Mary. Fanny. Hoo-Ha. Va-jay-jay. Lady garden. Foof. Front bottom. That’s right girlos, today we are talking about what you call your Lady China.
A quick vagina survey amongst the Her team has thrown up a few hilarious muff monikers – ‘lasagne’ or ‘tuppence’ anyone!? Trine informs me ’tissesjur’ is the name you need to know if you ever find yourself having to discuss your punani in Norway.
As a child, my vagina vocab extended to ‘dee-dee’. No, I have no idea why either. Dee-dee worked perfectly as a label until I went to primary school and discovered, much to my horror, that my Drama teacher’s surname was…yes…Mrs. Deady. I mean, what were the chances? Nobody else got the joke and that was the precise moment that I realised a) we all had different names for ‘down there’ and b) I was definitely the only one calling it a dee-dee.
I have to admit, I didn’t give it a huge amount of thought after that until I started working in a Dublin maternity hospital, where I was surprised to find that grown-women were reluctant to use the word vagina and most stuck to talking about their Marys.
So, when my daughter came along after two boys I swore that there’d be no name-shame for this mommy! But when it came to the crunch… well, let’s just say we are now the proud owners of ‘jynas. My ‘jyna, her ‘jyna, we just can’t get enough of talking about our wonderful ‘jynas.
If you say it quickly it still sounds like you’re being super-mature about all things anatomical. If you’re three, it sounds like you’ve been taught the proper name by your super-mature mother but have mispronounced it because you are, y’know, three.
Paediatricians agree that it is important to teach kids the correct names for their body parts, with many on the record as saying silly nicknames teach children to be ashamed of, or embarrassed by, their genitals. I can’t really comment – I’m still on the vaginal fence, stuck halfway between an anatomical label and a euphemism.
