Dad, what does a Chinkle look like?
This was the question that Monkey decided to spring on me this evening over dinner.
For those of you who are having difficulty in deciphering Monkey’s query I shall translate for you. A chinkle is the part of the female anatomy that us gay gentlemen generally have very little to do with. In his infinite wisdom, Dadda decided to refer to it as a ‘Twinkle’ one day and being the malapropic three year old that he is, Monkey decided to refer to it as above : The Chinkle. And as his question quite clearly stated : He wanted to know what one looked like.
Under normal circumstances I would have passed this probing question over to Dadda to deal with seeing as he was the one who had decided on the cutesy pet name. Unfortunately for me Dadda was at work and so I was left with the unenviable task of coming up with a way to answer.
As we were in the middle of dinner first thing I did was look to the food for inspiration, but I didn’t think referencing Spaghetti was likely to help. Attempting a pasta based visual demo would have just made him think there was some multi tentacled tomato coloured creature living between a lady’s legs. A genital Dr Zoidberg if you will. Which may have caused some surprise and / or disappointment in later life. This wasn’t as easy as first anticipated.
Of course, we were expecting questions like this. What’s it for? What does it do? Why haven’t I got one? But ‘What does it look like?’ was never on the list. That’s because no-one else had anticipated it either. Most children generally know what it looks like as they have usually seen their mummy naked.
From reading other parenting blogs and talking to new mums it is clear that it is standard procedure to take their child to the toilet with them or bathe with them or change with them when they go swimming and just as mums do it with their baby boys, dads do it with their baby girls. Hence children already know what all exterior human anatomy looks like on both males and females. They just need educating in later life as to what to do with it.
Being same sex parents to a child who is the same sex as us. It’s not as simple as that and the choices that remain after trying to make a Spaghetti hymen are rather limited. I had three viable options.
1 – Attempt to describe what a Vagina looks like with words. This is not as easy as it sounds. Especially for a gay man. You might as well ask me to describe the inside of a diving bell. I’ve seen it once or twice and could give you a general idea of the aesthetics but that’s about it. Also bear in mind that I would be attempting to describe it to a three year old with limited vocabulary skills. Who would also not understand the value of a metaphor, and likely take all similes as literal. In my head the conversation started to get complicated at the use of the word ‘lips’ so I gave up on that idea.
2 – Take him to the laptop and use Google Images with safe search off. I accidentally ended up google image searching a clitoris once when I thought it was just standard google and I wanted to check the spelling. Firstly : I have never seen so many clitorati (I’m going with that as the plural) in my life. Secondly : If any straight man wanted to know where it was I could now draw you a pretty accurate map from memory. Thirdly : no adult of any sex needs to see that many clitorati in one sitting never mind a three year old child so that idea was swiftly discarded.
3 – Call a female friend. To be honest I’m not actually sure what a female friend would do. Their choices would be as limited as ours as it’s not as if they could just drop their kecks, whop their bits out over the dining table and let him have a gander. I imagine when the child isn’t your own that kind of thing is frowned upon. So choice three was also out which meant I was out of options.
Luckily the Monkey has the attention span of a goldfish and in the seconds it had taken me to consider all of the above options and more (setting fire to myself and running away being one of the less favourable choices) he had thought of something else that vexed his tiny toddler brain.
‘Dad, why did Marshall go on the Skateboard when he was sleeping?’
‘Because he was sleep walking and he’d accidentally left the toys out. So he stood on it but the rest of the pups saved him didn’t they, you just finish your tea I’m off to do the washing up.’
Luckily I have seen more episodes of Paw Patrol than I have seen chinkles. The subject was changed and I made a hasty retreat. Of course, this won’t be the last of it and me and Dadda will now have to get together to formulate an answer that won’t traumatise or confuse the little man.
That said, If there’s anyone reading who has an answer that is suitable for a three year old then please feel free to comment or email it over. NO PICTURES PLEASE!
The rest of you parents out there who have previously complained about not even being able to take a wee on your own without being watched.
I’ve found your silver lining.
At least you’ll never have to describe your own vagina over dinner.
or consider making one from spaghetti.
We'd better have mashed potato tomorrow just in case. It's much easier to model with.
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