Thousands Of Women Told Us What They Call Their Vaginas & Vulvas — Here Are The Results

By Natalie Gil

When a man called Paul Bullen tried to mansplain women’s sexual organs on Twitter, he fell into a common trap: getting the vulva (the external part that includes the clitoris, labia, and vaginal and urethral openings) and the vagina (the internal canal connecting the vaginal opening and the cervix) confused. “The correct word is vagina,” Bullen wrote in response to a Guardian tweet about an article entitled “Me and my vulva: 100 women reveal all”. When Twitter users (including gynaecologists and women’s health experts) corrected him, Bullen remained resolute, defending his error as “how actual people speak”. His brazen comeback may have been misguided, but it’s true that ‘vagina’ is often misused — including by women — and many of us are too squeamish to use the term at all.

As part of Refinery29’s big survey of 3,670 readers about their attitudes towards their vulvas and vaginas, parts of our bodies sometimes still shrouded in shame and secrecy, we wanted to know how women refer to their own genitalia. What’s in a name? While the language we use to refer to our body parts may seem trivial, words do matter (clinical psychologist Dr Harriet Lerner describes our collective failure to use ‘vulva’ correctly as “psychic genital mutilation”).

It’s not always that deep, though, and it can be fun to deliberately ascribe a silly name to your genitals (especially in the absence of a better term that encompasses both the vagina and vulva).

So what do women call theirs? Half of our respondents (1,818) call their genitalia their ‘vagina’, but the rest are a little more creative. Our favourites? ‘Pum pum’, ‘lulu’, ‘muffin’, ‘hoohoo’, ‘coochie’, ‘front bottom’, ‘rose garden’, ‘fandandy’, ‘cosmic matrix’, ‘dickhole’, ‘Myfanwy’, ‘growler’, ‘axe wound’, ‘twinkle’. The rest, however, slip more seamlessly into everyday conversation.

Ahead are the top 10 words and phrases women use to refer to theirs…

Fanny

373 women told us they use this classic.

Pussy

Commonly used in porn, 306 respondents use ‘pussy’, with many clarifying that they only do so in sexual situations.

Vag

‘Vag’ was favoured by 202 women.

Bits

154 women use the more gender-neutral ‘bits’.

Foof

‘Foof’ was beloved of 124 respondents. The proportion who’d use it, say, in front of a sexual health nurse, remains to be seen.

Lady

104 women like to personify their genitalia. Hey, no one’s judging.

Vulva

102 said they use ‘vulva’ to refer to their genitalia.

Cunt

52 women use the C-word. Good luck dropping that in front of your GP.

Vagine

‘Vagine’ was favoured by 37 women (and thanks to them, we’re now craving a Moroccan tagine).

Vajayjay

Blame Grey’s Anatomy for this one, used by 36 respondents.

Originally published on https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2019/03/226652/names-for-vaginas