I find it very distressing that women have to unlearn the fear they have of their genitals. That a velvety, silky puppet is necessary to make it less frightening. That the prospect of looking at onesself with a hand mirror is so daunting to grown women.

I had to deal with these issues myself a few years ago, so I understand it. But I resent that women have to overcome the fear of and disgust with their own bodies.

You know, I've had a plethora of body insecurities, but my vagina/vulva is something I've never been worried about. I can't be bothered to worry about that. At least, not what it looks like, anyway.

This kind of message is absolutely necessary. I went to a private college in the Midwest where some women were vehemently OPPOSED to learning about their own anatomy because it either seemed "gross" or too much like masterbation. I believe misinformation and distrust of our own bodies is much more prevelent than the poster seems to think.

I completely understand that some women have never looked at themselves, and that they may need some coaxing to do so. But could you imagine someone men never having looked at their goods? Having a man holding a puppet as he explained to some nervous men where everything was located.

I went to a feminist women's college, and in sophomore year, one of my roommates revealed that she thought that women peed out of our clits. So...yeah, sadly, this is necessary.

Yep, there are grown women who don't know how their own plumbing works. Sad but true.

I kinda like the puppet. I also like the Vagina Costume graphic Feministing uses occasionally. It cracks me up. :)

I know, Mouse26. It's inconceivable that men would have to shyly ask questions about their penises.
But I guess penises are sorta hanging all out there so there's not much mystery. But with female genitals there's layers so it's necessary to get a hand-mirror or whatever. It's just such a shame that women are conditioned to be fearful of their stuff.

"Do women actually think we pee out of the vagina?" You'd be amazed at women's ignorance about their own bodies. My mom trained parents in the Family Living/Sex Ed curriculum they used in NYC schools. The idea was to train a small group of parents who could then train other parents about how to talk to your kids, correct biological information, improving self esteem, etc. One day my mom said "I can't believe how many women don't realize there are 3 holes." So yes, lots of women don't know that the urethra is not in the vagina. And these were women who'd given birth!

I remember one week when I was home from grad school; my sister (who was 19 at the time) mentioned something about having to take her tampon out so that she could pee.

She is a biology major. =(

Well I'm kind of embarrassed about it now, but up until I had a biology class in junior high that covered lady parts, i did think that I peed out of my vagina, plus I never really looked down there until college when I tried the whole hand mirror thing.

Before my mother sat me down and explained it all to me, I didn't even KNOW I had a vagina. I assumed people got pregnant by like, rubbing those parts together or something, and the baby came out of the anus. And that is why one should never trust biological information gleaned on the playground.

I'm very glad shows like this are willing to explain female anatomy to women whose parents or teachers never quite got the message across.

It took me into my teens to figure out all the plumbing down below. I'm sure a good portion of the viewing audience is teens, and you never know who needs to be caught up with life.

I think it's a sin that parents would allow their daughters to reach middle school without talking to them about their anatomy.

SarahMC: YES. 100% agreement. I can't really imagine why someone would not at least explaining a child's OWN plumbing to them!

If you're too embarassed to talk to your child about genitalia, you shouldn't procreate! Preaching to the choir, I know. :)

I remember one week when I was home from grad school; my sister (who was 19 at the time) mentioned something about having to take her tampon out so that she could pee.

To be fair, I do that too. Otherwise you pee on the string, and that's just icky to me. But since she is your sister, I'm sure you know what she thought better than I do, and that is indeed very sad.

Discgrace, the same thing happened to me with my sister, except she was younger, probably 13 or 14. I said something about peeing but not changing my tampon, and she was like, "What, did you just pee through it?"

Around the same time, I had to explain the difference between a urethra and a vagina to a friend who was my age (15 or 16 at the time).

