By David Futrelle
On Saturday. The Guardian posted a story called “Me and My Vulva,” looking at photographer Laura Dodsworth’s attempt to, as writer Liv Little put it, tell “the stories of 100 women and gender non-conforming people through portraits of their vulvas.” The Guardian featured some of these portraits alongside interviews in which the vulva-havers in question discussed their complicated feelings about their own vulvas and vaginas.
Well, it turns out that some cis men have complicated feelings about vulvas as well, feelings so complicated that they can’t quite believe that the word “vulva” is a specific word, with a specific meaning, that’s worth including in sentences from time to time.
Enter one overconfident fellow called Paul Bullen, who offered what he saw as a correction to the Guardian’s headline:
Since the correct word was in fact “vulva” — Dodsworth’s photos are pictures of the external genitalia — a number of Twitterers stepped up to correct his correction.
One of the correctors was San Francisco OB/GYN Jen Gunter, an actual world-famous expert on, you know, that whole area down there, and the media’s go-to Gwyneth Paltrow-debunker when the actress and would-be wellness maven tries to convince those with vaginas to do things like steam or stick rocks in them, both of which are evidently very bad ideas. Dr. Gunter has literally written the book on vaginas, or at least a book, titled The Vagina Bible, which will be out in August.
Dr. Gunter tweeted:
Here’s the link, by the way.
But Bullen, like many men in similar situations, refused to accept his defeat, and simply kept going, suggesting that those who refused to accept his “correction” were simply a bunch of vulva snobs.
Er,”euphemism treadmill psychology?”
Er, I’m pretty sure that the Vagina Monologues involved considerable discussion of things going into vaginas so I’m going to say no to that.
When it came to Dr. Gunter’s quite specific expertise on this issue, Bullen evidently felt it was outweighed by his confidence as a man with opinions on the internet.
He’s using an awful lot of words to basically say: “Ok, the ‘correct’ definition I used isn’t actually correct, according to the dictionary, but since people use the word incorrectly a lot this incorrect usage is actually the correct one and all you correcty-pants people are actually incorrect with all your fancy correctness, I am very smart.”
Ultimately, THE DICTIONARY ITSELF (or at least Dictionary,com) felt compelled to intervene, noting that the word “vulva” is indeed the correct word for the external genitalia — which is, again, what
Dodsworth’s photos depict.
Bullen wasn’t fazed by all the talk of dictionary definitions because, in his mind, he’s smarter than the dictionary too.
When some critics accused him of mansplaining, he tried to mainsplain mansplaining to them:
Dr. Gunter gently corrected him on that:
She also reiterated the rather basic point — which Bullen seemed unable to grasp — that the photos in question were photos of vulvas, not vaginas.
Last night I felt compelled to weigh in myself:
None of this — not even my especially brilliant tweet — stopped Bullen from endlessly repeating his point, and the, er, “debate” went on and on and on until, only a few hours ago, Bullen finally decided to stop posting on the subject.
In case you’re wondering if Paul Bullen has bad opinions on any other subjects aside from the correct use of the terms “vagina” and “vulva,” the answer is yes.
Bullen has also recently retweeted white nationalist congressman Steve King, white nationalist “journalist” Faith Goldy, and the white nationalist website VDare. You may notice a trend here. Not that Bullen would necessarily agree that any of these white nationalists are in fact white nationalists. Indeed, he has already used his powerful MAN LOGIC to convince himself that King has never said anything even vaguely white supremacist-ish.
But there’s more! Turns out Bullen is one of those people who contends that the Covington Catholic students photographed several years ago wearing blackface were not wearing blackface.
But, hey, at least his love life is going well:
I don’t know if Bullen has yet managed to make contact with either this woman’s vulva or her vagina.
H/T — To all those who tweeted funny stuff about this, including @Chinchillazllla,, @TakedownMRAs and @mistressmatisse.
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This is why the entire world is burning right now. The arrogantly ignorant insisting that it’s up to them to define the rules, the meaning of words, and reality itself. And they will argue you into the ground over it.
@Citerior Motive
“(swish) Yes, an amusingly pretentious grand cru. 1850 was a good year.”
“Even though I am on this date as a totally realistic female woman with a doctorate, an achievement which would not have been possible without feminism, I don’t see why we need feminism. It doesn’t lead to happiness or inner peace.”
“Actually, the correct term is ‘outer peace'”.
A. Dude’s an ass and an idiot. B. That’s not how Twitter numbers work. It’s one out of three or 1/3 not 1/1, 2/2, 3. (again, dumbass), C. If you don’t have a vaginny, arent’ getting one or aren’t an expert in them, do not correct people who are, do or will. D. We learned these terms in elementary school, dude. And again in high school bio. Did you SLEEP for four years?
Granted, I don’t know all the technical medical terms for the parts of the penis and testicles, but I’m pretty sure I would not be correcting an article NOR a doctor about it (…what IS a penis doctor? Is it just a urinary tract doctor? I get having an OB, but why a GYN if boys don’t have to have one?)
