It’s homeopathic math, and it really works! Biodork analyzes some personal lubricants, and discovers that all you have to do is add some homeopathic dilutions of boring stuff like salt water to the functional ingredients, and you can write florid ad copy for it and charge twice as much.
Homeopathy really is magic that way — it potentiates profits.
Also, calling it “Yoni’s Bliss”? Genius! Who wouldn’t want blissful yonis?
I could see that becoming a bit distracting, actually O.o
Ugh. “Yoni”? That’s annoying. Yoni, hoo ha, lady bits, puntang, etc. – all these names make me cringe. I know this isn’t the subject of the post, but for some reason it irks me. IWhy is it so hard for people to deal with the word “vagina”?
Vagina.
There, I said it.
Vagina.
Again.
Vagina!
Okay, okay, I’m done now!
You don’t even have to be a Republican lawmaker to feel uncomfortable.
There is much more to the female genitalia than just the vagina, you know. The reverse kind of bugs me, that we talk about the vagina as if that’s everything, when there’s so much more of interest.
My grasp on sanskrit is about as good as a homeopat’s grasp of reality, but isn’t yoni>vagina?
Of course, the only English word I know that would cover my understanding of yoni might cause offence.
I think PZ grossly mischaracterises homeopathy in this piece though. 1+0=10 is IMHO far more true than homeopathy.
Yoni -> VULVA.
FFS.
I has made an unclear. Substitute < for "more than" in the above. As in vaguna, vulva and possibly quite a bit of other parts too.
Also – writing on a bus with the cellphone certainly helps my devotions to Tpyos.
Apologies, I should be careful not to be reductionist. Somewhere down the line I merged “vagina” and “general female genitalia” in my mind and now it’s manifested itself in how I used them interchangeably. Appreciate the criticism, PZ. Point taken.
@Azkyroth: Actually, Monier-Williams’ dictionary gives the primary senses as: “the womb , uterus , vulva , vagina , female organs of generation (together with the liṅga , a typical symbol of the divine procreative energy)”. It can also mean a number of other things (as is the wont of words in Sanskrit). Some highlights are “mine”, “copper”, and a particular river somewhere
Maybe Yoni is a diminutive form of the rabbit word for hedgehog. Hedgehog’s Bliss!
(Two years of reading Pharyngula and the chance to make a bad Watership Down joke is what finally inspires me to register. It’s about priorities.)
It’s only in western culture that yoni has been more strongly associated with the vulva than anything else, and that’s probably due in large part to our constant insistence on treating all parts of female genitalia and reproductive organs as “the vagina”. Stone yonis are carved to represent an actual passage and an enclosed space, occasionally with a hole within it to hold a stone lingam like this.
You could say the protruding portion corresponds to the vulva, but the emphasis is on the internal organs.
(shortcut to the Endless Thread and older topics)
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/page/3/
Here is a related Jezebel article regarding the use of “Vagina” instead of Vulva, and I gotta say, I agree:
http://jezebel.com/5921451/i-dont-care-about-your-stupid-vulva-its-all-vagina-to-me
1 + 0 does equal 10 if 1 and 0 are characters or strings.
/codemonkey
Ironically, while it’s common to take people to task for semantically fusing all parts of the female genitalia into the ‘vagina’, the term vulva actually does something very similar. It fuses a number of distinct organs into a collective. There’s no one organ called the vulva and nothing else.
I believe the brain is the same.
Me, because I’m speaking fucking English, and the word is “vulva” or “vagina” as appropriate. Established loan-words are enough: we don’t need to be borrowing more as woo-friendly neologisms.
@13: That Jezebel piece misses the problem that “vagina” as the general term reinforces the conception of women’s genitals in general as being reduced to the part that (mostly) men care about for getting themselves off and not the part(s) that (more, possibly most) women care (more) about for getting themselves off.
Oh! I just saw it’s Lindy West! That explains the uncritical perspective insisting that her preferred word is entirely fine on the sole basis that it’s the one she likes, ignoring or dismissing the possibility that it functions in ways that have impacts beyond her immediate enjoyment!
As for why this is wrong, an analogy: “I like ‘cunt’ as a word to describe women, because it sounds funny to me! I know it only refers to part of a woman’s anatomy and not the whole person, but it’s what I like, so I’m going to keep using it and fuck you for criticizing me. It’s just a word, so who cares?” Language matters, and as a (somehow?!) professional writer, West should understand that.
@14: Using “vagina” as synecdoche is sexist and heterosexist, while “vulva” specifically refers to a collection of tissues and organs. “Vulva” is not synecdoche like “vagina” in that sense, because “vulva” always refers to a collection of tissues – it doesn’t in any sense purport to refer to a single organ.
In case anyone is missing this bit of context for the word-choice question, vagina is a Latin word primarily meaning “sheath”, as in: a place to put your gladius (short sword) when not holding it in your hand.
That seems to define it as a negative space, rather than an actual part of a body. Those who are aware of this may well cringe at the use of ‘vagina’ driving out other words that have never had such narrow and sexist implications.
Oh and Hi bcmystery. Since this is Pharyngula, let me get in quick before one of the OMs tells you to silflay hraka.