All About Quim

So, I was thinking about vaginas.

Actually, that’s not all that unusual. This time I was actually thinking about the word, vagina, as well as other euphemisms for it, most notably cunt. I was reading Amazon.com comments on Inga Muscio’s book and perusing a very in-depth article on the c-word by Matthew Hunt, as well as discussing the topic with a dear friend of mine who is the proud owner of one of the things, and I
guess it got me thinking. (Hey. Hunt and cunt rhymes…) It got me thinking about the words we use to define that fascinating opening between a woman’s legs.

I am a freak who is most turned on by the most clinical terms for things (and faintly repulsed by much of the slang). To my mind, at least, most sexual jargon is invented because people are too embarrassed
to use the real words for things. Also, a lot of the terminology serves to make things sound more dirty or immoral, and generally speaking I don’t think it’s good to be thinking of sex in that way. Sometimes it can be fun to feel like you’re being naughty, I guess, but if you get to thinking that sex is inherently wrong somehow, then that’s bad.

Cunt is a case in point. It is hailed as the dirtiest of all dirty words and is frequently employed by despicable people who want to say the most horrible thing possible about a woman while at the same time disparaging femininity as a whole. It’s so taboo that Microsoft Word will insist that you must have been merely trying and failing to spell cant if ever you were to have the gall to type such a word into a document, because surely you wouldn’t intentionally input that word.

It just sounds sharp and percussive, like an actual physical attack (though apparently that’s the Norman influence talking). I have a deep, irrational dislike of the word. Vagina, on the other hand, sounds smooth and inviting. I have a deep, irrational affection for vagina.

But then there’s talk that cunt was the original, everyday Old English word for that structure and was even used as a term of respect for women before the patriarchy subverted it out of cunt-fear. Or something. I’m not clear on the details. There’s also talk that vagina is actually the dirty word, since it comes from a Latin word meaning “sheath,” and therefore implies that the vagina (and therefore a woman) is a passive object whose only purpose is to be conquered by the sword (penis).

Well. Actually, I do kind of like cunt when employed reverentially. But societal norms have decreed that it has quite different connotations, and thus I don’t use it. If I was to get intimate with a woman and make a reference to her cunt (or even refer to her as a cunt), for most women that would not be taken as a compliment. That’s the just the way it is, and it’s not as simple as just deciding that it now has different connotations. I really like the word “queer,” for instance, but that word no longer means what it once meant and what I want it to mean. For better or for worse, society has decreed otherwise, and you can’t sign petitions, have a vote, or produce an expensive ad campaign to get it changed back.

Also, to me vagina-as-sheath is not disrespectful to womanhood. It’s a clinical description of an anatomical shape. Biologically it serves two purposes: sex, in which it does, totally objectively, serve as a kind of sheath, and childbirth. I get the impression from people who own one and have used it for both purposes that its design seems to work much better for the former purpose than the latter. (This is vagina as separate from say, clitoris or urethra.)

The sheath meaning behind vagina may imply a certain passivity, but we know that sex is more complicated than the word origins of the terms we use in discussing it and thus we shouldn’t try to infer too much from them. However, it is true that by nature of possessing a vagina, a woman must take the receptive role in sex (at least in the kind of sex that can result in reproduction when performed without contraceptive). Also, it certainly does tend to be easier for the possessor of the vagina (or other suitable orifice) to take a passive or even unwilling role in sex than it is for the person doing the penetrating. If you want to read misogyny into that fact, you may, but I don’t think it’s necessary or helpful to do so.

One might ask why I limit sex to penis-in-vagina sex for this discussion when there are so many other kinds of sex that leave out one or the other (or even both). Certainly there are other types of sex, but because it is the only kind that can result in offspring, penis-in-vagina sex is the only kind that’s evolutionarily relevant. Thus it is the only kind that has any effect on biology and biological structures. Vaginas evolved into a sheath-like shape in order to effectively receive penises and thereby facilitate reproduction (and later childbirth). That’s also why penises and vaginas are grouped under the term genitals. When coming up with names for anatomic parts, it makes perfect sense to name them for the purpose they evolved to fulfill. Any other use you get out of them or any other meaning you’d like to apply to them is incidental from a biological standpoint. Thus as a clinical biological term, vagina is a perfectly sensible choice. That’s my opinion, anyway, and while it may be coldly clinical, it doesn’t put anyone down or raise anyone up.

I also have some thoughts on the word sheath. A sheath isn’t a place that’s conquered by the sword; it’s a place that protects the sword. In some ways the sheath really holds the power in the sheath/sword relationship; swords don’t remain in good condition for long without a protective sheath, but sheaths do fine with or without a sword. (You might use this observation to draw parallels between the apparent difference in libido intensities between men and women, but I won’t. At least, not beyond mentioning the idea.) Also, a sheath doesn’t necessarily have to house a weapon; it can house any long thin object. Vaginas make much better sheaths than penises do swords, anyway. A penis would make a horrible weapon. A penis is a sword whose only real use, other than urinating (which, while very useful, isn’t particularly praiseworthy), is being sheathed. That’s its whole reason for being: becoming covered and subsumed by something else, the sheath.

Finally, I’m a big fan of vaginas (or cunts, or whatever word you prefer). It bothers me that so many women are ashamed of theirs, and that society so often encourages them to feel that way. However, I’m also wary of women who wrap up their sense of self too tightly in their vaginas, just as I’m wary of men who do the same with their penises. We are not our genitals and we are not our gender. We’re just people: people who have been dealt certain cards by biology and have been asked or forced to accept other cards by society. But we can play the game however we like.

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Y. Funk was born to parents who were officers in the Foreign Service. He grew up in Egypt, Laos, Malaysia and Russia. He has a degree in French Literature, but his dream is to become a park ranger in Alaska. His favorite food is falafel and he is deaf in one ear, though he will not say which one. He is single and loves the ladies. He once had a girlfriend who was born with both male and female parts. The doctors and her parents made the decision to make her a girl. He was okay with that. They broke up for other reasons.