Why Is the Vagina Masculine? And What’s the Alternative?

“Vagina” is masculine

 I first came across this factoid thirty years ago in Daphne Marlatt’s novel Ana Historic.  It came up again more recently in Episode Two of the Netflix's series Emily in Paris.  The word “vagina” is masculine in French.  It’s “le” (not ‘la’) “vagin.”

                    

But Why?

Gender is notoriously arbitrary in French.  Still, “vagin” being masculine seems baffling.  Neither the novel nor the tv show explained why "vagina" is masculine in French.  The answer is that the origin of the word in French and Latin is distinctly masculine, as is the idea that this is the best word to describe female genitalia.  In French and Latin, “vagin” is the sheath or scabbard used to holster a sword.

What about English?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “vagina” entered the English language from French and Latin in 1682–which raises the question, what word was used before 1682? Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway, had two daughters, so chances are he heard some of what women say when talking vulva.  

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare has Mercurio mock Romeo by saying:  

If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone. 

The Medlar 

The editors of The Norton Shakespeare gloss “medlar” as “a fruit thought to resemble the female sex organs.” The medlar  is a type of fruit that only becomes edible when it is overripe or bletted; in other words, rotten.  Here’s what a medlar looks like:

“A Rose by any other name . . .”

The red rose, symbol of romantic love, represents the vagina in a sanguine condition of sexual arousal.  Therefore, according to Edith Wharton in The Age of Innocence, yellow roses are the appropriate gift between “friends.”

Reclaiming the Vagina

The paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe are widely interpreted as representations of the vulva.

The Japanese artist, Megumi Igarashi, was arrested, fined and even jailed for displaying 3-D renderings of her own vagina.

How Quaint!

The English word for female genitalia which predates “vagina” by about 400 years is “queynte.”  It derives from the verb “quenchen” which means to quench, and enjoys the ambiguity of being a homonym for nice, charming and clever.   Over time “queynte” has evolved into the English word “quaint.”

Modern readers typically miss the pun/double entendre in Andrew Marvell’s 1650 poem “To His Coy Mistress” as the suitor tells the object of his unrequited lust that if she fails to give herself to him: “then worms shall try / That long-preserved virginity,/ And your quaint honour turn to dust.”

And the Bible Says . . .

Adam's job in paradise was naming things.  The underlying principle is that whoever  owns it gets to name it.  Perhaps it's time we returned the vagina to its rightful owners.