So yeah, it is a misconception that is surprisingly widespread.

dude, you would not believe how many people don't know this stuff. a lot of people think that the vagina is the outer stuff...which is actually the vulva. (i admit, ashamed of myself, that i didn't learn this until i was actually pregnant and the doctor showed me that i was having a girl) i did know where we pee from though, but i did know a guy who was trying to have a baby w/ his wife, and he didn't know, so it isn't just the women who are confused...although it is OUR anatomy, so we should know well what we got "down there".

that brings me to my last point, i thought the video was ok considering who it is aimed at...except that tyra can't seem to call it anything but "down there"...which i think is exactly the point.

dude, you would not believe how many people don't know this stuff. a lot of people think that the vagina is the outer stuff...which is actually the vulva. (i admit, ashamed of myself, that i didn't learn this until i was actually pregnant and the doctor showed me that i was having a girl) i did know where we pee from though, but i did know a guy who was trying to have a baby w/ his wife, and he didn't know, so it isn't just the women who are confused...although it is OUR anatomy, so we should know well what we got "down there".

that brings me to my last point, i thought the video was ok considering who it is aimed at, b/c a the average persone is nervous about themselves...except that tyra can't seem to call it anything but "down there"...which i think is exactly the point.

shit...could you delete the first one? i accidentally hit post b/f i was done...
sorry!

TMI time! Turn back now if you're sensitive:)

Thanks to the movie Fried Green Tomatoes I got it in my little kid head I needed to see what I was working with down there, so one day I locked myself in the bathroom and took out the hand mirror and sat on the toilet with my legs on the seat and took a gander. It was kind fun to know what it looked like and beginning there I would "experiment", like actually watching myself pee. Through this I also learned how to control the Kegel muscle, cause of course I wasn't just going to let it rip least I hit the mirror, which was my mom's. And from that I learned where I peed from, and even later when I was changing my pad I took a look to see the blood flowing out of me. Now that I know all the ins and out (so to speak) of my vagina I feel better off and I'd encourage more women to look.

As far as men, if their genitals were "hidden" in a manner of words, then they might also have issues with their gentalia, but since it's right out there of course they don't have problems, the thing for women is that you have to kind of sort of actively seek out your vulva, clit and vagina and we've been taught that those are dirty, dirty places.

I remember looking at my vagina all the time as a kid. And a teenager. Actually, I started masturbating at about 12, and I hadn't looked down there in awhile. When I did, I was horrified to see how huge my labia were! I assumed I was messing myself up by "having sex with a pillow," so I resolved to stop. No one told me that GIRLS grow and change down there when they hit puberty!

Fortunately, when I was 14 I found out masturbation is normal. It would have been nice to not have been surprised by any of this, but at least my misunderstandings of my body weren't quite as extreme as most.

TMI time! Turn back now if you're sensitive:)

Thanks to the movie Fried Green Tomatoes I got it in my little kid head I needed to see what I was working with down there, so one day I locked myself in the bathroom and took out the hand mirror and sat on the toilet with my legs on the seat and took a gander. It was kind fun to know what it looked like and beginning there I would "experiment", like actually watching myself pee. Through this I also learned how to control the Kegel muscle, cause of course I wasn't just going to let it rip least I hit the mirror, which was my mom's. And from that I learned where I peed from, and even later when I was changing my pad I took a look to see the blood flowing out of me. Now that I know all the ins and out (so to speak) of my vagina I feel better off and I'd encourage more women to look.

As far as men, if their genitals were "hidden" in a manner of words, then they might also have issues with their gentalia, but since it's right out there of course they don't have problems, the thing for women is that you have to kind of sort of actively seek out your vulva, clit and vagina and we've been taught that those are dirty, dirty places.

When I was 19 I had to explain the vagina/urethra difference to my best friend. She asked if she could bum a tampon and then hemmed and hawed about it because she thought she might have to pee later. I kept telling her "just tuck the string in (I thought she just didn't want to pee on it)" until I realized she thought it all came out of the same hole.

I assumed I was messing myself up by "having sex with a pillow," so I resolved to stop.

LOL!
Love it.

I think we need a thread to swap masturbation stories.

If I took my tampon out every time I peed I'd end up spending $1,000/month on tampons.

