(no subject)

[geminigirl]

Maybe it's just because I deal with this on a day to day basis, but
this discussion of what to call body parts is one of the funniest things I've read in a while.

(Courtesy of rdhdsnippet)

Comments

but but

[rapha.livejournal.com]

how are you updating your journal and i can't cuz "the database is currently read-only" :(

Re: but but

[geminigirl]

It's probably a cluster by cluster thing. They'll eventually take this cluster down if they haven't already.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

Jesus, that's a massive discussion. I couldn't make it through.

I actually agonized for quite a while over what term to use with my daughter. I'd already gotten into trouble at her daycare for teaching her the word 'nipple' -- she came home one day calling it a 'booboo' and whether it was a diminutive of 'boob' or what, I didn't like her referring to her nipples by the same term as a wound. So I taught her the correct word, and she promptly went back to school and taught it to all her friends. The funny thing is that the school thought Maggie's dad did it and chewed *him* it -- fortunately I'd told him about it, and my rationale, and he was able to explain it to them.

Anyway, because of some of my history, I was a little worried about what term to use. My preference would be to use the correct, clinical term ("vulva") but would people think I was a pervert for doing that? I finally went ahead and did it anyway, because she was referring to it all as her 'bottom' and I didn't like that, both because it was imprecise (I wanted her to be able to make a distinction between the areas) and because I remembered having a partner who called it the 'bottom' and it made me *very* confused.

More recently, Grandma taught her the word 'vagina' and she replied that they'd said in school that 'vagina' was a bad word, so I went and had a chat with the teacher to see if there was some context that would make that ok. Some of the kids in her school are as old as first grade and they apparently were using the term and what the teachers told them is that that was private, and that they didn't tell them it was a bad word, and I said ok. She also said that part of the reason they told them it was private is that some parents just flipped out about it, so obviously there was some irony in the fact that I was flipping out at her *not* using the correct term. :-)