Why It's Important to Use Anatomically Correct Terms Even When Some Don't Like Them

Despite prudishness around the use of biological terms for reproductive organs, there is real evidence that using clear language to describe them is essential for protecting children. Many of the 55 million American children who attend school don't come home to a stable, loving, nourishing environment. The statistics of child abuse are shocking:

• Ten percent of children will experience inappropriate sexual contact or sexual language from teachers, coaches, or other school employees.
• Thirty-four percent of children will experience inappropriate sexual contact or sexual language from a family member.
• Approximately 350,000 children in any given year are raped in a school or family setting.

In unraveling the long history of sexual abuse in the 360 parochial schools of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, involving 210,000 children, investigators found certain patterns in the schools where the greatest numbers of children were molested:

• Puritanical school administrators, who would not allow any discussion of sex, led the schools that had the greatest number of abuse cases.
• Abused children are usually taught to be obedient to authority. Teaching correct terms for sex organs helps those children feel "right" while reporting the wrongs done to them.
• Childish language helps perpetuate a culture of secrecy, in which assaults cannot even be described. 
• Children whose families use colloquial terms for sex organs tend to have very little information about what sex is, or what about what sexual assault is.

Sex abuse investigator Dr. Anthony Rizzuto reports that the issue of appropriate language came up in nearly investigation of the 210,000 cases of child abuse in the archdiocese. Children who were able to use accurate terms for the places where they were touched and how they were touched were able to give church and police investigators precise information that can be used in the "innocent until proven guilty" constraints of criminal investigation. When children had been taught correct terminology, more of them went to teachers and parents to report problems.

READ What Every Parent Should Know About Sexual Abuse

Sex-abuse prevention educators want children to know that their private parts are just that, private. However, they also want children to feel free to talk about them. It's important that children feel that they won't get in trouble for asking questions about sexual relationships and sexual health, and they won't get in trouble for asking the questions they need to ask to recognize sexual abuse. When their friend is removed from a classroom because he learned the term "penis," or their teacher is put under investigation for using the term "vagina," the message to children is that they need to keep quiet, or at least to be vague. When children are afraid their comments will get them into trouble, they shut down communication. This reinforces a culture of secrets that gives sexual perpetrators cover. Accurate terms that are taught systematically are an important part of keeping children safe from the adults who would abuse them.