Viva your Vulva - in Edinburgh

some women would like testosterone to go through the menopause. Prescribed by some specialists to help with the symptoms of VA ( vaginal atrophy)

It would also be good if women who are prescribed testosterone, in order to be transmen, were informed of the likely effects on their female anatomy.

i wish women's anatomy was discussed more openly. There could be frank discussions about vaginal atrophy and allow women to get treatment at an early stage. Unfortunately the lack of treatment means that many women see the disappearance of the vulva and clitoris.

I was going to say it is something that's learnt "on the job" as it were.

You have to take account of peoples upbringings, personal preference and access to the facts.

That is how inclusiveness works, not looking down on people who aren't exactly the same.

I'd also refute that 50 percent of women don't know what floats their boat, sexually.
Everyone works it out in the end, whether they know the correct term or not, I think.

Doodledog

*50% of women aren't sure which is their vulva and which is their vagina.*

If this is really the case it says a lot about the state of sex education and women's health in general. I would guess that 100% of men know what their penis is.

Some of it may come down to children being taught about 'front bottoms' and similar, but that ignorance should be rectified in biology classes at school. Some of it is probably because of a general revulsion at the female body - it's not for nothing that 'the C word' is considered the most taboo in the language - but how are women supposed to explain 'women's troubles' to a doctor, or understand medical conversations about their genitals if they don't have even a very basic vocabulary at their disposal?

Exactamondo raymondo!! My mum was a nurse and taught us precisely nought! School was Catholic grammar and very clinical with chemistry teacher threatening to stop lessons if we continued with sniggering! I used to think it was amazing how a man's penis just knew instinctively where to go! I eventually learned by getting knowledge from books at libraries. Then sex education programs late at night and then trial and error but I know the proper names and locations of my lady parts? mostly by way of a mirror and a bit of contortionist moves! I'd say majority of women even now know very little of what makes us tick sexually ( a great deal to do with useless blokes) I must say that having boyfriends quite a bit older than me helped loads! And my willingness to have a "go" at most things!

Alypoole

Does anyone remember a long conversation on here or it may have been Mumsnet entitled Bonjela on my Fandango. It was hysterical.

Ooh, we don't have fandangos on here, dear.

How about the review for veet mens hair removal cream?
Hilarious, much funnier than "it burned my penis and testicles".

I would guess that 100% of men know what their penis is.
That’s probably the only thing they do know!

Does anyone remember a long conversation on here or it may have been Mumsnet entitled Bonjela on my Fandango. It was hysterical.

I wondered if I had gone back in time when I saw this thread.

The Scandinavian countries tackled this very problem in the 1970s, ladies. Were you all asleep in Britain during the Swinging Sixties, the Flower-Power seventies and the sexual revolution?

We have teams of young professional nurses , doctors and pycologists who discuss sex with 15 year olds. If you are their form mistress or master, you phone and make an appointment for a school trip with your class, take them along, hand them over, and go and have coffee while they are at the session. In the 1970s when the scheme started, we stayed with our classes, but this was soon found only to be productive of embarrassment.

Teachers of biology use the correct medical terms when teaching the human reproductive system to 15 year olds, but apart from that there is nothing wrong with having informal family terms for the female genitalia.

After all, all languagues have terms like willie for little boys' penises. Heaven knows what teachers do nowadays with all the allegations of abuse, but in the '70s when I taught Primary 1, we frequently had to help little boys find their willies and negotiate flies in trousers and underpants, and we would frankly have found it ridiculous if a five year old had said he couldn't find his penis. Wee-wee and willie were the usual terms.

I agree it is ridiculous if grown women do not know actual words for the external genitalia and the internal and are forced to refer vaguely to "down there" or "inside" when talking to a midwife or a gynaecologist, but even if you do know the right word, embarrassment is a common human predicament.

Any medical secretary can probably still tell you of talking to patients who are having trouble with "their waterworks" or bleeding from " the back passage". They are not talking about their tear-ducts or their house's plumbing in the first instance, nor about the corridor leading from the kitchen to the back door in the second. Medical staff are accustomed to sorting through euphemisms - the trouble starts if things are so weirdly described that a doctor can genuinely be in doubt as to what is meant.

