From the Archive: My New Favorite Word

I'm using it for everything now!

I bet Georgia knew this one, too!

Hello to all our new readers in 24 countries around the world! It’s me, Alicia Dara, Womancake’s Editor-In-Chief. Next week I’ll announce our brand-new quarterly theme. Later this week we’ll share a roundup of our all-time favorite drugstore beauty products, including the eye cream that one staffer calls, “life-changingly de-puffing!”, and a curly hair product that is another’s Holy Grail. Today I’m sharing an essay from the archive, originally published in August of 2023. Enjoy, and stay tuned!

---

If you like this post please tap the little  ❤️ above, it will help Womancake find a wider audience.

Don’t know about you, but I am frequently captivated by words. They have personality and emotion that I experience in an almost visceral way, as if I can feel them in my body and taste them in my mouth. Some of my favorites (which you may recognize from recent posts) include tremendous, sluice, ocean and beingness. I can’t explain exactly why I love these words, except that they feel completely true, as if no other word could possibly replace them. Some of them are even strong enough to be used beyond their purpose, nouns into verbs, and vice-versa. 

I don’t go looking for magic words. I allow them to find me, so that I know their effect is real. Last week I learned a new word that rocked me hard. I was sitting in the office of my gynecologist, having just received a pelvic exam. My doc was describing the effects of perimenopause on ciswomen’s anatomy, and that’s when it happened. 

It’s a question of natural changes, she said, pointing to a wall chart with pictures of vaginas at different stages of life. What we can expect from our anatomy during the perimenopausal transition is changes in the color, texture and invagination.

I gasped. Can you repeat that? I asked.

Sure, she continued, Invagination is the way that the vulvar folds form their own shape, and turn inward toward each other.

She continued speaking, but I stopped hearing anything. I was enthralled by the word, by its power and potential. For one thing, it’s great to know that medical science has a name for this astoundingly beautiful function of our anatomy. For another, there are so many opportunities to use this word in ways that, at this stage of life, feel completely earned.

To direct a bad lover: Stop messing around and invaginate!

To describe an anti-abortion congressional panel: They were a sick bunch of de-invaginators!

To encourage a friend who feels intimidated by their first vibrator: Don’t be afraid to fantasize, use your invagination!

There is massive power in words. So much is going on right now with the banning of books, which comes from recognition of the power of language. Women need to command language and take up far more space with our words. We need to talk, even yell, about everything that is happening to us, to our bodies, even when it seems like no one is listening. We need to make them listen.

Remember the dumb, sad words that we were supposed to use for our anatomy when we were kids? I hate all of them. I don’t even like “hoo-hah” or “vajayjay”, although at least they have some personality. I’m Generation X. I like “vag”, or “puss”, just a few letters, like curse words (It’s a guilty pleasure to use the “C” word, but only as it applies to inanimate objects, like a hairdryer that mysteriously stopped working yesterday). I like that these words don’t camouflage themselves, or apologize for what they are. I like that they still have the power to provoke, to get attention and take a stand.

We need to embrace the social power of our own words, and of speaking even when it feels scary or dangerous. We need to OWN more words, and use them in the ways we see fit. We can start by identifying our favorite ones. I’ve shared some of mine, what are some of yours?

Share us with the women in your life:

Give a free or paid subscription to a woman in your life: 

You can also become a paid subscriber:

Thanks so much, and please feel free with questions and comments, we love hearing from you!