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Category: Fun

I think vajayjay is a nice word, don’t you?

The New York Times on the history of the vajayjay.

It’s interesting that the term was thrown out on Grey’s Anatomy not only to be funny (although it was), but because “broadcast standards” folks didn’t like the repeated uses of the word “vagina”:

Shonda Rhimes, the creator and executive producer of “Grey’s Anatomy,” who brought the word into full public view, never intended to promote a euphemism or slang term for the female anatomy. Rather, she fought to use vagina in the script.

“I had written an episode during the second season of ‘Grey’s’ in which we used the word vagina a great many times (perhaps 11),” Ms. Rhimes wrote in an e-mail message. “Now, we’d once used the word penis 17 times in a single episode and no one blinked. But with vagina, the good folks at broadcast standards and practices blinked over and over and over. I think no one is comfortable experiencing the female anatomy out loud — which is a shame considering our anatomy is half the population.”

Which I think lends a lot of credence to the argument that we should just call human anatomy what it is (of course, what you’re staring at probably isn’t a vagina in the first place — it’s a vulva — but I suppose that’s beside the point).

Dr. Carol A. Livoti, a Manhattan obstetrician and gynecologist and an author of “Vaginas: An Owner’s Manual” (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2004), said vajayjay and other euphemisms and slang offend her and can render women incapable of explaining their symptoms to health professionals. “I think it’s terrible,” Dr. Livoti said. “It’s time to start calling anatomical organs by their anatomical name. We should be proud of our bodies.”

“It seems like a step backward,” she added.

I agree with her on the first point — that we should call organs by their anatomical names — but I don’t think it’s a step backward. As the article points out, I do think there was a need for a popular word for vulva “that is not clinical, crude, coy, misogynistic or descriptive of a vagina from a man’s point of view.” Vajajay isn’t insulting; it isn’t trying to be mysterious; and at least it sounds a bit like “vagina,” unlike most of the other vag-related euphemisms. While it would be ideal if everyone would just get over the fear of using medically accurate terminology, as it stands, a lot of women are uncomfortable referring to their “vaginas,” but further uncomfortable using other popular terms for “vulva” (despite my love of Eve Ensler, I just can’t get on the “cunt” train). So I can see how most genital-related terminology feels alienating for a lot of women. Even I don’t like the term “vulva.” (Not because I have any problem with vulvas, but because “vulva” reminds me of “uvula,” a word — and a body part — I think is pretty gross and weird, but that’s neither here nor there). So I can’t take issue with the popularization of a term many women feel comfortable with. And hey, it’s got Oprah talking about her vajayay on air — can’t complain about that.

As Joel McHale, the host of “The Soup,” put it: “It’s not derogatory. It’s not ‘You’re being such a vajayjay right now.’ It’s kind of a sweet thing.”

“Vajayjay,” he said, “is like your good buddy.”

And it is a good, good buddy.

Personally, I find sexual euphemisms hilarious. My favorite vag-related one is “giney-town” (“giney” has a j-sound at the beginning). And, obviously, I love “Jill-ing off” as a reference to female masturbation.

What are your favorite euphemisms for genitalia and sexual activity? And am I the only one who still refers to sex as “boning”?

Zip code fun

Via Bean, here’s a fun little tool that gives you economic and demographic information for your zip code, and compares it to surrounding zip codes.

One huge caveat: this is based on 2000 census data. And things have changed a lot in the past 7 years. My neighborhood, for example, into which I moved just over 6 years ago, has gentrified quite a bit just since I’ve been here. So I’m pretty skeptical that the median income figures and the percentage of the households under the poverty line are the same. OTOH, there are still a ton of immigrants, many of them low-income, so I don’t know. Certainly, the figures make sense relative to, say, Park Slope (11215).

Posted in Fun

Name that innuendo!

Go visit Terrance for a commercial from New Zealand that brings the double entendres.

All I can say is, I’m not surprised a gay guy had to look up “beef curtains.” 😉

And Now, For Something Completely Different!

img_0007.jpg Greetings Feministers!

I’m Rosanne Griffeth of the Smokey Mountain Breakdown and I will be using my guest blogging appearance to blog about Appalachian women.

