reason it's seen as more coarse and less acceptable is because it's used to refer to female genitalia.

I disagree. Cock, for eg, is ruder than chuff or tuppence. Dick is ruder than mary. Clearly there is a regional difference but where I am from a little girl saying fanny would be like a little boy talking about his cock!

So you keep saying. But as you said yourself 'regional differences'.

An early version of Lady Chatterley was named 'John Thomas and Lady Jane', another name for fanny

I agree that in some places it may not be seen as swearing. I am disagreeing with people who are saying it's 'twee' as if because that's how it's used where they live it must be the same everywhere.

autumn we have a shop up the road from me called the lady garden who do nails and massages etc. Always makes me chuckle when I walk past it