Quick: what do “honey pot,” “thatchy snatch” and “Mary Lou” have in common?

It’s OK if you’re having trouble figuring out the connection between these words, because they are just a few of the many names for that special place down there. You may call it something else, like “va-jay-jay” or “cooch,” but in the end, these are all just popular ways to describe the vagina (or in most cases, the vulva—a girl or woman’s external sexual organs).

There are a lot more terms floating around, and 25 of the most common ones are mentioned in the “Love Your Vagina” video. With its catchy tune and unusual lyrics, this song spotlights your “little man in a canoe” and reminds you to always “love, love, love your vagina.”

I’ll be honest: I blushed a little when I heard this song for the very first time. And I made sure to turn the volume all the way down. Even then, I couldn’t help looking around the room every few seconds to ensure that no one was looking over my shoulder, because the truth was, I was flustered. Just a teensy bit.

I knew that the technical term for the “little man in a canoe” was “vulva” and “vagina” (depending on the part it’s referring to). I had grown accustomed to using these anatomically correct words, but I still wasn’t quite ready to start singing along with the lady in the video. Although the message was cute and harmless, its boldness caught me off guard. I’d never heard anyone crooning so proudly about her genitalia before! Most people get nervous just talking about it.

In that moment, I realized something: Yes, it’s important to know the correct names for our body parts, but it’s OK to have some fun with slang sometimes, too. Especially if you’re going to blast “Love Your Vagina” all the way up, so that the whole neighborhood hears you.

—Cynthia Lam, 17, Staff Writer

True or false? Gardasil, the vaccine that protects people from certain strains of human papillomavirus (HPV), is only for females and is ineffective in males.

False! While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that 11-and 12-year-old girls get the Gardasil vaccination, males should think about taking it too! The New England Journal of Medicine just published a study funded by Merck—the maker of Gardasil—on the effectiveness of the drug in males. The study found that Gardasil was 90-percent effective at preventing genital warts and 86-percent effective at preventing persistent HPV infections. Gardasil was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for males in 2009, but hasn’t been strongly encouraged for them.

The CDC estimates that 20 million Americans are infected with HPV. The virus usually has no symptoms, so it often goes unnoticed in the carrier. HPV usually clears the body on its own and is totally harmless. But some strains, like those the Gardasil vaccine protects against, can cause cervical, penile, anal, vaginal and vulvar cancer.

Just last month, the American Academy of Pediatrics included Gardasil in their list of recommended vaccines for boys. Guys are a vital part in stopping the spread of HPV. If guys are vaccinated, then that means fewer guys will pass the strains of the virus linked to cancer to their partners.

—Colleen Tierney, 17, Staff Writer

If you’re a girl, you already know it, and if even if you’re a guy, you probably have a good sense of it: Having your period is not fun. Girls deal with their periods because they have to.

I don’t wear white or frolic through fields of flowers on my period. I’m guessing that most other girls don’t either, but that’s exactly what you see in commercials for tampons and pads. It’s these images that make these commercials so ridiculous.

Kotex’s commercials for their new line of tampons, pads and liners called U are great because they challenge the images of women on their periods dancing through a flock of butterflies. The commercials are totally hilarious. And while I may not have rushed out and bought these particular tampons, the commercials definitely caught my attention. And what more can you ask of a commercial?

-Taylor McCabe, 17, Staff Writer

Sex: one of the most talked about, thought about and worried about topics in society. But what does “sex” mean?

In a recent survey conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, only 20 percent of college students felt that oral-genital contact was a form of “sex.” On the other hand, 98 percent agreed that penile-vaginal intercourse was sex, and 78 percent agreed that penile-anal intercourse was sex. Interestingly, the participants in the survey were only half as likely as participants in a similar study conducted in 1991 to consider oral-genital intercourse sex.

We all have our own definitions about what sex is or isn’t, but we can’t make the mistake of thinking oral-genital intercourse is a way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). While there is no risk of pregnancy during oral-genital intercourse, there are STDs, including herpes, gonorrhea and HIV, that you can get from oral sex.

Believing that oral sex is not as “serious” as penile-vaginal or penile-anal sex can unfortunately lead to carelessness when it comes to using condoms and dental dams to protect yourself during oral sex. And no matter what you consider sex to be, we can all agree that not protecting yourself is to risk getting an STD. And why not use protection now, so you don’t have to deal with an STD later?

-Melanie Johnson, 17, Staff Writer