Comments on: Va..Va.. Sigh

By: L.A

L.A — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 01:03:26 +0000

Being an 8th grader, i have to say that my generation is very open about saying vagina and penis, sometimes people in class will yell out penis and everyone will laugh or some of my friends even made up a song about vaginas. We dont really care, and now its backwards, if you came up with a nickname for any of your parts, like tweet-tweet you’d get made fun of for that!

By: S.K.

S.K. — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:26:21 +0000

Goofdad’s mom here: Mine was a “down there” family…perhaps we should have called it Australia.
Sorry about the frog incident…

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:15:19 +0000

My girls welcome any opportunity they can find to say the words penis and vagina. In fact, Jessie loves to proclaim that she has a “vegetarian vagina”. As you know, I certainly didn’t say those words out loud growing up! I still can’t even hear the name “Ralph” without laughing to myself….

By: MelanieO

MelanieO — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:00:09 +0000

Vagina and penis here, which has sometimes led to unfortunately timed shouting of said words in the grocery store or other public places, but all in all, I think it’s gone well. I noticed that Gray’s Anatomy recently began using the real word as well, too, although I did like va-jay-jay myself!

By: rjga

rjga — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:35:11 +0000

When I was a kid, my sisters & I used “place”. As teenagers, we were traveling through the city one day and ended up in a fringe-y neighborhood. One bar after another was called “Sam’s Place”, “My Brother’s Place”, “The Best Place”. We had to pull over b/c we were laughing so hard. It was very difficult to explain to the policeman why we were laughing so hard…

By: Lindsay Todd

Lindsay Todd — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:06:27 +0000

With two boys, no problem saying penis, but always referred to my own as “my privates”. My younger son announced at a young age, he knew the name of my privates, the answer-”my china”-make them seem rather precious!

By: Kate

Kate — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:07:11 +0000

I’m not even going to opine, but I will say this is the hardest I’ve laughed all week. Maybe all month. Thanks Emily!

By: kim shimer

kim shimer — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:47:47 +0000

Maybe if I came up with a cute name for it I’d be more likely to pay the occasional visit…

By: Mo

Mo — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:38:40 +0000

We use “privates” but the kids also know the technical terms (although “vulva” is so much worse that “vagina”). The other day, my mom was talking about her upcoming surgery to us on speaker phone when she said the word “vagina.” Fortunately I was able to hit the mute button just as all four of us (me, doug and the kids) busted out laughing. Not a very mature lot I suppose. It was nice, though, to share our discomfort and be able to laugh about it. The other day, when Maddie was looking for a cheap laugh, she reminded us “remember when Grandma said vagina on the speaker phone???”

By: goofdad

goofdad — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:21:03 +0000

Oh … and I’ll take a crack at the “gentle reader” question, too (even though I’m NOT one of those, or you wouldn’t have called me out) …

Yes, I think it’s more socially charged for girls than boys, but primarily because boys are expected, to some degree, to be vulgar and crude. From having lived through Jr High and High School, I can say that it’s socially acceptable for teenage (ish) boys to use those words that we’re dodging for the sake of google. Girls, on the other hand, are expected to avoid being so crude, and therein lies the problem.