Word for vagina?

[ncnewbaby]

Parents of girls, what word do you use for vagina? I have a baby girl and can't remember what we used growing up!

Front bottom is the most awful of all. We don't shit out of our vaginas what a horrible connotation, it's just yuck

Vagina. I don't understand why people feel the need to change the name of it. It's nothing to be ashamed of, or feel like your child needs to make it sound thrilly.

Frilly*

@peboh

Vagina. I don't understand why people feel the need to change the name of it. It's nothing to be ashamed of, or feel like your child needs to make it sound thrilly.

Why vagina and not vulva though? Are you actually talking about her vagina?

Botty for vulva and bum for behind - that's what I was taught and I've carried it on with my girls.

@Ionlydomassiveones

“only on MN is this weird obsession of calling the vagina, vulva. I've never once heard anyone call a vagina a vulva in my life.”

Time to start getting it right then. Educate the others too - including men - that they’re actually two completely different parts of your anatomy, they look different, one is a muscle one isn’t, one contains the clitoris - another extremely important part of female anatomy that isn’t given any educational airtime (unless they’re talking about FGM). One is external, the other internal. Etc etc. They occasionally come together on a Venn diagram but they couldn’t BE more different.

Repeat after me. Vagina and vulva…
Two. Different. Parts. Of. Female. Genitalia. Not. All. One. Thing.

This!!

@Justheretoaskaquestion91

Are you absolutely sure that the vagina is the only relevant part for sex?

Was your school book written and printed in some part of the world where the phrase "women's experience of sex" could get you stoned to death?

It's approaches like the education you suffered, where external female sexual organs went ignored and unnamed that keep women ignorant and men in charge.

I often wonder if many women on MN would have been far more comfortable back in the time of Queen Victoria.

Definitely vagina if you mean vagina and vulva if you mean vulva.

DS is completely fine with the word vulva, even if I secretly feel really strange when I say it 😄.

It's VULVA!!! Some people on here would probably really enjoy reading Caitlin Morgan's chapter on vulvas in her book 'More than a woman' which discusses the common misunderstanding about vagina vs vulva. No time to quote it now but it's very funny and accurate. She argues, that we [women] can hardly argue for equality if we are still misnaming our own anatomy. Can you imagine if men consistently misnamed their penis as their balls? It would make you think their judgement was a bit skewed at best, or at worst that they were completely deluded!

We should educate our girls (and boys) to the basic standard of accuracy and without shame. These words are not disgusting. They are just words describing parts of our bodies. The more we "fanny" around (sorry) with euphemisms the more dangerously Victorian and moralising our use of language becomes. Girls sexuality should be celebrated and they should never be given reason to feel shame or embarrassment about their natural bodies.

Widgey! You don't pee from your vulva!

cafedesreves, I'm 99% sure women don't pee out of a widgey either.

Lala.

I don't even know what a vulva is.

Year 2 teacher...we teach (and use) the correct terms in school OP, but from first hand experience and 28 years teaching primary, I can honestly say that, despite popular MN rhetoric, I rarely have more than one or two 7 year olds who know these real terms!

I can also categorically myth-bust the other old MN chestnut, that 'if you don't teach the real terms, how will anyone know what your child is talking about if they ever have to disclose an issue'...we do know what they are talking about!! Context is everything 🤷‍♀️ Minnie, flower, tuppence, foof, foo, Mary, widge, bits, front bottom, woowoo (that one made me laugh 😆)...sooooooo many names 🤦‍♀️🤣

Of course we'd rather they come in armed with the correct vocabulary, but having your own family name too is no bad thing I don't think (as long as they do know that 'the real word is x, but at home we can say y if we want to!)

@cafedesreves Please tell me you know pee doesn't come from the vagina

[quote Starcaller]@cafedesreves Please tell me you know pee doesn't come from the vagina [/quote]
Funnily enough I do! But when I was little it was always boys pee from their willies and girls from their widgeys. So you'd have to say urethra or something like that?
I'm not against it, just I never felt any worries not knowing the word vulva as a small child and wondered what you'd say girls pee from (as they're much more likely to talk about peeing than sex at this age)

I'd say girls have a wee hole in their vulva.

Fair enough - makes sense!

I'm expecting our first child (girl) and as I work in an environment where safeguarding is a massive topic I have thought about this a bit but Found this thread very interesting to make me think a bit more.
Personally I have never used vulva- I guess I must have learnt it in school but I certainly can't remember, so I don't think I'm likely to start using that. I think I will probably go for vagina but also will use private parts to emphasis the safety part.

These weird words make me feel a bit sick. I can't quite articulate why, but they're so weird and cutesy. Is there a strong correlation between people who use these words and those who put those daft bows on their girls?

@dotsandco

Very interesting and as I’d suspected!

@stillsleeptraining

These weird words make me feel a bit sick. I can't quite articulate why, but they're so weird and cutesy. Is there a strong correlation between people who use these words and those who put those daft bows on their girls?

I would never put cutesy bows on girls... What did you call it as a child?

@cafedesreves I would recommend very few of my parents's choices!

@stillsleeptraining all I would say is people who say teach their kids the anatomical words from toddlerhood are still massively in the minority, so would guess the rest of the parents probably have a broad range of hair styles for their kids!

It’s so obvious you don’t work with children. So many times during my career children have possibly disclosed and language has been a barrier to the disclosure. If a child says to their teacher ‘My hole hurts.’ They could be disclosing, or they could be talking about their mouth.
I taught reception for 5 years and now teach my own kids the proper names.

Whoops! That comment should have had this quote attached: This tired old argument gets trotted out on these types of threads all the time and it's absolute nonsense. The conversation would go like this:

Child : "So and so touched my bits."
Police Officer : "And can you point to where he touched you?"