In case the troglodytes in the Michigan legislature can’t hear us, I’ll make my own voice a little louder:
Vagina. VAGINA. VAGINA!
LOOKING FOR LIFE BEYOND CABLE NEWS AND FINDING THAT RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
- Louis BrandeisTension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
- Chinese ProverbRecent Comments
Whatever Works 
I got the email from Kos. Three cheers to you! But I’m honestly trying to understand these people. They can’t be as stupid as they sound, are they truly that morally challenged?
LikeLike
Vagina. VAGINA. VAGINA!
Would you say that at your grandmother’s Thanksgiving table? Even while being technically accurate I would never refer to my penis at my office.
LikeLike
pino, I’m 70 years old. I have women friends in their 80’s – all grandparents, some are great grandparents. I have no problem at all saying vagina (obviously) or penis and for the most part neither do they. The generation down from me uses those words, perceiving them as simply names for body parts. I do take offense at the vernacular and slang words like tits, ass, prick, pussy etc. because they are vulgar.
As for my own grandmothers – they were born in the 1880’s, so I’m thinking no, I would’t say it to them. They grew up in a world where showing an ankle was a scandal.
LikeLike
I have no problem at all saying vagina (obviously) or penis and for the most part neither do they.
Sure. And it may be appropriate in the privacy of close and trusted friends. Over beers and cigarettes or coffee and the Food Network. My question is, “Would you say it in a formal condition?” Think work, or church, or formal family dinner.
LikeLike
pino, it’s not about where it would be appropriate to say the words for certain body parts; it’s whether it would be appropriate to be talking about body parts at all. People tell sex jokes all the time.We use female sexuality to sell everything from cars to wine. But it’s wrong to say the words? I just htink that’s silly.
By the way – work? yes. church? I dont have a church. family dinners? Maybe, but then I have a brother who has the vapors over everything. Interstingly to me,, he’s a 20-year dittoheadd, who is enthralled by a man who’s on his fourth wife, but thinks it’s a social taboo to say vagina ord penis or breast or anything even hinting of sexuality.
LikeLike
Ms. Holland ,
” “Finally Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no,’” ”
” Vagina. VAGINA. VAGINA! ”
It reminds me of 5 year olds running around giggling and saying hiney, hiney, hiney . The word vagina is not an obscenity, but that statement is . I am sure Rep. Brown would be offended and probably would file a sexual harassment suit if the Speaker had responded with ‘ why yes, since you like the flattery, I am interested in your vagina ‘ . You cannot have it both ways Maam .
LikeLike
You’re not fooling me Alan – you DO think it’s dirty to say it. Her statement was perfect.
LikeLike
Ha ha! Reminds me of that Groucho Marx quote where he says men come out of a woman’s vagina only to spend the rest of their lives trying to get back in.
LikeLike
Ohh I love that Vern! It’s new to me, so thanks. Even Groucho said the terrible word. (Alan . . . did you hear that?))
LikeLike
The statement that might be what got her into trouble – as opposed to trying to introduce frivolous legislation in order to make a point was, “Finally Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no’.”
I find the veiled innuendo of sexual assault quite inappropriate for the venue that she was in.
Alan is right as well. Though I would have more likely responded something to the effect that I had no interest in such well-worn goods and that she shouldn’t be trying conducting her private business affairs on the Floor, there being motels or alleys for such things.
LikeLike
Groucho also said that as long as women keep fighting for equality, they’ll never retain their superiority. 🙂
I get Pino’s point about time and place. If all the guys in Congress or the Senate kept saying, “Penis, penis, penis”, they’d be called out as crude, sexist, neanderthal, uncivilized, etc. and mothers would be covering kids’ ears. Call a woman out for saying “Vagina” repeatedly on the floor and instead of being crude, it’s a male or Republican “war on women”? I disagree.
Here’s the thing, though – there’s a double-standard here that is part of nature that I for one appreciate no matter whether it happens to work in my favor or not at the time. Simply put, I think women should be able to say crude things more than men can, and we shouldn’t be such wimps when we hear it.
In this case, I think yes it was said to shock but it was also said to make a fair point on reproductive rights – that a man is trying to say what she can and can’t do with her reproductive organs – so in my opinion, press-seeking and grandstanding as her comments were, it gets a pass.
LikeLike
Vern – I’d say you articulated my own postion very well: as long as we accept that a woman has reproductive rights, attacks on those rights demand loud and vigorous resistannce. Dictrionary words work better than tears (which I think those guys would prefer so they could say “see! see! she’s not as strong as we are”) or guns.
LikeLike
Boehner’s got the corner on the tears?
LikeLike
Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that! How come Rush never points at him and shouts “wimp”!!!?
LikeLike
We CANNOT go backwards in this country….
LikeLike
Even tho there’s a persistent theocratic element that wants just that.
LikeLike
Not only Can we go backwards in this country, we MUST do so when we’ve been going in the wrong direction.
Now, whether the various issues involving reproduction are each separately and together as a whole a necessary and positive change of course is a matter for debate and argument.
The idea that change to-date has been a positive progress as opposed to a destructive, entropic one is not a fact and must be dismissed when presented as such.
LikeLike
Going back is never possible. Nor is it appealing. Forward is the only acceptable direction. And the arc of history, so far, is with our record of expanding freedoms for individuals.
LikeLike
Going back is almost always possible and is sometimes both appealing and very necessary. I also believe that, if you really think about it, the “arc of history” doesn’t really show that we have a record of expanding freedoms for individuals – except in a few showy manners.
LikeLike
What’s an example of successfully going back?
LikeLike
Here’s several, all law-based; all social / societal in nature; and all a reversal of social trends and restrictions of people’s behavior:
Ending dowry as a legal enterprise
Current laws regarding rape
Age of consent
Child labor laws (mixed blessing from this one)
In all the above cases the US chose to place more restrictive laws governing these things than had been before, despite a supposedly growing trend towards an “anything goes” attitude.
Some of these you could spin into fitting your view, but that spin has no objective validity. Nor, for that point does my own, since any and all acts between multiple people, if regulated increase the restriction of some people’s liberty while increasing (depending upon how you look at these things) other people’s.
LikeLike
Those weren’t a ‘going back’, they were new concepts. I’m not sure what you’re saying here . . . that we ought not to meddle in things like age of consent, definitions of rape, selling women? Really, not getting it.
LikeLike
Going back is never possible.(Moe)
Unfortunately a few well placed bombs and it becomes a reality not a possibility. 😦
I think they should ban the word Vagina as it is too harsh sounding. Now, pussy, that has a warm and fuzzy feel to it. 😉
LikeLike
Maybe she should try that one when they let her back on the floor of ‘their’ Senate.
LikeLike
Hehe…Personally, I prefer the various vernacular terms. Medical terms always – to me – make the person sound supercilious and uppity when not used in a medical context.
Picture your woman saying, “Oh God! I need coitus with you now! Copulate with me!” Total.Mood.Kill. 😆
LikeLike
How is vagina a medical term? It’s a body part. Ear canal, rectum, testicle, nipple, nostril – descriptions of body parts.
LikeLike
Jonolan, have you ever watched a TV show called “The Big Bang Theory”? They talk exactly like that, and it’s hilarious!
LikeLike