CBSnews.com recently featured a piece entitled Sperm: 15 Crazy Things You Should Know (apparently, according to this article, everyone seems to have a sperm agenda. Who knew?). The sperm article was so well received that Dr. Lissa Rankin, Bay Area OB/GYN, founder of The Owning Pink Center in Mill Valley, and author of the new book, What's Up Down There?: Questions You'd Only Ask Your Gynecologist if She Were Your Best Friend, was approached to write a companion piece on an intimate female topic
Dr. Rankin submitted 15 Curious Things You May Not Know About the Vagina. According to Dr. Rankin's web site, her vagina article lasted all of an hour on CBSnews.com before corporate insisted it be removed. Vagina, a word found in every medical dictionary, was simply too saucy for CBSnews.com, although, as Dr. Rankin points out, the TV commercials for erectile dysfunction that air during their Sunday football games are just fine. Apparently, showing a football bullseyeing a tire swing is just a football sailing through a tire swing. Nothing more.
So it's okay to write about sperm and even include an innuendo about a menage a trois with two guys and gal. It's okay to write about testicles and the prostate (and it should be, because they are accurate medical terminology ). It's okay to mention four hour erections and show sophomoric visual images in the middle of the afternoon to represent penetration. But it's not okay to write about vaginas. Nothing salacious, just some cool facts that might educate.
Should vagina, an anatomically correct medical term, be allowed to see the light of day? Is there a double standard?
What do you think?
For more info go to: http://www.owningpink.com/
Remember this column does not represent individual medical advice
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