Private Parts, Private Thoughts

“This feels REALLY GOOD on my vagina!” my daughter squeals loudly.

She did NOT just say that I think, pausing in mid-air with a spoonful of dripping frozen yogurt. I’m at a mall with my six-year-old and her friend. We’re enjoying a cold treat on a sweltering afternoon.

The girls are riding some large, steel water pipes covered with green plastic while eating their yogurt. They’re pretending the contraptions are horses named Buttercup and Lighting Rainbow.

“I don’t feel anything,” says her friend, frowning.

“Here, you have to sit like this,” my daughter tells her, wiggling her bottom to demonstrate the correct technique. “It feels SO GOOD on my vagina!”

Oh. My. God. I whip my head around to see if anyone in the vicinity has heard. Luckily, few people are out in the heat.

“I still don’t feel anything,” her friend complains.

Red-faced, I spring from my chair in a patch of shade a few yards away and rush over to my little girl.

“Please don’t say that again or we’re leaving,” I hiss.

“Oh, I forgot,” she says, her smile fading as she ducks her head. “Vagina’s a bad word.”

“Well, no. It’s not,” I stammer. “It’s just not something we talk about in public.” But as I head back to my seat, I’m the one feeling ashamed. Given my reaction, why wouldn’t she think she’d just said something horrible?

I don’t want her to grow up believing a part of her body is bad.

I don’t want her to be embarrassed by perfectly normal feelings.

I still remember how it feels to live with those kinds of thoughts.

By Dorothy O’Donnell