Good points Legend! Love your story!!! And in church no less!! LOL.
I’ve had a similar one in church, only thankfully without the body parts!! I’d gone to visit my dad, and visited his church while we were there.
My son, three was acting up horribly. My dad leaned over and whispered “there’s a nursery downstairs, if you want to take him”. I’d had enough of his orneriness, so I picked him up and carried him, or started to carry him off.
All the way down the aisle and all the way down the stairs, everyone in the church was treated to his anguished, “save me from torture” cries of “NO mommy NO, NOT downstairs, PLEASE don’t take me down THERE”!!!
I also agree with your take on the no TMI, so to speak. I remember a funny story, could be an UL, but deal with a child who asked his/her mom what sex was.
After a long detailed explanation to the curious tot about the birds and bees, etc. The child, looking a bit suprised, said "well, the reason I asked is because it’s one of the questions on my papers I’m supposed to fill out for the nurses office. Meaning the blank for gender!
Vagina encompasses the whole area when I say it. When referring to the area, that’s usually what I call it…if not something a little more…crude. If I need to be more specific as far as location, I’ll either name it by the medical name, or, if I’m in the company of those who don’t know all the medical names and the location they correlate to (you’d be amazed at how little most other teenaged girls know about their own bodies, it’s rather frightening), I’ll describe it the best I can.
When I have kids, they’ll know the proper names for what’s what, and what it’s there for (as they reach an age that they’ll need to know about it). A couple weeks ago a friend of mine called me up, and said she needed my help regarding sex (keep in mind, this girl is almost 18). She proceeded to describe this “deformity” on her vagina…her boyfriend was going to go down on her for hte first time, and she’d always thought there was something wrong with it, and she needed to know if it was normal or not.
I ask her a few questions about where it’s positioned.
“That’s your clitoris, Jane.”
I’m met with dead silence. Then, "Oh…oh…but it’s not…inside.
I mean…oh. my. God. The poor girl.
I proceed to tell her that a lot of the “good stuff” is on the outside, and tried to fill her in as best as I could…what does what, how it’d feel, what to expect. But still. Eighteen?
I’m never going to allow my children to be that unaware of the function of their own bodies. (Although hopefully I won’t be met with the same situations as InternetLegend. That was a great story, BTW).
‘Vagina’ has such an ugly ring to it. Its not the definition that makes me cringe, its the word itself. There’s something oogy about it, like the words membrane, and esophagus.
The vagina is the vagina, the vulva is the vulva. I’m terribly irritated by the co-opting of vagina as the catch-all term for everything because of situations like Orange Skinner described. The labia aren’t in the vagina. The clitoris isn’t in the vagina. There is no hair on the vagina. And if you want to look at a woman’s vagina, get a flashlight. And a speculum.
If we’re referring to someone’s face, we don’t say “head” instead. I don’t see the need to be so blatantly incorrect in the imprecision related to the female genitals.
This is one of my hot-button topics, can you tell?
Unless I need or want to be specific, vagina is a general “cover all” term. If I want to be more specific, I will use more specific names of the parts.
Well, if I’m gonna use the technical terms, I’m certainly going to use them correctly. I can’t imagine telling my gyno, for example, that I have an itch in my vagina when it’s actually external. That would just be crazy.
In general conversation, though, I tend not to use vagina or vulva much. If I for some reason feel the need to discuss the area (unlike AuntieEm, I don’t feel the need to discuss my vagina with casual passers-by ) I either use crotch for the whole area, or the proper term for the specific bit I’m talking about.
And I really have to know: What kind of Googling were you doing, Auntie Em?
) I either use crotch for the whole area, or the proper term for the specific bit I’m talking about.