I Won't Say Va-Jay-Jay. You Can't Make Me.

I'm watching Oprah the other day and before you start yelling at me, hang on! I was not home twiddling my twat at 3 p.m. on a weekday. I'm a functioning member of society with many jobs. I was watching her show, on my time, on the DVR. Anyway, I recorded this episode because the topic of discussion was about intersex folks, or hermaphrodites if you want to be old school about it. There was a girl who was born as a woman with male hormones. She had breasts but not her period. She was born with testicles that were inside her body, lodged up near her bladder. Ouch.

Obviously the testicles were removed and she lives a normal life now. She's married to a man and has always identified herself as a straight woman. I found myself wondering, "Does she have a...?" Then Oprah broke the ice and said, "So, do you have a va-jay-jay?" The audience squealed with delight. Wheeee! Our sassy black friend said, "Va-jay-jay" and cocked her head! Tee-hee! We're all old enough that penises have entered our vaginas and babies have come out of our vaginas but we fully support the term va-jay-jay! Let's applaud!

I decided that I was being a snob. Who am I to judge Oprah's audience? I'm watching the show too, aren't I? If these ladies want to get loose and giggle at Oprah's slang, well then fine. Perhaps Oprah's producers don’t want moments to get too tender or technical. Perhaps Oprah is encouraged to say silly words that infantilize the way women talk about their bodies to lighten the mood and ease into commercial.

And then I stumbled across an article in the New York Timescalled, "What Did You Call It?" Oprah's va-jay-jay moment was not just some weird one-off thing that I happened to see. Apparently, this is like a huge thing. Oprah says "va-jay-jay" every chance she gets.



Just in case that clip was unclear, Oprah said, "My va-jay-jay is paining me."

I don’t really have a huge problem with that particular clip. Oprah is doing some stunt and trying to be funny. I'm not the comedy police. My issue has nothing to do with whether or not this clip is funny. (For the record, it is not funny.)

The problem I have is that Oprah uses the word "va-jay-jay" when she's not joking. She looked in the face of a transgendered person, who has had enough shit to deal with regarding her sex organs, and referred to this woman's hard-earned vagina as a va-jay-jay. What is wrong with the word vagina? Is it too clinical sounding? They were just discussing penises and testicles in that intersex segment. Why does the word vagina need to be cutesified?

My beef is not with "Grey's Anatomy." I've never seen the show. It's absurd that adults can't say vagina twenty-thousand times an hour if we want to but whatever. Oprah has done countless shows with Dr. Oz about men's health where the word penis is said over and over. She's done shows where she had someone describe to her what "tossed salad" means. You know there are no censors telling Oprah what she can and can't say.

In fact, I remember back when Howard Stern was fighting the FCC he often brought up that Oprah was allowed to talk about certain body parts without getting fined and he wasn’t. Stern couldn’t say "anal sex" but Oprah could because her show is considered educational. Why this refusal to say vagina? Oprah was sexually violated as a kid. She fought the odds and grew up to be a billionaire, trend-setting philanthropist and this is what she wants to do with her power? She wants to build schools for girls in Africa and say va-jay-jay?

Gloria Steinem weighed in on this issue:

Oh Gloria, you optimistic, slightly out-of-touch first wave feminist. Of fucking course that is not the reason Oprah and her audience object to saying vagina. Oprah and her drones think that they are the epitome of irreverent and adorable with their slang. Maybe it's stupid of me to be up in arms over a word. But not saying the word is a subtle implication that there is something wrong with discussing your body and something inherently wrong with your body, especially when there really isn’t a male equivalent to va-jay-jay. I suppose there is pee-pee, but who says that after age eight? In my opinion, embracing the term "va-jay-jay" as an acceptable way to refer to the vagina in an otherwise serious conversation is the equivalent of arguing that taking your shirts off for Joe Francis is a form of feminism. We can do what we want with our bodies! We can talk about our body parts like we're little kids! Now, if you'll all excuse me, I have to go tinkle out of my front bum.