You're Such a Pam Head!

In the last year, Heather of Dooce has written a couple of posts wherein she talks about what word they're going to use with Leta when referring to the vagina. In the end they decided on bunky. This has got me thinking- How am I going to refer to Nico's private parts? For a long time I've just assumed that I'd just call it what it is, a penis. I've never been a big fan of the cutesy names that parents tend to use when referring to their chidrens' bodily parts and functions. Even as a 3 year old I remember being acutely embarrassed for my little friend who's mother insisted on referring to peeing as "tinkling." "Poor kid," I thought to myself, "Her mommy just sounds like a big BABY when she says that. It's called PEEING, not tinkling you sillysillydumb lady..." Now that I'm a parent though, I'm realizing that there's a reason for those cutesy names. The reason is that as a mother you find yourself having to refer to those body parts more than you ever dreamed possible. "Oh honey, look how red your penis is!" "Is your penis hurting?" "How about we stop pulling on our penis now, look, here's a toe!" "Okay then, we've washed your little knees and your little bellybutton so whadd'ya say  we now wash your...um, penis?" It just isn't working. Since Mr. D is Colombian, I've thought about using the Spanish word, pene (pronounced as "penne") instead but I don't know if I'm comfortable with that because in general I try to keep penises and pasta in two very different mental compartments.

I then thought about just copying Heather and calling it a bunky. Couldn't Nico have a bunky too? Upon further reflection though I decided that cute as it may be, bunky is definitely not a name for a penis. Nope, a bunky is a vagina and if she's not a vagina, she's a society lady who hangs out at "the club" with people named Buffy and Miffy and Maeve. She drinks sidecars and has frosted hair and she complains about "the help". A vagina can be named after a society lady but you most definitely cannot name a penis after one.

So what to do? A friend of mine decided to refer to her son's penis as his "willy" but I don't think I can do that because I'm sort of starting to feel sorry for all the Willys of the world who now seem destined to suffer the same fate as the Dicks of yore, at least amongst the toddler set. Until 30 or 40 years ago, Dick was a completely acceptable and even common nickname for the name Richard. But then something happened and the next thing all those poor Dicks knew, their name had become irrevocably linked to genitalia and jerks. Just imagine what it would be like if one day you woke up and your name meant penis... Imagine for example, that Pam meant penis. Imagine people yelling things like "Hey fuck off you big Pam head!" or "Hey! Suck my Pam you asshole!" Imagine how that would feel for all the poor Pams in the world? 

Since words that are names are out, I've made a decision. I'm going to name Nico's penis after my new shoes. The brand of these shoes is Sou Sou (pronounced So-so) and it's called that after the tendency of Japanese people say say "Ah sou sou" meaning something like "Oh really" or "Oh, I see, I see." Of course I'll be teaching him the proper name as well but in the meantime, now I have something that I'll be comfortable in saying and plus, during lulls at parties I can say,  "I named my son's penis after my shoes" and thus be sure to get the conversational ball rolling again.

Comments

[littleshika]

I grew up in a family of all girls and we called it a "biberla."
I don't remember when penis & vagina came into my vocabulary, but i think it was sometime after I had left home for college that I had the full realization that my mom had made this word up. I had always just assumed that this was what everyone called it ("it" being the clitoris, not the vagina) but that it wasn't polite to talk about these things in public and that's why i never heard the word outside of my own family.

I've only stumbled onto your blog today, via http://ervilhas.weblog.com.pt/ so I still don't know much more about you than what your "about" page tells me. You live in Japan, but do you speak japanese? I assume that you know all the cute japanese words for penis, like "asoko" "chinchin" and my husband's favorite, "chimpo."
He almost died laughing when I clued him in to that one when we watched the South Park episode with "Chimpokemon."

anyway, I enjoy your blog. yoroshiku~

[Anna]

I'm feeling very fond of both pakengkeng and hoo hoo

[Sarah]

OH MY GOD - we used to call my brother's willy a 'tail'. That's all kinds of wrong, I really don't like it. And boobs - buzzies. kimochi ga warui.

[Sarah]

I'd definitely go with 'Willy'. As for the girl's bit. mmmm. Yeah I kinda like Bunky, 'front bum' is definitely out. Hoo hoo is cool.

[Denise]

The joys of motherhood. There are so many things to think about, I think being a mum must be the hardest job in the world.

As kids they were fanny for girls and willy for boys. What was most distressing as a child was hearing the word fanny openly used on american shows. As it turms out, fanny means bum to them.

[Annejelynn]

This one was the primo choice substitute word for 'penis' used oh-so enthusiastically by my Bear Lake, Idaho cousins: "Tallywhacker"

[Heather]

Oh dear lord. All these things I have yet to think of. Now I'm not only worried about getting this baby into the world, I'm worried about feeding it, and cleaning it, and now what to call it's private areas. Does this worrying ever end?? :-)

[kaitlyn]

we're going to go with the tagalog word for vagina, "pakengkeng" for MJ's little girl parts... the only thing i remember about my own experience growing was it being referred to as "crotch". As in, "stop holding your crotch in public!"

good choice!

[Anne in New Jersey]

I really don't like "bunky" for a vagina. All I can think of is "This is bunk" or something like that, which means roughly "this is crap" or "this is garbage."

I think sou sou is rather cute.

Growing up, the girls and the boys in my family all referred to their penises and vaginas as "pee-pee makers" which was perfectly sensible. We knew that the boy pee-pee maker was different than the girl pee-pee maker because we were bathed together up until a certain age. Not a big deal. The only problem was that in sixth grade at a slumber party I was humiliated when I unwittingly revealed the fact that I didn't know what a vagina was, that I had, in fact, never heard the word. In sixth grade.

[Jenn]

Haha. Maybe you should switch to zou zou :) It would be a confidence builder.

[gleek]

hahaha, that's brilliant. i'm sure that when nico gets older and he hears some japanese stammering, "ah, soooou, sooou", he'll immediately reflect upon his nether regions. language barriers will never seem the same again after that.

[Carmen]

Good choice!! I guess I am a new mom and I haven't got to deal with the terminology problem but it would be good to have a word that just the three of you know so you can talk about it openly without anyone knowing what are you sou souing about. I just discovered your blog, I used to live in Japan too and it brings back good memories. In my case my husband is the american and I'm the Spaniard.

[kimblahg]

the girl bits seem more appropriate for bunker. the vag is rather bunker like. hmm

we called it penis and pee-pee interchangeably. his school kind of freaked me out with a hand out on using the correct anatomical name in case of attempted molestation so any authority would know what the kid was talking about. ick.

(next time i have penne pasta i'm totally going to think "penis pasta")

[OfficeMonkey]

My boyfriend recently revealed as a child he used to call his "winkle".

hours of amusement for us now, its passed into the frequently used language by all of our friends :)

[Anna]

Hmmm, a bunker... Very clever. On the other hand, it could be mistaken for "bonker" which wouldn't be good at all.

[Jenn]

Brilliant! P started calling Momo's vagina her "hoo-hoo". It's better than what my mom used to call mine: "front bum"!

[dooce]

we decided that if we ever have a boy, we'll teach him to call his parts a bunker.

bunky. bunker.

because we're thinkers.