by Jude Coyle

Created on: September 18, 2010   Last Updated: November 17, 2011

You know what? There are certain subjects that I can go on for hours and hours about. You know what I mean. I could wrap my hands into fists, and stamp my feet, and growl at everyone in sight! And just scream! They are my pet peeves, and they include people who preach at me. Or lie to me. Or preach at me and lie to me. Or better yet, rewrite history and the Constitution to fit their arguments. Politics and what people make it into, just gnaws on my nerves. Tell me the truth about an issue, and don't change your opinion because your audience would prefer a different opinion.

Crap! Crap! Crap! Now where's a dog to kick when I really need him? (Just teasing.)

Okay, as crazy as all of that makes me, there is one other thing that makes me even crazier. I cannot tolerate..... I will not tolerate..... It absolutely makes me nuts when people, women particularly, are embarrassed by medical terms used for body parts. When a family member told me she went to her 'lady doctor', she pointed at her feet and told me she had an examination 'under there.' I asked her, "Do you mean you went to gynecologist for a medical procedure called a pap smear?"

She covered her mouth. "I can't say that," she said. 'It's embarrassing." 

I was changing my new born son's diaper one day when she pointed at his circumcision. "Oh," she said, "His little worm is healing nicely!" Worm? Worm? My baby does not have an appendage that squirms around in the mud. He has a penis!

The same woman had a C-section when her last baby was born. She told me all about not having stitches in her monkey! Monkey? "Oh, well I don't know what that's called," she said.

It's called a vagina. Not a monkey, and definitely not a pussy, because after all that was a term for a cat before it became vulgar, and it is not a cunt. Talk about vulgar!

I have mammary glands. They aren't knockers, boobs, tits, jugs, milk jugs or blammers. Ice caps do not form on my nips when I lay on my back. And they aren't nips or pimples. They're nipples, and each part of the nipple has a proper name. My husband has a penis, and not a rod, or bar, or Johnson. There's a whole range of vulgar or stupid names that have no place in decent speech. 

Knowing this, my adult children have fun teasing me. "Hey, Mom," one will say. "Have you heard the term, Dutch oven? Or camel toe?"

"I cook in a Dutch oven,"

"Not that kind. Look it up on Urbandictionary.com." I have, and I have to admit that some of those terms are laughable, and just plain silly.

There are other terms, used by doctors to describe body parts or medical conditions, and are nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed of. I mean how silly does it sound for an educated adult  to talk about the time her husband had with his pee-pee because he couldn't?

Learn more about this author, Jude Coyle.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.