March 11, 2008
Their VaJayJay is paining me


Google the word “va-jay-jay,” or its linguistic twin “vajajay,” and you’ll get around 114,000 hits. It’s a lot, especially when you consider that the word wasn’t even on the cultural radar until two years ago when it dropped like a fluffy little bomb from the mouth of Dr. Miranda Baily, a character on the television show Grey’s Anatomy.

The term, like so many other things—olive oil potato chips, Spanx undergarments and A Million Little Pieces, for example—achieved instant cultural legitimacy when Oprah uttered it. While dangling from a harness and swinging through space, the somewhat freaked-out-looking Oprah exclaimed, “My va-jay-jay’s paining me,” and a euphemism was born. If Oprah’s audience of 46 million wasn’t enough to give “va-jay-jay” a certain cultural heft, the 28 October 2007 New York Times’ piece titled “What Did You Call It?” tracing the term’s movement into mainstream culture pretty much sealed the deal.

The cover of this month’s Cosmopolitan boasts the headline “Your Va-Jay-Jay; Fascinating Facts About Your Lovely Lady Parts,” thus proving that the word is safe for shopping-line voyeuristic consumption. You can imagine Cosmo’s editorial board sitting around, discussing the cover, wanting desperately to catch the eye of all of us women who harbor a deep desire for information on our genitals (and look to Helen Gurley Brown et al for it). You can see them proposing terms in quick succession and dropping them like little verbal hot potatoes. Pussy? Too pornified. Vagina? Too medical. Cooter? Too Junior High. Muff? Too 70’s, plus there’s that Willie Nelson beard imagery. Whatever can a fun, fearless female call it? Eureka! Va-jay-jay.

Last October, right after the Times piece came out, I was at a social function with a bunch of chicks (there were dudes there too, but as they’re less germane to this discussion, I’m going to pretend they were off in the corner discussing their P-spots). The Times article, and the Oprah beatification of the term, arose as a topic of conversation.

“Well,” said a woman to my left, “I’m just glad that we women finally have a word for it.”

A pronouncement that, unsurprisingly, provoked me into an acid-tongued response. What? I said, because “vagina” wasn’t working?

“No, no,” the woman stammered, “I just mean that it’s a word that we women can use.”

It took all the strength I had not to roll my eyes at her. My tone, however, was beyond my control. My voice turned icy and patrician. We women, I said, have had many terms for our genitalia. Words that run from the absolutely medical to the purely prurient. I can hardly see what the infantilizing “va-jay-jay” adds to the discussion, I said. And turned away.

And this is exactly the main issue that I have with “va-jay-jay.” It’s precisely the way that the term is feminized through making it sound like baby talk. As a woman, I work very hard not to be viewed as a child. I bristle at attitudes, clothing, rhetoric, manners, music, advertisements, decorations, and language that treats me as if I am a girl. I was a girl. It was fine. I grew up. Now I’m a woman. Treat me like one.

Moreover, don’t force feed words that inherently suggest that the part of me that most makes me an adult woman—my genitals, my vagina, my pussy, my twat, my cunt—is childish.

I’m sure that when Grey’s Anatomy, Oprah, 30 Rock, Tyra Banks, The Jimmy Kimmel Show and Cosmo and every other media outlet has used the term, they didn’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about it. I’m sure too that part of my intense dislike of the term is that I am a white Northern woman, and the term “va-jay-jay” has distinctly Southern roots; linguist Dr. John H. McWhorter suggests in the Times article that the term has caught on because “there is a black — Southern especially — naming tradition, which is to have names like Ray Ray and Boo Boo and things like that…It sounds warm and familiar and it almost makes the vagina feel like a little cartoon character with eyes that walks around.”

Forgive my bitchy dissent, but I don’t need to displace my genitals onto a cartoon character. I don’t feel the need to have my genitals tamed, sanitized and made cute for anyone’s protection. I’m fine with “vagina,” if the medical term is contextually proper; “pussy,” if I’m feeling frisky; “twat,” if I’m feeling saucy; “cunt,” if I’m feeling earthy; and any one of a number of other terms if I’m feeling something else. In my writing here I’ve called my genitals by many names, from the twee “lady bits” to the coy “nethers” to the linguistic range above. I don’t see a need for “va-jay-jay.”

No one goes around feeling the need to call a man’s penis his pe-ne-ney, which, aside from sounding very much like a delicious pressed Italian sandwich, makes the man in question sound like he’s about six. No one wants to be fucked with a pe-ne-ney. No man would go to his doctor because his pe-ne-ney was burning when he urinated. And, in fact, were the male counterpart of Oprah to get into the exact same swing that caused Oprah to exclaim about her va-jay-jay, though his penis might hurt him, he wouldn’t shout out, “My pe-ne-ney’s paining me!”

We as a culture are exceedingly ready to accept the eternal babyishness of women, as evidenced in no small part by the ready embrace of the term “va-jay-jay.” We as a culture remain faintly grossed out by female genitals. We retain an ambient ooginess about vaginas that we don’t have about penises. It’s really, deeply problematic, and finding linguistic band-aids that cover our discomfort does nothing to address the underlying issue, beyond letting it fester under a fluffy pink wrapping.

It wearies me. As a woman who loves language and her genitals, I really wish we’d just grow up already. One very good place to start is to reject terms like “va-jay-jay.” Just stand up, be an adult, say no to “va-jay-jay.”


Comments

3 Responses to “Their VaJayJay is paining me”

  1. Shay on March 11th, 2008 9:08 am

    I saw the same magazine cover last week and had the same reaction. I really don’t like the term vajajay it’s like a side-step from calling the vagina your “lady parts” (which at the very least is still a relatively accurate description).

  2. Roxxie on March 28th, 2008 10:45 pm

    I agree 100%! I was exposed to the word through livejournal.com and I thought it was just dumb livejournal thing. I had no clue that mature educated women were using it seriously! I don’t know about anyone else, but I have a vulva or cunt.

  3. ~Storm on April 28th, 2008 5:35 pm

    Right, and continuing on the theme, I think pussy or cunt encompasses the entire area, whereas vagina (to me anyway) sort of refers to only one part of it. Vulva is, like vagina, a bit clinical but at least accurate. I agree, it would be like calling a man’s penis his pee-pee. Stupid. But it is universally accepted because you know, Oprah used it so it is now the new buzz-word.

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