For decades I searched for slang words for vagina, purely as an intellectual pursuit. I thought the same as the author: 9 billion slang terms for penis, and none for vagina (at least no common ones)!? How could this be?
My mother, who is a fluent Yiddish speaker didn't know any. (When we were really little, for lack of another term, she referred to the entire area between the navel and the upper thighs as the pupik, even though we all knew it literally meant belly button.)
In my quest, I called the Forvitz and asked a Yiddish speaker there. The best she could do was the word for "birth canal." (something like "mutter shaft.") Too technical! My husband, a photographer who spends a lot of time and money over at B&H, asked some of the Hasidic guys who work there the same question. They were happy to help.They asked around among the guys, but the best they could do was "va-ghee-na" (just another way of pronouncing vagina.)
Growing up, my friend's grandmother referred to it as a "shmoonie" and this immediately supplanted "pupik" as my own family's new preferred word. It SOUNDED Yiddish but being that nobody else had ever heard it, we assumed her bubbe had just made it up. Still, it was funny and affectionate; a keeper. It's the word I still use to refer to my lady bits. It's catchy and friendly without being overtly sexual or twee or aggressive. It's so apt, many of my non-Jewish friends have adopted it.
But, my search for a REAL Yiddish word went on.
A couple of years ago, I was offered a contract to write Dirty Yiddish Slang (Ulysses Press), and I began to search in earnest. I found the cutesie expressions like knish and pierogie -- names implying something to nosh on -- but standing alone they retained their food meanings. Among Yiddish speaking women (for example, when Hasidic women go to the gynecologist), female genitalia is euphemistically referred to as "dorten" (there) or "meiseh" (story).
But I wanted at least one good, solid Yiddish word for vagina! How could there not be one???
Then, in helping me with my book, my mother-in-law taught me the world "shmunda" which she said was very rude. (I gather the equivalent of c&^t.) Immediately I realized that "shmoonie" was to "shmunda" what "shmekl" is to "shmuck" -- a diminutive, affectionate, juvenile version of the word.
All those years of searching, and I'd been using the Yiddish slang term all along!
For decades I searched for slang words for vagina, purely as an intellectual pursuit. I thought the same as the author: 9 billion slang terms for penis, and none for vagina (at least no common ones)!? How could this be?
My mother, who is a fluent Yiddish speaker didn't know any. (When we were really little, for lack of another term, she referred to the entire area between the navel and the upper thighs as the pupik, even though we all knew it literally meant belly button.)
In my quest, I called the Forvitz and asked a Yiddish speaker there. The best she could do was the word for "birth canal." (something like "mutter shaft.") Too technical! My husband, a photographer who spends a lot of time and money over at B&H, asked some of the Hasidic guys who work there the same question. They were happy to help.They asked around among the guys, but the best they could do was "va-ghee-na" (just another way of pronouncing vagina.)
Growing up, my friend's grandmother referred to it as a "shmoonie" and this immediately supplanted "pupik" as my own family's new preferred word. It SOUNDED Yiddish but being that nobody else had ever heard it, we assumed her bubbe had just made it up. Still, it was funny and affectionate; a keeper. It's the word I still use to refer to my lady bits. It's catchy and friendly without being overtly sexual or twee or aggressive. It's so apt, many of my non-Jewish friends have adopted it.
But, my search for a REAL Yiddish word went on.
A couple of years ago, I was offered a contract to write Dirty Yiddish Slang (Ulysses Press), and I began to search in earnest. I found the cutesie expressions like knish and pierogie -- names implying something to nosh on -- but standing alone they retained their food meanings. Among Yiddish speaking women (for example, when Hasidic women go to the gynecologist), female genitalia is euphemistically referred to as "dorten" (there) or "meiseh" (story).
But I wanted at least one good, solid Yiddish word for vagina! How could there not be one???
Then, in helping me with my book, my mother-in-law taught me the world "shmunda" which she said was very rude. (I gather the equivalent of c&^t.) Immediately I realized that "shmoonie" was to "shmunda" what "shmekl" is to "shmuck" -- a diminutive, affectionate, juvenile version of the word.
All those years of searching, and I'd been using the Yiddish slang term all along!