It is vulva, vulva, vulva here in this household, ever since I made the recent decision to call female anatomy by its correct terms. Gone is the simplistic and incorrect term ‘vagina’ for every bit of down there, from now on it is ‘vagina’ for the inside bits and ‘vulva’ for the outside bits. (We’re teaching a nearly-three year old so terms like clitoris and uterus do come up from time to time but they’re not a big topic yet).
This is a good time to have made the decision, the word vulva is getting a work out because we’re also talking a lot in this house about personal space and personal safety. Parts of your body are private, we’ve explained to our toddler and you don’t touch other people’s private parts and they don’t touch yours. Your private parts are special and they’re for you, not other people.
After pretty much using ‘vagina’ my whole life I’m surprised how well I’m remembering to use ‘vulva’, although I am still getting used to it. Some people find the term clinical but I think it sounds kinda intimate, which only makes me more determined to reclaim the word, but it also means I take a moment to process the times when my daughter calls out – I accidentally touched the cat’s vulva. Toddlers love to dob on themselves and this is an indiscretion worth reporting since in this family we’ve deemed the cat’s vulva to be private. We’re uptight like that.
I’m explaining personal space to my daughter with some longing. Oh privacy, it has been a while since I had you, I think I miss you more than youth even. And yet already I’m being told to leave my daughter’s room. I’m having some privacy, she tells me. I find it puzzling that toddlers can have no sense of your own personal space, like when do I finally get to close my toilet door and why are my tampons in your craft box, but they can be so keen to exercise their own newly discovered rights for privacy.
blue milk 
We’re being very accepting of Lucy finding out about her body in anyway she wants. We’re cool about it, but there are moments when I freeze from the social shame. In the taxi on the way to the aiport, Lucy said to the driver “I love my vulva private parts”. Another constant comment: “Why do I love my vulva sooo much?”, often asked of my very uptight, never-do-we-speak-of-such-things father.
Have you seen that children’s book about “private parts” and who can touch and who can’t? It links the issue of appropriate touch into caring and taking responsibility for one’s own body, and also has a nice message it’s always okay to talk about what’s happening to you. Plus, it’s got a bit of a Lynley Dodd swing to it, and many mentions of the word ‘bum’ (thus, a huge hit in our house).
Great idea. I’m going to do the same with my daughters immediately. I’ve been all about vagina (and not silly names) but now it’s time to be specific.
We have always used vulva, which shocked my parents a little, but when they stopped to think about it, they agreed that it was a good thing.
but there are moments when I freeze from the social shame
For a long time, one of our daughters couldn’t manage ‘s’ in front of a short ‘u’ (as in the ‘uh’ in duck). It would come out as ‘f’ instead. I had some moments of severe social shame when she talked about ‘sucking’ her thumb.
Fred refuses to call her vagina anything but ‘fishy’ (a name she coined herself) and penises are ‘biscuits’. We’ve always used correct names, but to be honest, it doesn’t come up all that often, she just doesn’t like to talk about bottoms. A few times I’ve raised it, but I feel uncomfortable making her talk about it if the interest isn’t coming from her. She’s asked a few times how babies are made but isn’t very inspired by the answer, I think she wants something more literal, more precise, actually getting in there and moulding bones and skin. The whole penis, vagina, sperm and egg thing just seems so unlikely and vague.
Deborah, my nephew greeted my Dad the other day with a cheery “Big Dickers!”.
He was trying to explain that there are road works happening around the corner. Quite large machines. Digging. My Dad is hoping the name doesn’t stick. My partner says it will.
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My kids both know correct terminology, although my temper wore a little thin last week at Lak Macquarie art gallery’s DOG art exhibition, where my son lay on the floor under a pack of wooden dog sculpture and fiddled with their penises, whispering and then getting louder “doggy penis, doggy penis, doggy penis, doggy penis MUMMYYYYYYYYY DOOOOOOG PEEEEENIS!”
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