A while back I decided I wanted a word that described the external part of female genitals, a word that would capture the anatomical sense of PHALLIC but in relation to female. I discarded vaginal quickly as it places too much focus on the interior (see 3 below). YONIC is a good counterpart to PHALLIC in an extended and usually abstract metaphorical sense, e.g., if I were a baby boomer English major, I might talk about the phallic versus yonic versification in a comparison of selected writings of Ayn Rand and Tolkien. What is a counterpart in the physical sense? Does YONIC work as well as PHALLIC in that case? My concern was about how to express the adjectival form of VULVA, how to express the concept "being (physically) like a VULVA" in the same neat, concise, and non-ambiguous way that PHALLIC can be used to describe everything from skyscrapers to cigars.
Sticking with the most concrete definitions (that is, not the abstract extensions of being "like X" in form, function, or philosophical metaphor), here is an overview of some mostly coherent thoughts on the matter. Mostly coherent because in addition to the fever I still have, I am starting to feel the brain clogging tendrils of anxiety about the MRI I have this evening. I'm sure this is affecting my, well, everything. I've had to edit this post numerous times now for purely superficial problems. Oh well, apologies in advance for any difficulty the ones I might have missed cause.
1) Phallus/phallic
- We got it from Latin. They got it from Greek. In both ancient languages, it was used to describe the actual protruding part. No ambiguity here. No "meat and/or two veg". It's the meat. It can mean more than that...
Wordnet: relating to a phallus especially as an embodiment of generative power
...but it still can be used unambiguously to describe something which shares physical properties of the anatomical term PHALLUS
(btw, wordnet doesn't even have an entry for YONI or YONIC)
2) Yoni/yonic
- Sanskrit. In the physical sense in modern English use, apparently it's not so clear what part a YONI is. I haven't personally studied Sanskrit so I'm left to rely on second and third hand interpretations but it looks like the jury's out as to what part exactly YONI refers to and therefore whether or not YONIC properly refers to being like vag, vulv, or womb. Here are some representative definitions and etymologies.
AHD: Definition: Hinduism. A stylized representation of a vulva worshiped as a symbol of a goddess or Shakti.
Etymology: Sanskrit yoni[h], womb, abode, source.
Wiktionary: 1. The womb, 2. The vulva, especially when worshiped as a symbol of a goddess or Shakti
Wikipedia: The word yoni (Sanskrit योनि yoni) is the Sanskrit word for the female reproductive organ. Translated directly into English, it could mean vulva or vagina.
Wiki does suggest YONI as the basis for the Western-used adjective YONIC, which is the counterpart to the term PHALLIC. However when you click the link to YONIC in that wiki entry, it gives the definition of YONIC as in the shape of a vulva or vagina, in the shape of a yoni which continues and possibly even adds to the confusing and non-specific senses of the term. I don't know if this ambiguity arises out of sexism or ethnocentric laziness. Someone who has studied Sanskrit and Indic languages would have much better insights about this I suspect. The point is though that in the modern English usage, the term YONI and YONIC seem best described as higher class phrasings of "meat and/or two veg" (see 1, above).
Therefore, I concluded that if I want a word to characterize and object based mostly on a physical resemblance to the external part of female genitalia, the word YONIC was a little imprecise.
Before I go on to VULVA, let me describe the specific situation where the word was required. I think it helps to understand the full context in order to make the correct word choice.
At one point in my life, I had decided that a noticable number of men seemed to be afraid of women's purses. If you're female and you want to test this, carry a big leathery purse and put it down on a man's desk/work space. It should be up as close to eye and face level as possible and definitely in line of sight. You don't even need to root around in it although you might be tempted to in order to draw attention to it, if you do this, you can't observe your subject without exposing him to an unnaturally divided attention which could influence his behavior. Best bet is just put it up where he has to see it in order to look at you or even in your direction while you two are talking.
For the unconvinced, I present as (further) evidence the humor (and pejorative connotation) of the term and concept "man purse". It seems reasonable to say the humor is largely if not entirely related to the very strong association between a purse and a thing exclusively and embarassingly female. If a man is wearing a dress, we've got common use words for that (e.g., drag, transvestite(ism), cross-dressing) which aren't all considered automatically humorous and which don't require male specific modifiers. However, MAN-PURSE is funny, right? It belongs to the same class as "he-pussy", "man whore" (yes, I will pretty much watch anything), and "man-boobs". Whether or not you personally find those terms funny, several people thought they were funny enough to constitute a core part of entertainment which they expected people to pay for.
