Or is my mother weird for calling female genitalia a "willy"?

[CoalCraft]

(light-hearted)

My parents came round yesterday to see baby DD for the first time, and mum offered to do a nappy change. I went with her to show her where everything was. Mum starts opening DD up and exclaims "oh dear, it (the poo)'s gotten all up in her willy!"

Her. Willy.

At this I suddenly remembered that she'd called it that when I was small too, and not knowing any better, so had I. But it's weird right? A willy is specifically a penis, and the female version is fanny? Anyone else use willy as a slang for vulva? For the record both DD and I are anatomically normal females - we don't have penises!

In case anyone's wondering, yes mum does also use willy for penis, she just makes no distinction - it's so odd!

(Also in before the "use anatomical terms" brigade comes in, DD is far too small to use any words right now, but yes, when she's learning I'll make sure she's aware of the correct words.)

I don't normally laugh out loud at threads but "turnout" has me chuckling 🤣🤣

Yeah, Willy is definitely a penis! Fanny here for girls (which I now know as an adult with friends from other parts of the country, some consider a bit rude, but it was always fanny growing up so it's what we call it now)

@Bells3032 my cousins use the word nonny!
Unless you are my cousin...

Later on in life men get erections and ejaculate and a thousand terms for them. Whereas a woman never swells or discharges. We need words

Quite! I had a (female) friend who used the term 'wide-on' for female arousal. I love this! It's so accurate - that's exactly what it feels like. You're right. We need words for the responses of our bodies to sexual arousal.

@Lelophants

Does anyone know how it works in other cultures? Maybe a brit thing.

The French equivalent to willy is zizi, so visiting French people usually get a good laugh from a pizza chain called 'willies'.

I thought I was the only one! My mum always did this!

They referred to a “turnout”, so much so that I recall struggling when someone would refer to there being “such a great turnout at that event”.

Thanks for laugh!

Also, ballerinas train for years and years to have the perfect turn out...
it comes naturally to some, others have to work at it...

Mine used front bum and back bum and I didn’t think it was weird at all.
Friends say Minnie and nunny which I do find weird. And non more so than one friend who refers to them as rudey bits.

My grandmother used 'toilet', when DD was very small I just used 'lady bits'. I felt is was a bit less shocking if used at school.

Lady bits is also awful.
Reminds me of that dreadful Little Britain sketch.

My ds has christened his former willy his soggy parsnip...
And I can imagine it will stick with our family for many years.

My mum called it a tuppence. I'd worry she was going to start talking about DDs Willy in public 😬

Why not use the correct terms? Would you call your child's arm their "Ronnie" or their leg an "Alma"? No. So why the weird prudery about penis and vagina?

My parents used the same word for both me and my brother's genitals when we were growing up. I'm not saying what the word was.

I've heard 'turnout' before, from someone who had been institutionalised for most of their life, they used to ask permission to 'turn out'. Made me sad to think someone needed to ask permission to do that.
I've worked in care and heard all sorts of names, one that made me chuckle and is unisex is 'undercarriage'. Some were uncomfortable with even the correct terms, 'down below' was as graphic as it got, and some were quite unpeterbed asking you to wash their arse! Personal preference I guess.

Awkward! Never heard it called that.

Growing up it was "front bottom", when my girl was little I used the same, but now it's "fanjita". I've no idea why or where it came from. I also refer to people/animals as Fanjita instead of fanny, as in "hurry up you big fanjita". I've no idea if fanjita is a real word even.

Fanny was considered vulgar

Yes - would never use that word to describe a little girl's private parts or want the to use it.

re. the use of the word fanny - when at uni in the early seventies, I was at a typical student party (lots of bevvy) and we ended up playing charades. One of the girls picked a note out of the hat, telling her what she had to mime for the rest of us to guess. The note referred to a popular telly series at that time called........"Fanny By Gaslight" After giggling for ages she delivered an excellent performance!

Willy is odd, but I also find it odd that people would use something different when their children are small and then teach them the correct terms later. My not yet two year old toddler uses vulva and penis, and I learned penis and vagina as a child. Why would that be more embarrassing for them to talk about in public than the silly words? Getting used to saying 'vulva' did take some practice though: I'd never really used it before.

@oakleaffy

😂 A Willy! As for poo being called “ A turnout” That’s so funny! Best Turnout is a class in horse shows! “ My old Scottish grandmother referred to “ Big Jobs”

And MIL called it “ Doing one’s duty”

Love these euphemisms.

Dislike “Having a dump” as a term, but “Laying an egg” had me on n stitches when I first heard it.

It's best turned out, two words. Meaning the best groomed/presented horse and rider. Some race courses also offer a prize for best turned out racehorse.

I used to love grooming for shows... (another thread, I know 🙄😂)

My mum only ever said "bottom". Boys had "tails".

I couldn’t think of anything more weird than a toddler referring to her “vulva”. I don’t know any grown woman who calls it that, apart from maybe my doctor.

Like... do they also say “mummy can you come and wipe my anus?”

My three year old talks about her vulva, and she asks to wipe her bottom. My two year old says vulva though he doesn’t need to mention it much. They both say penis and testicles too (well, pesticles at the moment). Anus wouldn’t really be accurate, would it? The poo seems to get further up and down than that.
They are trilingual with exposure to a fourth language so I’m buggered if I’m going to burden them with a whole pile of euphemisms on top of everything else. My mother probably won’t like it if she happens to overhear but as she prefers front bottom I don’t care.