My son thinks I pee out of my butt. I don’t. Unless you count that one time when I ate at Waffle House, but that’s disturbing and I’d like to move along. SO.  Boychild is really confused about my parts, and I don’t blame him. Genitals are weird and confusing things. When I was young, I had no idea what a penis looked like for many years. I couldn’t imagine what they could possibly look like, which is why I really wanted to see one.  Please note this was a simpler time: before the ubiquity of peen, the sheer surplus of dongs that are available to any curious person today thanks to the interwebs. One pre-internet day when I was eight, my monthly National Geographic came and I finally saw my first penis (kind of). Yes, I had a subscription to National Geographic at eight years old. What? I wanted to be Jacques Cousteau or run off to Machu Picchu. Yes, I was a nerd, thank you.

In this edition of National Geographic, they featured the Sistine Chapel ceiling and boy, were there penises! Plenty of penises! A sky full of dicks! I was not impressed. I remembered thinking something like “Oh. Wow, that’s it? It’s kind of small.” Then I saw a piece of Adam’s side-ball and thought, “What is that? Eww.” I’d never seen balls before, either. I honestly couldn’t tell the twig from the berries. So I get why it’s all so confusing. Plus, I seem to remember that back in Michelangelo’s day, having a teeny weenie was very in vogue, as larger penises signaled the more bestial nature of mankind during the Renaissance. The closer to God, the smaller the ding-a-ling.

I don’t know what to tell Boychild about my lady-bits. He and dad have bonded over having a penis. The other day, I woke up overhearing Boychild in the bathroom saying “Dad, you have a big penis and I have a little penis.” Dad replied, “Well, you’re a small guy, so you have a small penis. But as you get bigger, you’ll have a bigger penis.” Sound words of advice. Later that day, Boychild said, “Mom, where’s your penis?” I said, “I don’t have one, baby. I have a vagina.” He got misty-eyed. “But I want you to have a penis!” he lamented, beginning to cry. That’s rather nice of him- to want me to be part of the penis posse. I imagine penises are really fun to have. Like having a magical meat-wand between your legs, though I’ve heard they can be unpredictable, going all “Diminuendo” instead of “Erecto.”  Balls seem very risky. I question Mother Nature’s decision to place those on the outside of one’s body. They’re between the legs, which gives a modest amount of protection, but wouldn’t testicles be safer somewhere else, like in one’s armpits? I prefer to have my gonads inside, thank ya very much.

I clumsily explained to my three year old that I’m a female and we have a butthole and also a hole for peeing and then yet another hole. And then I went on to awkwardly say “You know how you have a hole for a mouth and a hole for a nose and ear holes, too? Yeah. I mean, those are different holes that do different things, but they’re still holes, right? That’s like what women have down there.” Great. Now he thinks I have a nose for a vagina and an ear on my butthole. I don’t know how to explain my genitals to a three year old. It was hard enough explaining them to grown men. I’m sure this is all going to lead to a lot of therapy.  Mostly mine.