National Conference on Media Reform

Get News & Views Updates

 

Popular content

On Lady Caves, Fun Tunnels and Other Unmentionables

by Abby Zimet

In case you missed it, Michigan legislators Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum were banned from the House floor after they dared to use anatomically correct language - including Brown saying, gasp, "vagina" - to describe the women's body parts actually right then being legislated during debate on an anti-abortion bill. She was banned, House Speaker Jase Bolger later explained, for not keeping "the proper level of maturity and civility." Translation: She insisted that if the House was going to go into the wildly inappropriate and profoundly invasive business of regulating her body parts, thus rendering their internal organs a public space, they should at least call them by their proper name, not distance themselves by airbrushing women altogether out of the debate. Whether their GOP colleagues can, in fact, bring themselves to say all those nasty lady part names remains to be seen. For the pre-pubescent among them, some suggestions for less upsetting terms. Maybe they can ask their moms how to pronounce them.

Comments

Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...