Living In Sin: A Vagina by any Other Name

Sex is something that drives us, empowers us and gets us into really stupid situations with people we have no business seeing naked. Jen Sincero is the bestselling author and sexpert with the carnal knowledge you need. Ask her your questions (all are posted anonymously). Cuz there’s no such thing as being too good in bed.

Dear Jen,
My daughter is two years old and occasionally, when I change her diaper, she touches her genital region. When she does this I talk to her about it using real words, like “vagina.” A friend recently overheard me and said that I’m doing long-term damage. She thinks that if my little girl goes to school and falls and says that she hurt her vagina, all the other kids will ridicule her. My friend insists that calling it her “pee-pee” or her “cha-cha” would be a better alternative. What do you think?
- Midwest Momma

Dear Momma,
Just yesterday I hit the road for my beloved New Mexico where I lived for many years before moving to L.A. I was telling a friend about all the excellent people I was going to get to see when I got there – Flowers, Burgy, Gautch, Kimo - while my friend, Goldie, looked after my place. I also told her that she should go see my friend Gecko’s art show while I was gone. All she said was, “Are all of your friends stuffed animals?”

Lots of my friends have weird names. That’s because lots of my friends are weird and made them up themselves. I also know people named Starskee, Storm, Bedouin, Mojo, and Dagmar and used to get followed around by a strange lady in a filthy skirt who called herself Bumble Bee. I think it’s because my friends are creative and unconventional, not because they abhor their parents (the majority of my friends, anyway). It’s like naming the person the grown-up you relates to, rather than the one that was beholden to your parents. You get to define yourself. It’s like giving yourself a Mohawk. Or a pet name.

What people call themselves, and parts of themselves, ain't nobody's business but theirs. Especially if it comes from a healthy place which, if I can get mighty real here for a moment, all this vagoglossing does not. For the most part, it's about shame, denial and embarrassment. I mean, a knee is a knee, an ear is an ear - why does a butt need to be a po-po? It's these seemingly innocent and playful little suggestions that drill some hugely negative crap into our psyches. So if you want your daughter to be loud and proud about her vagina, good for you. You're sending her a much more positive message than suggesting that any part of her beautiful body is a dirty thing that is called a dirty word. Tell your friend to put that in her long-term damage pipe and smoke it.

Besides, your daughter is going to get ridiculed anyway. They could just as easily crawl all over her for calling it her halla lalla instead of her poonana. Kids are ruthless, and no matter how much you try and watch her back, she's gonna get it from somewhere for something. Instead of fearing what might or might not happen to her, your time would be much better spent teaching her that she's hot shit, to stick up for herself and that she should tell anyone who makes fun of her for not using the term "cha-cha" that it's a vagina, not a Mexican restaurant.

Photo by Calezu