In the very dim and distant past when I was 11, there was a helpful little booklet (in English) designed for 11-15 year olds that explained things in both clinical and homely terms with diagrams - not that the bore any real resemblance to the reality of the human body, either male or female.

For the life of me, I cannot remember what it was called, as when I borrowed my cousin's copy, it told me nothing I did not already know, having been well informed by my mother a couple of months before we went out and bought my first bra. "Your questions answered" or "what ever girl and boy needs to know" perhaps? Anyone else remember this booklet?

The male author got my goat by saying the periods could be a nusiance but so was having to shave every morning!

Aged 13, I thought "Ha, bloody ha! He can just stop shaving, but I can't just stop having periods every month."

I have a skin condition called lichen sclerosis (LS) which causes the skin of the vulva to become white, thin and like tissue paper. It splits and is very itchy and can in 5% of people turn into vulva cancer. It can cause the inner and outer labia to fuse and the clitoris head to be buried in scar tissue. There is no cure but it is managed with steroid creams and moisturisers. I have to apply ointments and creams several times a day and check the area regularly and I am absolutely amazed by the amount of women I speak to who do not know the different parts of the female genital anatomy. I even spoke to one lady who thought her urine cane out from her vagina, she had never been told she had a separate part called a urethra!

Thanks for that video Magrithea. I have only watched the first few minutes so far - I love the reactions of the male presenter.

If I was bleeding from "down there" unless I had the medical equipment to do my own scan (that may well be the be lauded, soon) how could I do more than have an educated guess at what's going on?

The main thing is that I had told the appropriate person, who would refer me on to find out what exactly was going on.

MissAdventure

I've just remembered, in my gp surgery, there is a poster of all different bums.
Then a list of all the words used for them..
Then a plea, telling people it doesn't matter at all what they look like, or what they are called.

Just to speak to the gp if they've got problems.

Now that I like! Visual prompts

I don't think ive stopped laughing yet at Witzend and her granny's placket fastener!

I've just remembered, in my gp surgery, there is a poster of all different bums.
Then a list of all the words used for them..
Then a plea, telling people it doesn't matter at all what they look like, or what they are called.

Just to speak to the gp if they've got problems.

My mum used to say, when I was going out, keep your hand on your ha'penny! I still say it to my grown up dds, as a joke

An elderly friend, around 20 years ago, was in hospital and was shocked that nurses used the word bum.
I think she was okay with bottom.

MissAdventure

We don't have to make up words.
We want to.
Nose - Hooter, conk, bugle.
Hair - Barnet.
Feet - plates of meat.

Why not? Life isn't one big biology lesson.

I agree that people want to make up words and use euphemisms, as demonstrated by your examples. The difference is we all know the words nose, hair, feet etc as well as those alternatives. Teach the correct name and then feel free to use whatever alternative is preferred. At least then on those occasions where it matters the correct term can be used.
I do think it's concerning there are women so confused about their own bodies they don't realise there are three body openings, and that they don't pee from their vagina.

I don't really agree with the word "fanny" either as it's a very common girl's name in Scandinavian countries these days. We easily forget the origin of the words that we commonly use and how they may upset some people. I remember when my dear mother-in-law sometimes called our little daughter "Fanny". That was in the 80s.

Found this www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4uhh4FYtis

Miss Adventure, I wish it were so that doctors are broad minded. I know more than average medical terminology and many years ago I used to teach it. When I am interviewing a doctor I feel I have to use lay terms as much as possible, without being coy.

Knowledge of medical terminology , even including basic anatomy, actually is comparatively rare among patients of all social classes and education levels.

I too like the GP surgery programme . It's informative. My own GP surgery is not as nice to patients . The GPs I see never open and close the rather heavy consulting room door for an old lady.

As for smut, I don't like a lot of it but I do enjoy a good pun.

So funny ? or is that Fanny

I lead a very sheltered life and only used words like bum and bottom. My mother told me that the monthlies were just clearing out the body and I didn’t know what a mans sex organs looked like until I joined the WAAF at the age of 19 where we had lectures on VD etc

I love Mrs. Willoughby as a name.