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Sunday, December 2, 2012

A Squatch by Any Other Name



Early in our life together, MathMan wasn't so comfortable saying the word vagina. True, it wasn't something I dropped into casual conversation either. Thinking back, vagina didn't come up that much. What was there to say really? Besides, we're creatures of our time and culture. Those days were different.

Back in the modest 1990s, the media, when met with the need to report on sexual matters, took the careful route. Anchors referred delicately to Monica Lewinsky's stained dress and made oblique references to cigars.

Oh and remember when the nation got all oogey about references to Clarence Thomas's artistic placement of a pubic hair on a Coke can?

Different times.

It's quite easy to see why MathMan felt compelled to invent his own word.

What's questionable perhaps is the word he invented.

The word, the origins of which remain a mystery to all but the most distinguished etymologists, is squatch. It's a weird word that has caused me to wonder on more than one occasion what in the hell must be wrong with my vagina to have inspired it.

Stop being such a narcissist, I tell myself. MathMan has seen more than one vagina. Maybe this word - squatch - is an homage to some other vagina.

Lord I hope so. I mean squatch? Is that an onomatopoeia? Or commentary on one's need to deforest?

Having daughters increased, if only slightly, the need to use the V word. I distinctly remember one such occasion when one daughter, at the age of three, lay on the floor after a bath. Her hands wandered and she proclaimed "Hey, there's a hole in me!"
My first opportunity to teach her the proper word and what did I do? I told her that was her squatch. I may have also mumbled vagina, but it got lost as she tried the word on for size. Squatch? My squatch? My squatch!

The word stuck. Became a part of our family's lexicon forever and ever.

Today American society appears less twitchy about certain words. Now it's all vaginal probe this and erectile dysfunction that. Ashley Madison, a website used by people seeking to have "discreet affairs," advertises on the radio and has its own jingle about sleeping around to "save one's sanity."

Different times.

Now even The Goldens have become more comfortable discussing vaginas and penises and the like. Put a little vodka in me and you're likely to hear me imitate my high school sex ed teacher with the lateral lisp saying vas deferens.

And yet we revert back to that word. Cling to it. Yes, we're all growing up, but we still say squatch.

Which explains why this show strikes us as so damn funny.

 

17 comments:

  1. Even when using MathMan's disarming and quaint name, it's amazing how many people are awkward and stutter it. Every time...

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  2. I always remember that gynecologist's kid in Kindergarten Cop: "Boys have penises and girls have vaginas."

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  3. Back when we first encountered it in school, I remember a fellow pupil commenting that it was called vas differens because it made a vast difference whether you had one or not.

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  4. When I was about four or five, I was, like your daughter, in the bathtub, and asked my mother what "those" were for. She told me "they" were called testicles and were responsible for me growing hair, my voice getting deeper, and such like when I got older. I wish I had a family that invented words - sack, perhaps? I can't think of one - but we grew up calling things what they were.

    And because you and I have discussed this very same matter before, I can no longer watch that show (even for the extreme comedy value it already held) because (a) I think they're out looking for you; and (b) when they do that "call", I form a picture in my head of your husband using your "squatch" as an echo chamber and I laugh so hard I have to run to the bathroom.

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    1. I need one of those squatch hats from the tv show.

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  5. So, a truly enjoyable evening for all parties would then be termed The Legend of Boggy Creek.

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  6. Later this month I'll be having cataract surgery so I have an excuse, but when I first saw the title of this post, I thought it was, "A Snatch by any other name". Turns out I was right.

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  7. Well, the think about 'vagina' and 'penis' is that they're silly words from the get-go. Like somewhere in the mists of time a little girl found her hole in the bathtub and her mother muttered: 'Erhm, that's . . . your vagina, dear.' And now we're stuck with it.

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  8. Yes, I agree with averildean, both words are ridiculous and I want a better name for my vg and for his pecker. :)

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  9. "squatch" - OMG. I just died a little!

    "Put a little vodka in me and you're likely to hear me imitate my high school sex ed teacher with the lateral lisp saying vas deferens." That CRACKED ME UP! And I'd like to hear that, in person, one day!

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  10. a friend of mine's daughter used to call her vagina her "front butt" when she was teeny, tiny...still my all time favorite name for the honeypot.

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  11. Daffy Duck was your high school sex-ed teacher? Vathhhh defrenthssssss? Thhhhaattssss dithhhhhhpicable.

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  12. Oh my god, squatch?? SQUATCH?? I'm dying. I love how the euphemisms for vagina so often end up being way worse than the proper description.

    I also think all schoolchildren should be required to recite "vagina" and "penis" over and over again until they understand these words are okay. It's the only way we can squash the squatch!

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  13. Huh, and I always thought a Squatch was a Swiss time keeping device.

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  14. Being a prude, I still avoid talking about private parts.

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