A mansplainer AND a Klansplainer!
He also didn’t do well on the philosophy of language.
@Moggie:
?
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants:
To paraphrase W.B. Yeats: the worst are full of passionate intensity, while the best are tired of saying, “it’s a tiny bit (forthcoming small-dick emoji) more complicated than that…”
@Cat Mara
And of course Bertrand Russell said a mere 13 years after Yeats:
I can relate to that.
I am pretty sure that Bullen is the kind of man who would prefer to use the term ‘females’ to ‘women’ as the former (I can just imagine him tweeting) ‘is biologically correct’.
I could tell you, but then I would have to kill myself.
@Cat Mara
Or slash fen. 🙂
@Pullen Bawls:
tldr; 😀
His argument is bankrupt from the start.
Okay, maybe some people (read: medically misinformed people) use “vagina” as synecdoche for “all the down-there girl parts”.Fine.
But the article didn’t mean that. It meant vulvas. It was talking about vulvas. It chose the more specific word, correctly.
He was demanding that an article, written by professionals, should dumb down their rhetoric to be less precise and less accurate, instead of educating in an article that is exploring a specific issue. “Because I’m a dipshit, you are wrong if you don’t write much, much worse, deliberately”. That’s objectively wrong.
And that’s only if we all grant for the sake of charity that he isn’t a giant chickenshit who was wrong and refuses to admit it, or even admit that he may have been unclear. Which… is obviously true.
@Katamount: Bertie didn’t know about Dunning and Kruger. The fact that idiots remain wrong because they don’t feel the need to check, and if they did they already would have, is as old as Socrates. That’s really Socrates’ point: don’t run your mouth until you actually thought about an issue for five seconds. The problem we have in the modern world is that, unlike in the past, we have every mechanism possible to bring people to the water, we now only have to find a way to make them drink it.
Apparently, Mons pubis is the hill he chose to die on.
It is entirely not fair to make me scream with laughter while my husband is still asleep. Except it totally is.
@ Lumipuna:
Your internet is in the mail.
Tabby:
Allegedly, his Twitter bio also said he had a “certicate in editing”, which he corrected when people started pointing it out during this kertuffle.
Snowberry:
Likely he saw “vulva” as a relatively obscure medical term, too awkward for his refined personal taste, and perhaps a euphemistic synonym for “vagina” in broad sense.
Cat Mara:
Also, I can imagine the person running the Dictionary.com Twitter account is *very* familiar with the “well actually” meme.
@Lumipuna (nee Arctic Ape)
I’m sure you know this already, but for the benefit of the non-Finnish-speakers on here, the Finnish word for the Mons pubis is perhaps the most gloriously underwhelming name for that particular body part: häpykumpu (lit. “hillock of shame). 😀
Thanks. I thought it up when I saw people on Twitter bring up the usual hill defense metaphor.
There were also predictable jokes about “damn vulva-driving hippies” (to borrow a brilliant phrasing I saw in a Skepchick comment thread on this same subject years ago).
(Over here in Finland, we have a rather cool feminist magazine named Tulva, which means “flood” in Finnish. I presume the pun is intended.)
Monzach – If I understand correctly, the word häpy “technically” means pubes (as in external genital area of either sex) but it’s only ever used for the vulva, which doesn’t have a proper medical name in Finnish.
Also, I half remember that the “shame” meaning is modeled after German. The English/Latin name vulva is perhaps more commonly used here than häpy. Vernacular terms tend to treat the vulva and vagina as one unit, just like in English.
@Lumipuna:
I think Jane Curtin and John Lithgow did this best, in 3rd Rock from the Sun:
Mary: For future reference, I have a red Volvo.
Dick: Please, Dr. Albright, we barely know each other!
Who knew that you could get racist misogynists all miffed just by using accurate technical terms for genital anatomy?
Clearly, Bullen simply Could. Not. STAND the fact that an interesting artistic exploration of traditionally female body parts and their relation to sexuality and personality was being discussed thoughtfully and respectfully in popular media, rather than being dismissed with a contemptuous putdown. So he just had to do something about that.
As someone on Twitter noted, if you insist on common use terminology, then “vagina” is not the correct word for what is medically known as vulva + vagina.
(or not the only correct word, anyway)
Look on the bright side, though: some of the twitter snark responding to Bullen was awesome.
And this dumb fuck is a professor.
Well that the guy is a professor explains his arogance.
For such people we have a word in Germany Fachidiot. It means a person who is briliant in his field, but completly cluless in everythink else.
Seems to be the case here.
@Buttercup Q Skullpants
You have now forced me – forced, I say! – to relate a fuller account of the events referenced in this passage:
I have tracked down the unfortunate woman who dated Bullen once – and I emphasize “once” and that Bullen notably does not claim there was a second date – and have obtained this description of the events: