How can you? How can you talk about something that has no good names? When I was little it was a cookie-I never got that one... "Don't forget to wash behind your ears and your cookie." Wait, aren't cookies food? That's not cool. Frankly, I've never seen chocolate chips down there...
             As I got older, it became a "crotch" but that just sounds vulgar. There's too many terms like "crotch-rot" out there-wouldn't want to insult it. Besides, men have "crotches" too...I do not have the same thing as a man, thank you very much.
             In health class there came the term vagina. No offense, but this is rather medical-something I'm sure Mrs. Miller did not mind. If you're going to teach fifth grade girls about it, make sure it's just the vagina-used for making and releasing babies and shedding menstrual tissue. There are no other parts of the female "reproductive system" (as it was lovingly called)-no clitoris, no lips, no nothing.
             In high school, there were plenty of new names for it-pussy, cunt, beaver, twat, etc. They're all so vulgar, though. If someone wants to reclaim these words, more power to you, and I don't feel uncomfortable around them, I just don't want to call mine that-I'd feel like I was swearing at it.
             Then in college came a word I (growing up in a tiny Republican town) had never heard: Vulva. Vulva. Hmmm, sounds better than twat, don't you think? Vulva is the best term I've heard so far. Why is it not taught to girls around the English-speaking world? Why do girls have to try to come up with names that aren't embarrassing or insulting all on their own? Why? Because that's our society, that's why. If girls can't even name their own body parts, how are they supposed to become empowered at a young age? If girls are embarrassed by their &q
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