We can postulate a productive algorithm which involves adding a masculine identifier before something strongly female: [man, he] + [boob, purse, pussy, whore]. I realize that I am saying women's clothes are not considered as inherently or strongly female as something like a purse, a highly female and highly negative role (whore), or a part of a woman's body. Maybe we as a society will find a need for words like "man earring" or "man necklace" although I've never heard those (have heard just plain ol' "earring" and "chain"). So I would say this does suggest a pattern in which purse is more feminine/female even than things like jewelry, and my proposed explanation for that is the combination of its use as a woman's accessory and the purse's actual physical resemblance to a vulva.
Hey I just realized we can add in [minivan] as well. I think the minivan characteristics might be a little bit of a stretch as based in a directly physical analogy to female anatomy, but not a whole lot. In this case it's a little more function than morphology, but it is physical.
A slight detour on minivans:
The minivan came first, not the SUV. The SUV is a masculinized minivan, and it was masculinized by removing things that made it seem passive, by remarketing it as being primarily for outdoors shit and not for carting kids around. The first SUVs were extremely uncomfortable to ride in - seats like boulders and a suspension that would rattle the man-earrings off your pretty little head. Minvans remain as large and road-wise significant as all but the super gianormous SUVs but possess different physical features that mark them as [-male, + female]. Those features are largely stylistic details like how high up the driver sits (low and presumably dominable in the female minivan) and design (boxy exterior, angular lines in the SUV versus Rounded edges, tapered front end in a minivan). Minivans have unexpected openings which confuse and sometimes bother people unfamiliar with them (sliding doors which intrude less into other people's space versus "regular" doors which open out and into the car parked next to the SUV).
From Forbes.com: Minivans don't need Chili Palmer to make them look cool anymore. These days, the fanciest options packages on minivans...have elevated them beyond the merely utilitarian into the downright luxurious. But beneath their glossy new veneers, minivans are still about transporting large groups of children and groceries--and with typically better fuel economy than comparably sized SUVs and pickups.
Minivans do follow the algorithm, although in a slightly more phonologically efficient way, resulting in manivan.
So I was sitting there one day (substances may have been invovled) wondering what the hell the right word for something like this would be. It needed to be something describing the thing ( a purse in that instance) in terms of its similarity in form and somewhat in function to the external visible part of female genitals. And so the term VULVA was raised at this point. VULVA seemed the right basis for whatever word I was looking for to describe this property.
3a) Vulva
-Latin
Online Etymology: 1548, from L. vulva, earlier volva "womb, female sexual organ," lit. "wrapper," from volvere
Wiktionary: From Latin vulva, earlier volva ‘womb, female sexual organ’, probably from volvare ‘to turn, wrap arround’.
AHD: The external genital organs of the female, including the labia majora, labia minora, clitoris, and vestibule of the vagina.
A usage note from Wikipedia: In common speech, the term "vagina" is often used improperly to refer to the vulva or female genitals generally, even though strictly speaking the vagina is a specific internal structure and the vulva is the exterior genitalia only. Calling the vulva the vagina is akin to calling the mouth the throat.
3b) Vulval/vulvic/vulvar/vulvalic/vulalescent?
Wiktionary didn't have separate entries for any adjectival forms, instead listing them under "derived forms" in the VULVA entry (PHALLIC and PHALLUS each get their own entry in Wiktionary).
Wordnet: vulvar, vulval (of or relating to the vulva)
AHD gives the following adjectival forms: vulval, vulvar, vulviform, vulvate (the latter two of which were not listed in wordnet).
Which means that if you want to describe something as being like a vulva, it seems you can simply take the word VULVA and add whatever adjectival marker suits you at the moment. I believe this lack of standard form (compared to the very agreed upon "phallic") is due to an underusage of this specific term (and perhaps the concept). I see the underusage of the term, the ambiguity of YONI and YONIC, and the usage of VAGINAL to refer incorrectly but commonly to something that is more properly vulval, as linguistic evidence that we as a society still have an extremely limiting view of women's sexuality, one which is seen through the fingers of the hand mom or dad places over our eyes when something naughty is happening. Who can be expected to get a good look if they are always looking away? Of course, we are not always looking away, but when we are allowed to take a good look, what we are shown is usually a yoni, given the best sense of the word as it is used in our modern language, a stylized representation of female sexuality.
