Who Have You Told?  Lip Service, May 16, 2009, Books & Books, Miami. 



  Heeb, November 2008, Miami International Book Fair  

 

My Accidental Brazilian, Zephre Theater, Los Angeles

Stinky ‘Gina  published online at offsprung on January 14, 2008

By Andrea Askowitz

This morning, my four-year-old runs into the kitchen and announces that she has a stinky ’gina.

“No you don’t,” I say.

“Yeah, I do,” she says.

She points her chubby finger at me and asks me to smell it. I ask what she has on her finger and she says, “My ’gina.” Then she smells it. “Stinky,” she says, and laughs.

I stand there stumped: I’m in a tight spot. How do I teach my daughter that her ’gina doesn’t stink without being too much of a ’gina proponent? I want her to know that ’ginas are beautiful and that she should be proud to have one, but how do I tell her that objectively, being that I’m a lesbian?

I consider saying, “No baby, ’ginas smell really good.” But then I think better of it. What if she asks me how I know?

Also, I don’t want to lie to her. I mean, I do think ’ginas smell good, really good, if I’m in the right mood. But also, I see what she means. I grew up thinking ’ginas smelled like fish, which is what kids in my school said, because, well…they do.But I don’t want her equating her ’gina with fish. It took me years to get past that notion and to finally feel confident sexually. I was a freshman in college, years before I discovered the joys of ’ginas for myself, when Vince Imordino and I were fooling around in his dorm room. He made the move down there on his own. And for a minute it wasn’t bad until I heard the most awful noise. Vince retched. He almost threw up in my crotch. I jumped out of his bed so fast. I had never been more humiliated and swore to myself that I wouldn’t tell a single person. I ran to my room, and as soon as I closed the door behind me and saw my roommate, Stacy, I told her.

Now, this was 1986 and before feminism took hold for the two of us. But Stacy pointed her thin finger at me and yelled: “You don’t stink! You don’t stink! There is something wrong with that guy, not with you!”

So I’m remembering Stacy in this moment in the kitchen with my 4-year-old. Stacy, thank you, but what do I say now, 22 years later?

Maybe it’s a matter of hygiene. I need to teach my daughter to keep her ’gina clean. But then I don’t want her to think that she’s not clean.

And then it comes to me and I say to myself: Wait, that’s my issue. She’s not burdened with any of this. She doesn’t think of her ’gina as her entire essence. And why would she? Why do I? Just because we have ’ginas doesn’t mean we are ’ginas. She’s just talking about a part of her body as innocuous as feet. Dirty ’gina, dirty feet; same thing.

“Honey,” I say, “you just have to wash your ’gina, same as you have to wash your feet, otherwise it’ll get stinky.”

“Oh,” she says, and runs out of the kitchen with her finger still in the air.

Andrea Askowitz is the author of My Miserable, Lonely Lesbian Pregnancy, to be published in May by Cleis Pr