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Vagina Museum

These decisions are dangerous. According to research by the Eve Appeal, 65% of women aged 16-25 have a problem with the word "vagina". A third of this age group would avoid going to the doctors with a gynaecological health issue due to embarrassment.

Just last week, the Eve Appeal flagged that Instagram was censoring the hashtag #VaginalCancer, a tag containing vital health information.

50 comments
Vagina Museum

To avoid using the word "vagina" is to reinforce the decisions that have been made by social media platforms. To censor it as though it's a dirty word that you shouldn't be saying is to reinforce this taboo. We should be challenging the algorithms, not going with the flow.

Bookpirate

@Mary625 @vagina_museum on TikTok apparently. And on YouTube you can’t get payed for your video if you do say these forbidden words

Bookpirate

@vagina_museum @Mary625 you’re welcome.
In some YouTube videos it’s quite funny though, they’re trying to find even more exotic synonyms when talking about these things creating a new sub-genre of humor resulting from this.

DELETED

@kite @vagina_museum

That sounds both interesting and hilarious

Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 replied to DELETED

@Mary625 @kite @vagina_museum UK comedian Ben Elton did a TV show in the late 80s / early 90s where he needed to refer to vaginas (specifically, finding out as a young man that sex could make farty noises). The BBC objected to the word, and by committee came up with an acceptable euphemism. I kid you not, it was "tweet-tweet".

Bookpirate replied to Geoff

@_thegeoff @Mary625 @vagina_museum lol. I guess that’s what we nowadays refer to as a toot-toot…

Sibshops

@Mary625 @vagina_museum
Tiktok uses AI to suppress videos with keywords.

DELETED

@Sibshops @vagina_museum

Wow. This is the only social media I use. Had no idea

GhostOnTheHalfShell

@Sibshops @Mary625 @vagina_museum

A certain semi notable yt dude discussed the whole threads thing, but I think the funniest part is when he notes all the major platforms have killed NSFW topics while un-ironically having pissed on Mastodon and its “anarchic distributed system”. ^-^

Of course they want to sanitize content. They have an international reach and its less work if they make everything bland for advertising.

the worst take on so many levels.

masto.ai/@GhostOnTheHalfShell/

@Sibshops @Mary625 @vagina_museum

A certain semi notable yt dude discussed the whole threads thing, but I think the funniest part is when he notes all the major platforms have killed NSFW topics while un-ironically having pissed on Mastodon and its “anarchic distributed system”. ^-^

Of course they want to sanitize content. They have an international reach and its less work if they make everything bland for advertising.

GhostOnTheHalfShell

@Sibshops @Mary625 @vagina_museum

Yah know because it’s democratic to have an algorithm pimping partisan toxic sludge. That’s freedom of expression.

Vagina Museum

After challenging Instagram's decision, the #VaginalCancer hashtag was successfully uncensored. And isn't the fight for information, knowledge, and normalisation a fight worth taking up, even if it's at the expense of a few likes?

Vagina Museum

(and this is why we love you, fediverse. None of those algorithms over here!)

DELETED

@vagina_museum

My mother would be protesting not using the correct language for parts of the human body. An English professor. Nope. She would have none of that!

What an idiotic thing to censor

The Barking Shark

@vagina_museum It's always amazed me, the extent that these algorithms will go to in order to promote what amounts to blunt sexism and objectification. This was never about morality.

Cleo of Topless Topics

@vagina_museum did #instagram ACTUALLY stop #censorship towards the #VaginalCancer tag, or did they just claim they did while continuing to #shadowban it? As they've done with so many other tags and subjects they claim to have stopped #banned / #banning yet continue to do so, like #BreastFeeding and #BreastCancer 😠

DELETED

@vagina_museum

I mean there's a pad commercial I see all the time that says "scents are for candles, not vaginas".

Are we really at the point where the internet itself is becoming more censored than FCC guidelines for television? Shit.

Zappes

@vagina_museum @cm Vagina Vagina Vulva Vagina Penis Cunt.

It should be used more often.

Susa

@zappes
Oh, I didn't know "cunt" was not only a derogative term in English. Thanks.
@vagina_museum @cm

Zappes

@suvidu @vagina_museum @cm It is a word with a wide range of meanings. :D

Joan of Cat (she/her) 😼

@vagina_museum

Thank you for fighting this.

I hate the censoring of words that need MORE visibility, not less. All to cater to a minority of Victorian Era pearl clutchers. The damage they do by banning such words can be seen clearly when men ask questions like "is my pregnant wife drowning our baby by getting into the tub and preventing her vagina from getting air?"

And those questions make me very sad for humanity.

Htaggert

@vagina_museum ahhh and the last three GYN I visited were- actively horrible- made weird comments etc - so maybe it’s not embarrassment? Maybe it’s because even with female MD’s we’ve enough past experiences to… fill a book or two.

Charlotte

@vagina_museum I remember this feeling as a teenager trying to buy underwear in a shop. I would cringe at the checkout and feel so awkward. Until my mum asked me if I would feel as embarrassed buying socks - it’s essential clothing. Of course, the answer was no.

Same goes for the correct names for body parts. If we have no issue saying the word elbow or forehead, we shouldn’t have an issue using the word vagina or vulva. They’re just body parts (and ones ~50% of the population have)

GunChleoc

@charllthomas @vagina_museum If you want to see words for body parts a lot, study Scottish place names, for example this one: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devi - compare the English to the Gaelic 😉

Piers Cawley

@vagina_museum I remember a glorious rant by Germaine Greer on a BBC4 program about the origins of words. She asserted that "vagina" wasn't a good word as it comes from the Latin for "sword sheath", and it would be far far better if people just used "cunt" instead.

Somehow, I doubt that the 16-25 year olds in that survey had quite the same problem with the word as Germaine.

Easelbitch™️ :verified: 🕉️

@VirginiaMurr @vagina_museum @IveyJanette @StillIRise1963 @mcnado I actually had women get angry at me on bird for using that word. That's how brain-washed media has made some of them.

Virginia Murr

@NaturaArtisMagistra @vagina_museum @IveyJanette @StillIRise1963 @mcnado

That is absolutely bonkers, Puritanical nonsense.

Should we be equally horrified by tibia and fibula? Or maybe phalanges. Along with vagina and penis and breast and toes, these are all parts of the human body. FFS. Humanity is the walking, talking symbol of a facepalm (face and palm, also parts of the body! ha!).

Lawler Hix :verified:

@vagina_museum ...when in the world did this become a verboten word.

weird.

Mary Hilton for Harris

@vagina_museum I wonder how they explained where babies came from? "oh you know, that place under the cabbage patch." When you grow up you learn how to say 'naughty' words. which can mean life or death.
You say them long enough and they lose their power over your limited mind.

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