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

[Ziggyzoom]

I raised this in year 1 when they sent a work sheet home. I can't decide whether to keep ploughing on or satisfy myself with the knowledge that at least my daughters know the correct names for their anatomy.

*minora

Reminds me of a young friend, early 20s, who told me that she had been grabbed by the vagina at a club. After expressing the shock that kind of behaviour should provoke I asked did she mean the vulva. She was adamant that vagina was the outside bit too.

I disagree. Neither girls nor boys are taught the correct terms for their parts - and certainly don't go on to use them in later life! There are far bigger issues to address than terminology - which imo doesn't amount to a hill of beans when it comes to equality.

I bet most men would not know where their frenulum or epithelium is or what it does. These are all rather specialised terms.

So you think vulva and vagina are specialised terms Yops

As much as the terms I used. What differentiates vagina or clitoris from frenulum or epithelium?

The amount of use they get in the English language.

I also took 'specialised terms' to mean terms used for very specific reasons or by specialists. Why would vagina or vulva fall into that type of category?

They describe specific parts of a body but ones that are often referred to. So why would that put them in the category of "specialised terms"?

There is only one word that covers the "whole kit and caboodle" as far as I know.
That word is "cunt".
Thank you Anglo Saxons.
(I wouldn't teach that word to a 9-year-old though)

I quite like the term vulva vestibule , I'd never heard of it before.

A bit like an ante room.

The only time I use the word 'vulva' is in the opening Volvo adverts for Sky Atlantic programmes. The guy says 'Volvo' in his scandanavian accent, which sounds like 'vulva'. It's funny Every. Single. Time.

Anyway, in our house, it is front bottom, back bottom, and middle bottom for babies.

Now we are getting into opinions and semantics, scallops. You think vulva is a commonly used term. Others don't. So be it.

Of course you weren't snippy, Sinclair: if anyone was snippy in their posting, it was Lass, who can see a negative in a pile of gold.

At my antenatal class there was a young man who clearly didn't want to be there.

They had an argument. In the end he stormed out yelling "why do I need to learn about perineums, Its not like I have one!"

Yops, the vagina is the birth canal, it's the direct equivalent of penis, not of frenulum!

I was referring to a lack of knowledge within the male gender about terms that could be used to specify certain parts of the penis. I was not comparing like for like. Most men rock up at the doctors and announce 'my cock is sore', not 'I have an inflamed glans'. I was merely trying to illustrate that both genders can be equally ignorant of parts of their body.

Thank you yonic I am new to the Feminism boards, cant believe I managed to upset someone on day 1

Nah, you're all right

Oh you haven't upset Lass, she's just looking for a fight.

It's hilarious to see the contortions some blokes will go into to try and demonstrate that feminists are wrong wrong wrong all the time.

Epithelium forsooth.

D'you ever feel embarrassed by the utter nobbishness of your arguments, those of you who think epithelium is as well known and familiar as vulva?

Or do your testicles of objectivity provide a shield to ensure you can't see how embarrassing you are?

Fanny was a nickname for Frances in the not too distant past.

Fannie featured in an Enid Blyton book, now changed to Frannie in the Magic Faraway tree.

I'm not sure when it became offensive - I would say it's just a slang term like willy

Ah, Basil has arrived. Now we can all be corrected - hurrah! Tell us how we just don't get it, Baz . I'll bring the straw, you construct the man

No, you bring the frenulum and I'll bring the vulva.

Nah, you're all right Sinclair, Lass could start a row alone in a locked room. She gets off on it, ignore her. What you said was really valid btw, one of the major difficulties psychologists have when interviewing CSE or CSA survivors is that they have often had their anatomy described in euphemism, it's one of many forensic countermeasures that child abusers use, because at trial, their defence can make out that the adult has put a false construction on the words the child has used.

Yops, did you really mean epithelium? Because, if you're going to tell people that someone touched the cells lining your gut, then you really do have worries. Perhaps you meant epididymis? The duct that conveys sperm to the urethra? Also difficult to touch, although you can feel it through the scrotum

Fanny Price was possibly the most annoying Fanny in literature, Norah