I’m a writer and a teller of tales. It’s what I do best. My plan is to post essays and stories between Feministe and my blog through the week, each dealing with an aspect of these amazingly strong women’s lives. While my stories are largely fiction, they are derived from oral traditions passed on to me from the women of Grassy Fork, Tennessee. So, if there is an essay on Feministe…there will be a story on the SMB that relates to the essay…or if there is a ficlet here, I’ll be running my mouth over there.

Perhaps my two favorite fictional representations of Appalachian women are Fairlight Spencer in Christy by Catherine Marshall and Ruby Thewes in Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. Both of these women ring 100% true to me, perhaps because I live 5 miles from the factual “Cutter’s Gap” and 20 miles from the factual Cold Mountain. My essays and stories will be drawn from my observations from this still remote area of Appalachia.

About me… I have a BA and an MFA in Theater. My emphasis was on costume design with a research interest in dramatic criticism, specifically feminist theater and women playwrights and women’s roles of the English Restoration period. I spent my early career working in “the vanities” of the film industry as a make-up artist and wig master throughout the US and the UK. I then moved on to costume design and from there to broadcast media at CNN.

My writing is heavily influenced by Marjorie Rawlings and Flannery O’Connor. I avoid Faulkner like the plague. I am, indeed, a Southern writer of the Dead Mule school in the sub-genre of Southern Gothic. I’m extremely interested in the intersection of beauty and the grotesque. I’m very interested in the psychology of faith.  I’m also a contributor for Hillbilly Savants, Appalachian Writers and Dew on the Kudzu.  If you are looking for political correctness, you will be sadly disappointed in me.

KidzillaI now live on a mountaintop with my dogs and my goatherd. I consort with and write about Jesus’ Name Serpent Handlers, moonshiners, cock fighters, tent revival preachers, and sweet little old women who are waiting to die.

Welcome to my world and I hope you enjoy my visit on Feministe.

Tomorrow I will talk about the history of women in Appalachia and have a retelling of local story from the post-Civil War era.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

Well, it’s been quite the week, hasn’t it?

My time here at Feministe is coming to an end, and I just wanted to say a quick thanks to Jill et. al. for handing over the keys to the Porsche. I hope I didn’t put too many dings in it.

In all seriousness, this has been an awesome (though also occasionally terrifying and/or overwhelming) experience. Y’all — commenters, readers, bloggers, everyone — have consistently surprised me in the best of ways with your generous contributions and challenges and support. I’m a girl who likes to stir the pot on issues I care about, and y’all stirred it right back at me, in ways I couldn’t even have anticipated. That was the best part.

In gratitude, and because I can’t resist, I leave you with three parting gifts:

1) A Call to Action

Some of you may already know that the Elizabeth Stone House here in Boston suffered a devastating fire this week. Stone House has been doing heroic work for over 30 years and is the only domestic violence emergency shelter in the state that allows women to stay with their children while they get help, and it also houses a groundbreaking program for women with mental health issues which empowered them to take a strong role in their own care. These losses are devastating for the displaced women and children, who obviously are already at a major crisis point in their lives, even before this fire. Check this quote from The Boston Globe:

But for Erika, who had just set up the playpen for her infant and was hauling the last of her goods into the apartment Tuesday afternoon when the building started to burn, the loss was impossible to quantify.

“I’m just devastated,” said Erika, 34. “I just know my life was starting over . . . [now] I have nothing — nothing, nothing, nothing.”

No donation is too small to matter in a crisis like this. If you’ve got anything at all to spare, here’s how to give.

2) A Shameless Self-Promotion

If you enjoyed my blogging, you’ll probably enjoy my performances. The best way to keep track of when & where I’m on stage next is by joining my email list. (Mostly I perform in New England/NYC, though I definitely get to Montreal sometimes and I take gigs anywhere I can find them, so you never know. I do have stuff coming up for the Fall, it’s just not on my gig calendar yet, sorry.) You might also check out Big Moves, as a lot of what I do these days is make theater & dance-style trouble with those broads.

You can also make some trouble of your own by buying & wearing my Sticks & Stones Clothing tshirts, all of which feature insults usually used to shut us up (i.e. lying, man hating whore, angry black woman, hairy-legged lesbian, etc.).
lisa shirt

Because words can’t hurt us if we make tshirts out of them. You can get them in a wide variety of styles, sizes & colors. Plus, every purchase you make supports a struggling feminist writer/performer. (That would be me.)

