"Grey's Anatomy": how Shonda Rhimes invented a new way of naming the "vagina"

PODCAST

Love stories, racialized characters, tears, a lot of tears, and scalpels ... This week, in SERIELAND, Clémence Olivier takes you behind the scenes of the medical series Grey's Anatomy.

In the medical series 

we talk about sutures, craniotomy and even sections of the aortic artery.

But in the first seasons, it is rare to hear a word however banal, an anatomical term: that of "vagina".

In the series which depicts the daily life of several doctors and interns in a Seattle hospital, the characters use another vocabulary to refer to the female organ.

It came out of the imagination of the writers.

It is the "va-jay-jay".

To understand why, I have to explain something to you.

This desire to censor the word vagina is not at all an idea of ​​Shonda Rhimes, the creator.

Quite the contrary… It is in fact one producer of the series who asked that the term vagina not be used too frequently.

And this from the first season broadcast in 2005 on the ABC channel. 

Shonda Rhimes finds a parade

Does it sound crazy to you to censor an anatomical term in a medical series?

When told about it, Shonda Rhimes jumps up.

And she is all the more offended as the producer does not suggest that she limit the use of the word "penis".

For him, it is not a subject.

So the designer struggles.

But nothing helps.

The producer doesn't want to hear anything, even for an episode in which one of the surgeons, Miranda Bailey, gives birth.

Reluctantly, Shonda Rhimes crossed out the word vagina from one of the scenes.

Instead, she decides to use a term that is not in the dictionary.

This famous invented word which is neither vulgar nor too technical which resembles "vagina": "va-jay-jay"  

Oprah Winfrey grabs it

This word will enter the vocabulary of Americans.

Why ?

Because the famous TV presenter Oprah Winfrey will also seize it.

And it's snowballing.

We now find va-jay-jay in several American dictionaries.

It is spoken in other series such as

, but also in certain press articles, specifies the

So yes, we can regret that we are reduced to using a sex cover to talk about the female organ.

But let us recognize that in the constraint Shonda Rhimes knew how to show creativity.

Above all, she offered women who did not dare to talk about their vagina, a new word to name it, perhaps easier to use.