I felt particularly excited this afternoon, because one of my closest girlfriends had come home after a long absence and I was invited to afternoon tea. On the minute, for which I praised myself, I just reached out to push the bell button, when the door was torn open, and the mother of my friend could be identified as the originator.
„Oh, how beautiful is that you are there,“ she greeted me in her inimitably cordial manner.
„I’m very happy, too,“ I said modestly.
„But I have to go away. Although I’m not feeling well, I have pain down there,“ she said, trying to get past me, but my annoyed look made her stink.
„The feet hurt you?“, I asked sheepished, and also full of compassion.
„Oh you sweetness, always for a joke, not my feet. You know what I mean. Now I really have to go, and she stormed past me.
I walked the familiar way into the living room thoughtfully. My girlfriend had already provided the tea, so we could immediately go to medias res.
„Why does your mother actually say ‚down there‘ when she speaks of her genital area?“ I asked straight out.
„You know exactly that these parts of the female body are always somewhat euphemistically circumscribed,“ she said easily, as if it were not important, but I just could not let go.
„Because you just do not talk about it. You just do not need it, at least not so open. Therefore, there is hardly any need for a name. I mean, there is, of course, enough, but you still know what is meant,“ my friend told me easily.
„There are many, but I think I do not know anyone who really does it,“ I said as I pondered on the various possibilities. „First of all, these medical terms are vulva, vagina, and uterus. Not only does it sound very much like a disease, there are also three terms for something that really belongs together, but there is no one who takes it all together.“
„What about all the sweet, cute names. For example, Pussi?“, she added.
„You say it, cute. Then I immediately get the picture of a cuddly, little kitten, which has rolled up on the chimney protrusion. Sure, sometimes she shows her claws, but it is very harmless. No one takes it seriously. And I want this part of me to be taken seriously. „
„And what about all the flowery names, like lotus flower, orchid, bud? They are very beautiful, almost poetic?“, she took another start.
„Beautiful and poetic, like a work of art that is placed in the corner somewhere, but does not want to have it in life. It’s all way too far away. So lifeless and useless,“ I replied her proposals, „And yet it is nothing connected. They always mean the individual parts, and never the whole thing. And when I separate the parts, it is to myself that it does not belong together.“
„Yes, that can be,“ she replied. „But why is it so important for you to name something together, which works without such a connection? Would it change anything in your life or in any woman’s life if we had a term for it? What is it good for?“
„Yes, what for?“ I repeated the question and let it go through my head for a few minutes while I was sipping my tea.
