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.

Merry, do you feel the same about the word willy?

The NSPCC has a PANTS campaign which is good as of course bottoms/bums are also private.

We have 'pet' names for girl's and boy's private parts, just like we have nicknames for the kids which other people don't use either. I think a teacher saying 'willy' to any year group above Y1 would be quite cringeworthy, tbh. 'Willy' is more well known than any girl euphemisms, but I still wouldn't expect a teacher to use it.

I don't see the problem with 'pubic area' or 'private parts' if it is a public discussion. We are really not prudish, very open, my kids know all about everything and we've never been odd about nakedness in our house.

I get where the PANTS thing is coming from, but touching anyone anywhere without their permission is wrong. Not just areas that generally aren't on show.

touching anyone anywhere without their permission is wrong

I guess you've never travelled on the underground then .

Yops, I'll stop with the sarcasm or at least try to make it funny, when you stop with the nobbery.

Deal?

she said nobbery

If a child came running in and said "so and so wanted to look at my flower" and then ran off again I would assume it was something to do with flowers.

In the absence of any immediately obvious flos you would assume the child meant flowers rather than a part of the body usually kept private? It's a daft word but do children frequently carry flowers which they don't want others to see?

Incidentally should The Vagina Monologues be The Vulva Monologues? Does it contribute to the assumption vagina is an all embracing term?

I haven't seen it but one of the monologues Because He Liked to Look At It, is a woman describing how she had thought her vagina was ugly and had been embarrassed to even think about it but changed her mind because of a sexual experience with a man who liked to spend hours looking at it. Presumably this is referring to visible parts of the vulva not her vagina?

The play also refers to "vagina hair"

I take your point on the vagina monologues (although I would also contend that the 3 syllable 'vagina' scans better with the 3 syllable 'monologues than a 2 syllable 'vulva' would. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't be teaching kids the right words when it comes to anatomy.

On your first though - yes, actually, my kids at least, they might not have the flower anymore, it might not be a real flower, it might be something they've decided is named flower, they might have been fighting over it, or suddenly decided that it was theirs and they didn't want to share it. - really, I've had kids come and complain to me about far weirder things than someone looking at a flower, and it just wouldn't occur to me that they meant something else.

Also it's surely quite likely that a child suffering sexual abuse won't bounce up and say "he touched my flower" out of the blue. She may feel embarrassed, worried, want to come at it obliquely to make it seem safer to talk etc. And a specialist in the area has told us such words do make it harder to take a case to court or take other protective actions.

Anyway, none of this is the point. It would be great if there was a word that was as universally accepted and used as matter of factly as willy. I don't see how anyone could dispute that, even if they themselves didn't use it and called willies and fannies Cecils and Agathas.

I hope none of you refer to your stomachs when meaning your abdomens then!!

Jeez, she's only learning that now. Has she not seen her parents naked? I've got a couple of facts of life books in the bookcase that my DCs all looked through well before the age of 9. I just think these things are less embarrassing when tackled sooner rather than later. I agree with the other posters tho - it is a vulva not a vagina. Sex education should be as factual as 2 x 3 does not equal 5.

Re proper terminology rather than euphemisms, the example that was given to us when Glasgow introduced the new Sexual Health and Relationships Education was that by teaching and being open about the correct names, teachers were less likely to miss warning signs from children talking about, say, "My uncle plays with my bunny and I don't like it/he tells me not to tell anyone"

Actually IKnowIAm one of my pet hates is people referring to babies being in pregnant women's stomachs.

They're being gestated, not digested.

Ah Ask but you're in the minority!!

Poor kids!

I think my NO sex education was better than this.

The thought of a hairy vagina really makes me cringe - Yuck.

Yops Thu 25-Jun-15 13:32:03
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.

...

...male sex.