From the downright insulting ‘clunge’ to the sickeningly twee ‘flower’, Naomi Wolf argues that it’s time to revisit how we talk about vaginas

Picture credit: Rex Features

Punani. This six-letter word used to denote the vagina is the glorious and lasting legacy that Ali G bestowed upon the modern idiom. And then 10 years later The Inbetweeners unleashed the schoolboy word of choice, ‘clunge’, onto an unsuspecting nation. Did either word cause widespread outrage among the female population? Hardly. We giggled along at the childishness of it all, shrugged with indifference when it was adopted into everyday lexicon, and got on with life. Colloquialisms for female genitalia are part of our daily language – as are men’s – and have been so for time immemorial. Often, it’s just the awkward British habit of finding a roundabout way to talk about human sex organs without using the correct medical words. Because, let’s be honest, what’s easy about the word vagina? Using that in conversation just makes people shuffle awkwardly and conjures up either medical journals or painfully funny sex ed classes when you stifled giggles for 40 long minutes.

More than that, talking about sex needs the softening effect of humour. Yes, it no doubt casts us all in a rather pitiful, puerile light but, hell, sex is funny. Sexual organs are funny, and the actual deed is always laced with embarrassment and potential life-long humiliation – so what do we do about it? Well, we make a joke of it.

But, while you can no doubt count the various terms we know to describe women’s genitalia – some quite amusing, some, admittedly, pretty horrific – did you ever consider that something deeper and more injurious is at play when words for the female form are used alongside nuances of sexual violence? For instance, how did terms for the vagina become pejorative – slung around now as insults? Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth and firebrand of third-wave feminism looks to explore such questions in her new book Vagina. It’s certainly thought-provoking. Here, writing exclusively for Stylist, she argues that some words to describe female genitalia have taken on such undertones of violence that their regular usage can, in fact, undermine the confidence and self-belief of a woman by affecting the entire nervous system.

So, prepare yourself to think about how we talk about vaginas in a more serious light. Oh, and stop laughing…

Viva la vagina