While I’m at it, let’s call this the Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday thread, since no one else seems to have started one. Promote away!

& finally:

3) Some NSA Love for Everyone, Even The Trolls.


(Be sure to watch through to the end, there’s an extra payoff. H/t Flea.)

Sleeping with the Enemy, Part 3

In which we discuss all those swirly questions about who I fuck(ed), why it matters, and whether or not we should even be discussing it at all.

(For background on my sitch, and an ongoing discussion of the role of men in feminism, check out Part 1.

For a not-as-irrelevant-as-it-seems-at-first tangent on what to do when your friend is dating a manipulative fuckwad, check Part 2.)

So. Yes. From 1992 until 2006, I dated and slept with only women, genderqueers and queer-identified transmen. And then, last year, after the excruciating breakup of a four year relationship that I had expected at one point to last forever, and after a period of months in which I couldn’t imagine dating anyone at all, ever again, I discovered I was curious about dating cisgender men.

Now, I never identified as simply “lesbian” (though I did come out that way to my parents, since I feared that if they knew I was still attracted to men as well as women they would just insist I “choose” to be het). I used “bisexual” for a while, but never really felt like it fit, and eventually realized that I hated the term for the way it re-inscribes the gender binary. But labels aren’t — at least that particular label isn’t — the point here. The point is, it’s not like I woke up one day and realized I was still or again attracted to cisgender men. The attraction wasn’t news to me. The desire to act on it was.

I had dropped out of the world of men for complicated reasons. You can read more here if you like, or else suffice it to say that once I discovered that I was attracted to women, I immediately realized that I had no reason to deal with male bullshit at all anymore. Even after a decade plus of evolution and change, it still surprises me sometimes to find that I’m now in a serious relationship with a Factory-Direct Guy.

But how I got from Point A to Point B isn’t what I want to talk about here, either. It’s what it means now, to me, to my family, to my community, to society.

Read More…Read More…

Sleeping with the Enemy, Part 2

I know I promised to make Sleeping with the Enemy, Part 2 about what happens in your community, family & culture when you go from over a decade of queer relationships to dating a straight cisgender man, but honestly, I’m fighting off some narsty illness that’s swollen my throat nearly shut and made me run a temp last night, and we’re still (unbelievably) debating the validity of gender essentialism in the thread for Sleeping with the Enemy, Part 1 (on working with men as feminists/feminist allies), so I’m gonna go a little lighter today. We’ll get into all that mess tomorrow.

For today, I need to tell you about my friend. (And if you read my last post, you’ll know that I’m frank enough about my own life that “friend” isn’t some slantwise way to refer to myself.) She’s an old friend. College roommate. The kind of good friend you can fall out of touch with for months or even a year or two and then pick up where you left off, because you just know each other and love each other and it’s all good.

Well, that recently happened — we just got back in touch after a period of not connecting, and she’s involved with this guy. Or, rather, she’s involved with That Guy. That Guy who makes jokes about wanting to watch when he found out she & I would be sharing a room on a recent road trip (not that she & have ever been sexually involved).  That Guy who is hostile and condescending to waitstaff because he thinks it will amuse the people he’s with. That Guy who so couldn’t deal with the time my friend was spending on a creative, important, career-crucial work project last year that they broke up for a while. That Guy who doesn’t understand why she likes to read about people who are different from her.

My Current Guy & I had lunch with the two of them recently, and it was… surreal. I won’t go into all the details here, in the interest of maintaining anonymity for the innocent and the pretty darn guilty, but suffice it to say we spent the greater part of the afternoon listening to a story that featured prominently the theme of him treating a prostitute more nicely than anyone had treated her before. Say it with me gals: Our Hero!  

My question for y’all is this: what can I do? I’ve learned through many mistakes that you can’t pass judgment on other people’s relationships, not only because you can never really know what it’s like on the inside of it, but because it doesn’t work — it generally makes the very people you think you’re trying to help get defensive and stop talking to you about anything negative relating to the relationship. But at the same time, I haaaaaate this guy and it makes my skin crawl to think of him touching my friend. My friend who is is particularly susceptible to people who suggest that anything she blames them for is actually her fault.

What do you do when someone you love isn’t in an abusive relationship, per se, but is really, actually sleeping with the enemy?