I am more than Slot B
Cats: Ilona's Take|“He is a boy, and he has a penis. I am a girl, and I have a vagina.”
Standard conversation for three-year-olds. The boy/girl distinction is a biggie at this age, and some nice, careful, conscientious mommy has given her the correct terms. Except she hasn’t, has she?
What the child is talking about is the stuff on the outside. The kid may or may have discovered the hole down there, but she’s certainly taken a head-between-knees peek at her vulva. So why not give them that word?
Why not? Because women don’t talk about their ‘vulva’. They’ll talk about their vagina - often reluctantly and only when essential - in conversations about periods, sex, childbirth, yeast infections and birth control. But when do women mention the externals, the vulva?
Hardly ever. Because somehow, it’s gross. It’s even more squeamish-making than vagina. (Which is bad enough for many.) It seeps and it stinks and it’s damp and dark, and it’s just plain old icky down there. An overall embarrassment that we’d rather not think about.
From a conversation with a married woman in her late twenties a day or two ago:
She: “Why are oysters supposed to be aphrodisiacs?”
Me: “I was told it’s because they look like the inside of the vulva.”
She: “Eeew. Gross.”
Gross? Why ‘gross’? Why not “Mmm. Erotic.”? Because when I was told that, I took a whole new, appreciative look at the things. Well, what do you know about that? I still don’t like the taste, but the look always makes me grin now.
Me, I like the word vulva. It’s gentle and rich, and pleasingly all-encompassing. To my mind, it’s quintessentially female.
And here’s my core gripe with ‘vagina’ being the sole word in our genital vocabulary. When we identify a female only by her vagina, I think we’re doing so because, consciously or not, we believe female sexuality exists only as it relates to (and relieves) the male’s. Penis and vagina. Vagina and penis.
The labia, inner and outer, and most particularly the clitoris, are irrelevant in this equation. The externals, so critical to female response and satisfaction, do not matter. Tab A requires Slot B. The rest is window dressing, secondary, a distraction from the Real Deal.
And it’s wrong. Let’s bring back that fine old word. Vulva. Vulva, which encompasses labia large and small, fourchette, frenum, perineum, a few other bits and pieces, and, centrally, deliciously, critically, that marvellous clitoris.
And really? If I had to choose between vagina and clitoris? (Which, thank god, I do NOT.) I seriously doubt I’d be going for the vagina…
So, can we expand our attention a bit? Can we allow ourselves to enjoy all that we are? And can we please teach our daughters to do the same?
