Talk:Vagina

Wording of caption

The caption for the first image currently reads

Human vagina; normal canal (left) and canal during menopause (right)

That contrast implies that a menopausal canal is abnormal. Can we substitute a more factual descriptor like pre-menopausal, or otherwise reword? Azn bookworm10 (talk) 23:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I took a shot at updating it. Jtrevor99 (talk) 02:08, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

That looks reasonable to me. Is it obvious from context that it's meant to represent a postpubescent adult? "Adult human vagina" would be getting wordy. Azn bookworm10 (talk) 03:20, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd agree that "adult human vagina" probably wouldn't work - not just wordy, but would apply to both. "Fertile" and/or "infertile" could work but could also be confusing, since women are only fertile for a few days each month. I don't think "postpubescent" is ideal since "postmenopausal" is also "postpubescent". How about "adult human vagina before (left) and after (right) menopause"? Jtrevor99 (talk) 03:58, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Right, and not all women of reproductive age are even necessarily fertile, or whatever the medical terms would be. Anyway, I think that one is great. Accurate and succinct. Azn bookworm10 (talk) 04:47, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Done. Jtrevor99 (talk) 05:19, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

The caption still reads 'normal', thus continuing to imply that a post-menopausal vagina is abnormal. Can we delete the adjective? So: 'Adult human vagina, before (left) and after (right) menopause' Dcmcdcm-wiki (talk) 16:27, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

"Normal" is prior to the comma, clearly indicating it applies to both pre- and post-menopausal. Your reading is not correct. However, I'm indifferent on this. Feel free to delete "Normal". Jtrevor99 (talk) 16:33, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Edit request

Could someone please change this sentence "Female mammals usually have two external openings in the vulva; these are the urethral opening for the urinary tract and the vaginal opening for the genital tract. This is different from male mammals, who usually have a single urethral opening for both urination and reproduction." to "Female placental mammals have two openings on the vulval vestibule or inside the urogenital sinus for the urethra (urinary tract) and vagina (genital tract). This is different from males, who have a single urethral opening for both urination and reproduction." on this article? Since new information about the Urogenital sinus in female placentals have been added? 181.215.172.251 (talk) 17:43, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 14 November 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Appears to have been moved to a split request below. (closed by non-admin page mover) Zippybonzo | talk | contribs (they/them) 11:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

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Vagina → Human Vagina – I'm proposing we move the information in this article about the human vagina to a new article titled Human Vagina, and likewise stop the redirect of Human Vagina to Vagina. Wikipedia has separate articles for Penis and Human Penis, which implies that men's genitals make them human, whereas women's genitals are no different from animals'. This violates WP:NPOV, being a form of misogyny.

As it reads in this article, 'Because a better understanding of female genitalia can help combat sexual and psychological harm with regard to female development, researchers endorse correct terminology for the vulva.' Likewise, there is much psychological harm in implying that women are more animal than men. Moving the relevant material over to Human Vagina will remove bias and help keep Wikipedia neutral. Dcmcdcm-wiki (talk) 16:20, 14 November 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Zippybonzo | talk | contribs (they/them) 19:21, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Support for all reasons listed, especially for symmetry with Human Penis --Scharb (talk) 18:49, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

If this is moved the definitely lowercase "vagina" in the new title. I don't find the symmetry argument convincing - the two articles were written over time by different subcommunities and the fact that the subcommunity writing about male anatomy chose to structure things differently than the subcommunity writing about female anatomy does not imply any kind of misogyny IMO. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:16, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Theparties (talk) 23:24, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Oppose I think that this requested move would make more sense as a proposal to split Vagina into two articles: one about vaginas in general, and one about them in humans in particular. However, I don't think the argument based on implying that women are more animal than men is very good, seeing as the articles for male reproductive structures apart from the penis (e.g. Vas deferens, Prostate) are human-centric, with a minor section called "Other animals," as is the case for Vagina. Also, this reasoning could be inverted--one could argue that making Vagina a human-centric article while Penis is not could be emphasizing the humanity of women in some way, since that is mentioned more prominently in the article for their genitals. That argument would not be very good, but it is not much worse than the opposite. Also, we should ensure the proper casing as per Pppery. JJP_Master (she/they) 01:13, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
  • I am changing my !vote to oppose, while keeping the same reasoning, per Crossroads. JJP_Master (she/they) 22:39, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, WikiProject Anatomy, and WikiProject Women's Health have been notified of this discussion. JJP_Master (she/they) 01:15, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose; if being symmetrical is what we are after, then it would be a split. However, we don't need to be perfectly symmetrical, e.g. WP:OTHERSTUFF. It could also be that the penis and human penis articles being separate is the mistake, not the lack of splitting in this one. The 'misogyny' argument can go either way, as noted above, and isn't policy based. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:31, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Crossroads. This is certainly the topic readers would be expecting to see when they search up vagina, and to be honest I'm not sure there's much more to be said about animal vaginas in general that isn't already covered by the section in this article. They are too varied and different to be worth expending a great deal of detail on and the common features can be easily covered in a joint article with the human version. Probably penis should go the same way TBH.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:08, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Crosroads and Amakuru. If anything, we should question whether the article should maybe be merged back into the other. Raladic (talk) 19:02, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
• Procedural oppose This is a split discussion disguised as a move discussion, WP:WRONGFORUM. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:55, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Split request

Okay, I'll try again with a split request. For the comments above that Wikipedia would be better served by merging Human Penis and Penis together, I tried that already, over in that talk forum, because I agree, but there I got the same mix of procedural opposition and preference for the status quo I'm seeing here. When I tell women about this, the existence for 14 years now of a Human Penis article but no Human Vagina article, I see on their faces the same mix of anger, disgust, and disappointment. People who don't edit, but who daily use, Wikipedia can see this as a gross (I mean the word both ways) injustice. I'll keep trying to help Wikipedians see the same. Dcmcdcm-wiki (talk) 15:14, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

That's a fair argument, but it would be better served by creating a draft for a "human vagina" article and then using it as evidence a split would be good. Moving this particular article would just be disruptive considering it concerns all forms of it, and has done so since its inception in 2001. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 15:27, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Human Penis article has for 14 years contained all the developmental, physiological, evolutionary, clinical health, and cultural information relevant to that human organ—all in a separate location from Penis, which focuses on animal penises. This article provides much of the same information about the human vagina, but holds it in one location concerned with both humans and animals. While that honors the work going back to Carl Linnaeus to place humans among the world's animals, Wikipedia's decision to create a distinct Human Penis article without a Human Vagina article goes against WP:NPOV, creating the argument that the human penis deserves an article of its own, but the human vagina—for unclear and unspoken reasons—does not. I propose the information in this article relevant and applicable to humans be split into a new article. Dcmcdcm-wiki (talk) 15:33, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - as people brought up above in the RM discussion, maybe it's not the lack of a Human Vagina article, but actually the error of there being two for Penis and instead, there should be a merge of Human Penis into Penis instead. Raladic (talk) 16:08, 23 November 2024 (UTC)