HELEN:

Margaret, for the life of me I cannot understand how Republican politicians can be so fixated on telling women what we can and cannot do with our bodies but then be so incensed that we would actually use the medically correct term to describe our front butt. Yes. Front butt is what my granddaughter called it until her mother instructed her to call it by the more appropriate term, pee pot. I, of course, corrected both of them and called it her num num. Of course I’m being silly Margaret, but this war on women that the Republican Party has waged has risen to the level of absurdity.

It’s a vagina. I have one. 154 million Americans have one. 197,000 soldiers have one. 111,000 police officers have one with a badge. When surveyed, all the Republican women who hold elected office reported having a vagina. I’m pretty sure Sarah Palin has a red, white and blue one. I honestly can neither confirm nor deny the existence of Ann Coulter’s vagina but I am quite certain Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s ate a rat on national tv.

Sometimes we call it a hoo ha, but really if Representative Brown had said hoo ha when discussing a piece of Republican legislation written to limit a woman’s access to a safe, legal abortion, I think women everywhere would have been embarrassed for her. I admit that my generation for many years denied its existence but eventually the women’s movement taught us that the correct term for our privates was in fact vagina.

For the record men don’t have one. They talk a great deal about them and pass a whole lot of legislation pertaining to them, but at the end of the day they have a wee wee not a hoo hoo. Newt Gingrich has cheated on at least two vaginas that I know of, but I think he refers to them as ex-boxes. Rush Limbaugh hates vaginas, but rumor has it he smuggles Oxycontin in his maid’s vagina so I guess he just calls it a pill box. Mitt Romney used to call them vaginas and actually gave them all the rights and privileges afforded to them under the law but now he simply refers to them as votes he has alienated.

For the record, my vagina pays taxes. My vagina is registered to vote. This year about 8 million more voting booths will have vaginas in them than talleywhackers, which is odd because the United States still ranks 70th in terms of vaginas in elected office. Vaginas comprise 52% of the population in the United States yet vaginas only hold a quarter of elected offices. I think maybe it’s time for A Million Vagina March. Does anyone else agree?

If Republicans don’t like the word vagina then maybe they shouldn’t pass laws that force women to have unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds before seeking an abortion. I guess Rick Perry didn’t realize that vaginal refers to vagina, but then again he went to Texas A&M so we’re lucky if he can spell vaginal much less realize it refers to a vagina.

A good many of American vaginas have been to a Planned Parenthood clinic and the vast majority of them weren’t there for an abortion. Some of them needed birth control. Some of them needed an annual exam. Most of them didn’t have health insurance.

I’m sorry Margaret. I know that I am making you uncomfortable with all this talk about lady parts. But my vagina is now over 80 years old and it is pretty damn tired of a bunch of jackass politicians treating it like a second-class body part. I heard Representative Brown participated in a reading of the Vagina of Monologues outside the Michigan Statehouse. Well I say good for her. Here is My Vagina Monologue: My vagina is an octogenarian. It won the right to vote in 1920. In 2012 my vagina is going to put that right to good use. I mean it. Really.

MARGARET:

You’re not making me uncomfortable dear. I have always called it a vagina. My mother called it her gift. Howard calls it Around Town Sally Brown which I have never understood. No. I am with you on this one Helen. I would be all for a Million Vagina March as long as it doesn’t go too far and I am home in time for my programs.

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