I'll admit it: I didn't know that women didn't pee out of our vaginas until I was 17 and my mom gave me a women's health book. Now I'm a women's studies major and a reproductive health advocate. When you're not explicitly taught that information, sometimes people don't figure it out on their own. We live in a society that teaches women not to talk about or explore their bodies and our health classes in school are painfully inadequate when it comes to teaching about reproductive organs. How else are we supposed to learn?

"I assumed I was messing myself up by "having sex with a pillow"-- oh, man. I remember when I first realized that my labia were different sizes. I freaked out and assumed it was from playing with them, and didn't learn otherwise until I was about 17 and happened across a teen sex advice column that mentioned it was normal. I wonder how many other girls have had that problem.

Thank God, I had the vagina/urethra thing straightened out for me in the fifth or sixth grade by some nice ladies who came in to talk to us about getting our periods... I raised my hand and asked about going to the bathroom with a tampon in, and they said, "Oh, glad you brought that up," with an air of I-guess-we-should-have-worked-that-into-the-spiel-at-some-point, and explained that there are three different holes, not two, and we could get a mirror and feel around for ourselves if we weren't sure. It's a ^%*&(% good thing I did ask, because I swear my mom never told me ANYTHING, no matter how much she may think she did, and my sister was in college by that time and not around to be asked. I'd have been on my own with the diagram on the box.

School science and health departments have really got to get past the squickiness factor and get some truly comprehensive anatomy/puberty stuff down EARLY, before kids start going through it on their own and having to cobble together what little bits of information they have been given and not knowing what's right and what's wrong and what's a definitive source they can go to for information, and all the meanwhile thinking they're some kind of freak medical case that shouldn't be talked about. My middle-school teachers took way too damn long to arrive at a comprehensive picture of what we were supposed to be going through -- and as others have pointed out, for some people, the comprehesive picture never really happened at all.

Down there? I haven't been down there since 1953.

I will be the first to admit this, and everyone must promise to pity the sexual education system in New York, not laugh at my ignorance. I promise, I'm an intelligent-almost-20 female, just under-educated in this realm.

Until a few weeks ago, I simply assumed women urinate from the same hole we menstruate from. I knew there was a hole/hood in the clitoral area, but just never made the connection. One of my wonderful feminist apartment mates took the time to explain that I was incorrect in my presumption one evening, and since then, it all makes sense.

I do not apologize for my misunderstanding of my own body, I merely blame a lack of a good sexual education in elementary and high school, both of which I attended were catholic schools. Elementary school sex ed included an exercise in which several volunteers spit into each other's cups of water, thusly explaining how one can acquire an STD (now PC-ly called STIs) from sleeping with multiple partners. High school sex ed consisted of, "You guys know this stuff, right? Because I really don't want to teach it" and "Sister, why did we skip Chapter 10?" "Because it won't be on the final."

Don't be surprised if there're more of us that misunderstand our own bodies. But, along the same vein, don't think any less of us because of that fact. I fortunately found out we, in fact, have THREE holes, before I needed Tyra to tell me, but perhaps other women did. It's sad, but an...inconvenient truth?

Wow, I had no idea. I thought everyone had the same anatomy lesson in 5th grade. With lots of snickering of course, but long before I looked "down there" I'd seen a diagram.

As an aside, it used to be a pet peeve of mine when people said vagina instead of vulva, until I found out how many people didn't know what a vulva was.

Sigh.

Yes, Jen, women and girls do think that we pee out our vaginas.

It is NOT an easy place to see UNLESS you peek at it with a mirror.

And people, PERIOD, often don't look at things that're hard to see. You should know that--there're lots of studies on people not noticing things if they're not easy to see.

I think I'd even looked at myself in the mirror once as a teen, not having any specific goal, and overlooked the little extra hole there.

It wasn't until I asked Mom at around 16, "Mom? How come I can pee around a tampon but not bleed around a tampon?" that she said, "Because it comes out a different hole, Katie!" and I said, "I have 3 holes down there?!?!?!?!" All that time I'd gone w/o paying much attention, probably facilitated by the memory somewhere in my subconscious mind that I'd learned that men pee and come out the same hole and have mechanisms to switch which is which.

So yeah, lots of women don't know, and I'd say that's largely because, well, the just haven't taken the time to look. There are other things to DO in life. Leaf piles to jump in. Messy bedrooms to pick up. Friends to play with / go out with. Getting a mirror out and looking carefully IS something you have to be TOLD to do unless you're naturally a hard-to-see-place-looker.

But Katie, you don't have to examine yourself to learn that we have three different holes.
Learning a little about female anatomy would do just fine, and there are a lot of resources for doing so (book, Internet, educated adult...). Most of all I think this proves that there's a HUGE need for quality sex-ed in the schools.

I don't understand why anyone would be surprised that there are some women who don't know that they don't pee out of their vagina. I know that when I learned sex education in elementary and high school I didn't learn a damn thing about my anatomy other than that I will have a period every month.

Like Katie, I didn't know I didn't pee out of my vagina until my mom told me when I was 12. So, please, lets not mock any women who may not know this. It is much more a failing of society that there are women that don't know their basic anatomy, than it is on individual women.

Everyday I find a new reason to be grateful for my feminist, forward-thinking mother, who told me the names and functions of the various parts of my genitals around the same time she told me what the other parts of my body were. I can't remember a time when I didn't know about my labia, vagina, urethra, clitoris. Ah, Mom--you rock!

Nobody's mocking the formerly misinformed women, Amber. We're bemoaning the state of sex education and general ignorance re: women's bodies in society.

Just an fyi-- www.the-clitoris.com is a fantastic site for self education about female anatomy and sexual/reproductive health.

Seriously, fantastic.

I think it's important for doctors to explain to men and women their genitals in a practical but not patronizing way. The truth is, not everyone knows about their bodies, and there's a lot of misinformation out there. People are uncomfortable about their bodies, so making learning about our bodies comfortable is really important. Instead of saying "Ho hum, what's wrong with the world," be happy that women are learning about their bodies now rather than never. After all, there was a time when you had no idea how your genitals worked.

It's inconceivable that men would have to shyly ask questions about their penises.

Is it? I'm sure if you asked 100 men on the street what a vas deferens is, they'd probably tell you it's the capital of Albania or something. Guys probably think that showing interest in how their penises work is gay.

Before my mother sat me down and explained it all to me, I didn't even KNOW I had a vagina. I assumed people got pregnant by like, rubbing those parts together or something, and the baby came out of the anus.

From a psychoanalytical perspective, this isn't uncommon.

Has anyone else been to Scarleteen.com? When my family first got an Internet connection back in the mid-late 90's, I used to devour that site whenever my parents weren't around. I was high school. A GREAT resource for young people.

After having to explain how all this works to my freshmen (College freshmen) girls several times a semester... yes... many think they pee from their clits or vaginas. :(

I agree that neither my parents nor my school taught me anything in sex ed other than how babies are made, and STDs are bad for you. Seriously, hello puritanical New England.
I don't even recall a particularly thorough explanation of anatomy, there was a lot of hand-waving and euphemisms. Most of my sex related info was gleaned through my own experimentation, friends, and some racy SF/F that got past my parents. At least until I went off to college and had unfettered access to the internet. It's a good thing I'm curious and tend to ignore discouragement.

I wasn't at all uncommon, either. I knew people who believed ridiculous things like you couldn't get pregnant the first time, or that a cola douche was an effective emergency contraceptive, well into high school.

i'm so with most people here--this is sadly quite necessary.

i grew up in the abstinence education capital of the world and i remember my girlfriends and i sitting down one of our own and explaining to her that she could not get pregnant from kissing. this was SOPHOMORE YEAR. this poor girl had a driver's license but not the faintest understanding of the birds/bees.

i'd rather them get it from tyra than nowhere else.

Sad, but true. My senior year in high school during AP biology, my friend revealed to me that she didn't know she had more then "one hole down there", I was also kind of surprised at my anatomy because I always assumed the urethra was located on the clitoral hood. My friend had even been pregnant and miscarried when she was 15, both of us had had sex, but we knew nothing about our own bodies.

