pedantic semantics.

Now Playing: I Don't Understand Job by Garfunkel and Oates (will I make it upright if I move it like a Shake Weight?) 

So here's a thing that was pointed out to me in Princesses & Pornstars.

We. Use. The. Wrong. Words. To. Describe. Lady. Bits.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with euphemisms and allusions. It stops open-minded, enlightened, sex-positive people like me from being beat up. But when we're going to use the proper medical terms for body parts, we've got to use the right ones.

I'm not a doctor. I'm not a biologist. But I'm a woman, so I think I should know how to label my own body.

When we're not using obscure slang or glamorous-but-very-unhelpful euphemisms, female genitalia is usually referred to as the 'vagina'. And not just by normal people - people who somehow make a living hacking up women so they look like porn stars call it 'vaginal rejuvenation'. Which doesn't make a lot of sense because nobody actually sees the vagina.

The correct term for the external female genitals is vulva, not vagina. The vagina is the birth canal, between the vulva and the cervix, which is the entrance of the uterus.

So what's with the terminology confusion?

Whether or not this is your personal motivation for the incorrect terminology, the root of it is this - patriarchy.

The vulva, not the vagina, is responsible for female sexual pleasure. It contains the external part of the clitoris and the clitoral hood, which is formed on female foetuses during the same time that the penis is formed on male foetuses out of the same tissue and is responsible for the most common type of female orgasm. It contains the labia - the parts that are legally required to be hacked off on porn stars - which is actually erectile tissue. In short, the vulva refers to the part of the female body that can not only be stimulated for sexual pleasure, but - get this - you don't always need a gentleman to start your engine. And that. Is why. It is never. Ever. Mentioned. In another time and place they didn't want to think about women getting erections or having the physiological capability of sexual pleasure - so they never spoke of it, as if to erase it from vocabulary is to erase it from biology.

Unlike the vulva, the vagina is not really associated with female sexual pleasure - it is thought that 80% of women cannot orgasm through vaginal penetration alone, which is the only kind of sexual behaviour that is condoned by the major religions, which preach that masturbation, oral sex and any other sexual activity that results in female sexual pleasure is BAD BAD BAD. Do you know what the vagina is associated with? Male sexual pleasure. And making babies. In other words, referring to female genitalia as the 'vagina' and not the 'vulva' was a social convention designed to reinforce the idea that female sexuality has two purposes: to service men, and to make babies.

Now, I know that most people don't think like that now - that the misused terminology is an innocent misunderstanding and not a deliberate attempt to subjugate women. But to only refer to the body parts required to make babies is like calling male genitalia the vas deferens. It's an insult to women and to the female biological function. It's an incorrect synecdoche. If you're going to talk about it, at least use the right words.

I am so getting lynched at school on Monday...