if you don't know what "yonic" means...

I normally try to keep this blog free of references to my work-work and work with human trafficking stuff. But beware…because I’m going to break that rule right now.

My human-trafficking group has been brainstorming up ways to connect with and educate various populations of people about the issue. One of these populations happens to be “johns.” So, yesterday afternoon as we were out and about doing some work, we happened upon an adult establishment called the purple onion. I was a little grossed out by that name – and of course I could surmise a possible explanation why that establishment was named thus…but I was still curious about any further explanation to the name so I googled purple onion. Mostly I just found restaurants. Being satisfied that the name was due to my initial conjecture, I became curious of the word to use in order to describe this imagery.

I searched my brain for the word opposite to phallic and was surprised to find I didn’t know…so I went a-searching again. And what I came up with was “yonic.” (Gee…sounds an awful lot like Yani…ha!) Evidently, this word doesn’t exactly coincide with phallus because it stems from different etymologic roots. I found an interesting blog discussion about just this and some alternatives to yonic people suggested were “uterine,” “labial,” and “vulvic.” I think vulvic would have to be my favorite – but I’m also all for the making of yonic into a more commonly known word. But I suppose where one doesn’t want to explain oneself, vulvic could do.

Being a sex-ed teacher and dealing around genital issues daily…I have to say I’m continually perplexed at how males are so genital proud and females are so genital ashamed. I’m sure this has something to do with why we all know the word “phallic” and not “yonic.” Whereas I don’t believe genitals should be worshiped as is sometimes done in our society…I certainly think they should be accepted as an important and good part of who we are. Oh…why do so many women love to hate themselves!?

So in support of women embracing their whole selves…I hereby commit the word “yonic” to memory and hope to have the opportunity to use the word intermittently!