I hope that when I’m an octogenarian, I am as funny and clever as these two bloggers who posted this truly awesome piece about the ridiculousness of the recent Michigan Vagina Fiasco. I may have to start referring to the female genitalia as a “front butt” now.

I’m linking to this, here, because all mothers have vaginas, obviously, so a nationwide meltdown about one congresswoman’s use of the word “vagina,” is relevant to us all.

(The short version of the story, if you haven’t followed it, is that Rep. Lisa Brown, a state congresswoman in Michigan, used the word “vagina” in a debate over that state’s bill governing abortion. After using the word, she was banned from speaking in the State House, which, since her job is to be a legislator, means that she is no longer capable of representing the voters who elected her.)

The world contains lots of different people with lots of different views and perspectives, but one thing is clear: women possess vaginas. There is nothing disgusting about that, or about the word itself. After the V-Bomb was dropped, another congressman told the press that the word Rep. Brown had used was:

vile, so disgusting, that he could never bear to mention it in front of women or “mixed company.”

WTF?

We are adults. We can name our body parts, even the amazingly multi-tasking body part involved in birth and sex. It is offensive to all mothers — every mother, no matter her politics — when someone is punished because she mentioned the body part that makes her female.

I do have to chuckle, though, imagining what would have happened if she’d said “vulva”. Of course half her audience would probably have thought she was talking about a kind of car.

Edit, 6/26/12: Just found this excellent cartoon from Tom Tomorrow, a propos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/25/1102290/-Unspeakable