I didn't masturbate for the first time until I was 19! :o
I was sexually assaulted as a child, then sexually assaulted again when I was a young teenager (the first incident allowed for the second incident by fucking me up in the head about sex and consent). I was terrified of my own genitalia. It was dirty and gross and something to be avoided.
Not only did I not know about it, I for sure didn't WANT to know.
Once I finally sought help and was on the road to recovery, I squatted over a mirror and poked around. Now I love all of my 'giney parts and visit them regularly. :)

I used to work at one of the sex-positive, women-friendly sex toy shops and you wouldn't believe the number of women who didn't know the first thing about women's anatomy. I remember talking to a woman about a vibrator once and slowly realizing that she actually didn't know where her clitoris was - so I sat her down with an anatomy book (The Clitoral Truth by Rebecca Chalker - all people who have or love vulvas should have this book).

There were 70-year old women who'd never had an orgasm before and would call the next day to thank us, crying. There were people who would tell us things about their sexual history that they couldn't even tell their partners, they were so scared that something was "wrong" with them.

So yeah, I'm not surprised. People also don't know about things like: don't use numbing creams (anal sex shouldn't hurt)! that women can and frequently do ejaculate. that many (if not most) women don't have an orgasm from penetration alone. that men have a g-spot, too (the prostate). that not having enough lubricant is the number one reason why condoms break. and on and on and on...

We as a culture are terrified to talk about sex, especially when it comes to children. I highly, highly recommend the book "Harmful to Minors" by Judith Levine as an excellent exploration of this topic. Also, the book "Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex, but Were Afraid They'd Ask: The Secrets to Surviving Your Child's Sexual Development from Birth to the Teens" by Justin Richardson and Mark A. Schuster. It's an excellent, nonjudgmental book.

And while I'm at it, "The Survivor's Guide to Sex" by Staci Haines is essential for any one who is a survivor of sexual abuse/assault, or is partnered with a survivor.

once a sex educator, always a sex educator...

I'va actually forgotten a lot of what I learned in sex ed, I think. I mean, I know the labia, the various holes, the urethra, but it's hard to relate a diagram to your actual body. And they were never very specific. The clitoris was just sort of an area. Same with vulva. I'm going to have to go to one of the sites linked above and remind myself of some of this stuff.

demolitionwoman - it sounds like you did some awesome things while working at that store!

it's incredibly lamentable to me that we spend so much time and money displaying "sex" and using it to sell hamburgers, yet so many in our society remain so ignorant when it comes to meaningful sex and reproductive information. it would be really nice if "i put my dick in stuff!" wasn't the starting point.

I love all the replies in this thread - I was surprised at the critical tone of the original post; that is, if a woman didn't know how many holes she has to begin with, I'd hardly think she'd be making any rational assumptions about where urine passes through. I saw that episode of Tyra, and nearly every guest was years behind where she should be in terms of sexual education. A 29 year old who'd never had a pap/pelvic exam, a 20-something who was terrified of tampons, etc.

My mom gave me a girly, cartoony book when I was near puberty. Thank god too, because even though I'm Canadian and didn't get the abstinence education some people are subjected to, our sex ed class was just a week of grade 9 phys ed, and hating gym and resenting the teacher, I pretty much made a point of not listening. (Heh)

Also, OT but I hate how tampon manufacturers are constantly "improving" the string to be more absorbent, as a backup measure for leakage. I find no matter where you put the thing, pee still wicks up it. Plus my periods are very light and I pee constantly. Hurray for the DivaCup which solves all those problems!

My college roommate last year, who was nineteen, informed me that she did not use tampons because she did not want to have to take it out every time she needed to pee. So yes, education on the functions of our various holes is extremely important.

Well. I've had comprehensive sex ed since I was 10, with abstinence not being an issue at all other than to mention that no birth control or barrier is 100% and only having sex when YOU want it. Hurrah for an actually secular country

Anyway. Despite this and having excelled in biology before starting a BSc in biology and chemistry only to drop out to do vet nursing, I never really thought about where the urethra came out on a human.

