Communication

The V-Word: Get Female Anatomy Right, Dammit

I can’t take your sexual politics seriously until you do

So humans have decided it’s time to talk about sexuality and are doing so liberally and yay for them. I’m human. I like to keep abreast of trends, but I rarely manage. I’m usually well behind the pack.

Long ago I received a tip to check out the Boston Women’s Health Collective tome Our Bodies Ourselves, which I did from the library. In it, I found information about the female body—I mean real information. Upfront, unambiguous facts.

Granted, I already knew the difference between the vagina and vulva, but in reading the book I discovered how much more I still had to learn. Upon finishing my crash course, I was stunned by how little humans (bother to) know about the female body, and by that I mean female reproductive anatomy.

I kid you not when I share that, on our wedding night, my hero debated whether he should thrust left or right, dependent upon which fallopian tube would be preferable to me. And this was a guy who’d been around the block more than once. You’d think he would’ve known the route.

General misinformation aside, it’s the frequent misuse of the word vagina for what is actually the vulva that gets under my skin, especially when I hear women getting it wrong. As circumstances arise, I take it upon myself to correct a woman (politely) when she mixes up her Vs and to correct a man (pointedly) when he assumes that the whole kit-and-kaboodle is a v’jay.

And the misapplication of the V-word is everywhere. Television, film, YouTube, Urban Dictionary, coming at us (!) from all directions. Comedians, news segments, even wellness brochures printed by marketing teams who find correct labeling inconsequential or bothersome.

Simply put, the vulva includes the external bits (labia, clitoris) and the vagina is the internal passage, which goes by another name when serving its specific function as the birth canal.

Now that that’s been cleared up, the next step is to find a sturdy soapbox and climb up on it.

It should be noted that metaphors are often helpful when instructing the unenlightened or willfully ignorant. For example, one can offer that a mouth is not the same as its lips, a hand not the same as its fingers, and so forth. (I find that metaphors of a slightly suggestive nature help to focus certain recalcitrant offenders of the V-word abuse.)

Honestly, can you imagine two dudes getting their parts wrong? The locker room shame!

— Did you see that guy with the twelve inch nut sack?

— I know, right? He must be getting plenty.

Humans of the World: stop calling the vulva a vagina!

And should you need a mnemonic device, I offer this:

To please Our Lady Vulva One requires craft To please Her Sister Vee-Jay One requires shaft.

Now go spread the good word!