I feel like an idiot, of course it doesn't come out inside the vagina and it's kind of cool to think how the openings are basically the same on men and women (in the sense that wings are the same as arms/hands)

So it's possible to know a lot and just not think it through :P

Thanks for posting the clip from my time on The Tyra Banks Show.

It really is true - many women have never looked down there, and quite a lot have mis-information about what happens with their genitals (e.g., where they pee from, what their clitoris is for, whether their vagina will get "stretched out" from various sexual activities, and so on). Which is why sexual health education across the lifespan is so important.

Thanks again for encouraging the dialogue. Great site!

Best,
Dr. Debby Herbenick
www.MySexProfessor.com

Agreed with all of the above posters that both men and women often have no clue what the hell is going on "down there." I have known at least three different people past the age of puberty who thought that women have sex through the belly button. Wtf? And I have heard of both men and women who thought for some god-unknown reason that peeing after unprotected sex would wash the semen out. No judgement, but if anyone believes either of the above, please do not have sex.

Nobody's mocking the formerly misinformed women, Amber. We're bemoaning the state of sex education and general ignorance re: women's bodies in society.

I don't know about that. When I read this:

Obviously I'm not the target demographic for this, but, really? Do women actually think we pee out of the vagina? How would that work? Is urine stored in the uterus? I don't get it. If they exist, then wow, I hope they watched this show.

I thought: Gee, I hope no woman reads this and then goes away ashamed because she never learned the specifics of her own anatomy.

With all the misogyny insidiously entwined into our very beings, are you truly surprised that women don't know their own anatomy? Really?

I just had a thought. If women think that they pee from the clitoris, they must not know where the clitoris is. And that's kind of sad, because the clitoris is a source of great pleasure. I know I'd be sad if I didn't where it was.

No, not necessarily! My urethra and clitoris feel pretty spatially similar. I know they're in different places (and I know where they are), but I think they hit up some of the same nerve endings. And it's hard for me to see my urethra in a mirror. I think I figured out where it was by peeing on my finger in the shower.

As for tampons, I enthusiastically second whoever brought up the Diva Cup. The Diva Cup has completely revolutionized everything about my period. It's amazing.

You know who could benefit from learning that women don't pee out of our vaginas? Teenage boys. My high school boyfriend thought that the urethra was part of the vagina, just like the male urethra is on the end of the penis. Too bad most teenage boys aren't going to watch daytime talk shows.

After reading this post, I just had to ask my significant other about his knowledge of the female anatomy. Upon hearing that females technically have "three holes", his response was:

"GET THE FUCK OUT?!?!"

... He thought I was either joking or terribly misinformed. *facepalm*

After reading this post, I just had to ask my significant other about his knowledge of the female anatomy. Upon hearing that females technically have "three holes", his response was:

"GET THE FUCK OUT?!?!"

... He thought I was either joking or terribly misinformed. *facepalm*

Re: Tampons and peeing.
I have always found that holding the string from behind and leaning forward works well. TMI, I know!

Hmm, i am eternaly grateful to the internet for helping me learn about myself. I dont think there has ever been a time that i was afarid of my vulva. It also annoys me that people say vagina when referring to the vulva. The clit is it! the hood is good! lol!

Also, i just bought a Diva Cup and it is the coolest thing! No more tamps or pads for me!! YAY

Get this: my high school boyfriend was the one who informed me of the existence of my elusive 3rd hole! Dang!

My parents told me nothing. Zip. To this very day, they've never uttered the words "sex" "vagina" or "penis" in my presence. They just deferred to our school's abstinence-only education to take care of that little detail. None of their 4 children are married, and none of us are virgins either! Oops, I guess that didn't take.

If women think that they pee from the clitoris, they must not know where the clitoris is.

That's not entirely true. I've known where my clitoris was for a long, long time, and I used to think that that was where I peed from. It was partially because I didn't know that it was my clitoris or what a clitoris was, and partially because I was a little afraid to keep my head down there when I peed lest it splash in my face so it looked like that was where the pee was coming from.