Lots of idioms like to use parts of the body to express themselves: Wearing your heart on your sleeve, having one’s back, or being a kiss-ass, are just examples of a few. But wearing your vulva around your neck, ladies? Is that a thing?

Well, if you visit etsy.com, it literally can be. An online store for handmade or vintage items, the site contains a shopping page called “VulvaLoveLovely” that specializes in “feminist, body positive products” including vulva pendants, portraits, pillows, plushes, etc.

Now, the idea of wearing one’s genitals around his or her neck is not very enticing to most people. Why would any girl want her vagina hanging around her neck?

That’s not my name

First of all, therein that statement lies a common misconception: If any female were to rid herself of skirt and panties this instant, what we’d see would not be her vagina. Colloquially, we tend to mistakenly use the word “vagina” to identify lady-parts in general, when in fact the vagina is an internal structure – a muscular tract that leads from the uterus to the body’s exterior. So unless you’re planning a dissection, chances are you won’t be able to see a woman’s vagina.

What you would see, however, is actually called the “vulva,” the female’s external genital organ. So the next time your friend is worried about flashing her vajay in public because of that super-short skirt she’s wearing, you can correct her and let her know it’s called a vulva. She doesn’t want her vulva hanging out.

We aren’t hippies anymore

No matter what girls decide to call their nether regions – whether it be their vulva, vagina, vajayjay, kitty, beaver, cha-cha, or bluffin’ muffin – a lot of college-aged women enjoy them smooth and depilated, according to a recent article found in Psychology Today.

In the piece, sex therapist/psychiatrist Stephen Snyder comments on the current “bare” trend, stating that many of the young men he treats find a hairy woohoo “unsightly… or even disgusting.” Aww, c’mon now, guys. Don’t be so dramatic. Girls can’t always afford a Brazilian.

Even so, 58.6 percent of girls have made do, says a report by Dr. Debra Herbenick in The Journal of Sexual Medicine; a majority of women aged 18 to 24 had been completely hairless down there at some point throughout the study. And while some girls took to the hot wax for a quick rip off the old block, shaving was the more common approach to smoother lady business.

But is it because guys find it repulsive that girls have the urge to trim the hedges? I’d sure as hell hope not, honeybees – don’t let any man tell you how to work that body of yours. It’s yours, girl. Own it. Yard work for personal satisfaction, however, I’m okay with.

In fact, in her study, Herbenick discovered that plenty of females who kept their kitties bare “reported better genital self-image overall, and more sexual satisfaction.”

So what is it? Why exactly are all you girls shaving, trimming and waxing those bushes? My guess is that it’s just a fad, much like ripped jeans or Ke$ha. Back in the ’70s, hippies were all about the shag carpeting. Nowadays, we prefer a sleeker down-under. Who knows, in another 30 years, maybe we’ll enjoy pubes in the shape of lightning bolts or something. Times change, that’s all there is to it.

So close (oh, oh so close), but so far

While fads may come and go, some things just stick around forever.

The ability to orgasm is one of those things.

But some women, one in seven to be exact, find themselves unable to do so. A study conducted by Kim Wallen, professor of behavioral neuroendocrinology at Emory University, shows that while 98 percent of men boast they “always” orgasm during sex, only 11 percent of women had comparable sentiments. And interestingly enough, approximately the same number of women said the complete opposite: They had never climaxed during sex.

Wallen and his collaborator Elisabeth Lloyd, a professor at Indiana University, both suggest that reaching a climax from intercourse alone is a difficult feat. This is mostly because the clitoris, a female’s most sensitive erogenous zone, is usually not directly stimulated. Try having your partner use his or her hands or tongue for optimal pleasure if you’ve had some difficulties there, ladies.

And it’s also a great idea to get to know your kitties a little better. The more you know about how things work down there, the better sex you’ll have.

While they may be a little difficult to attain, female orgasms are definitely not impossible. In a recent study at Rutgers University, Professor Barry Komisaruk videoed the effects of orgasm on the female brain, finding that waves of pleasure and ecstasy achieved through orgasm are powerful enough to bar a woman from feeling pain.

Yes, sex is a powerful, pleasurable thing. But be educated about it, girls. And don’t be ashamed of your lady-parts. Even if you don’t want to wear your vulvas around your necks, you can still follow the site’s beautiful advice: “Love your vulva, love the vulvas you meet, foster understanding and appreciation of vagina, and be happy with your vagina.”

MARIO LUGO will return with a “Dear Mario” segment next week. If there’s a question you’ve been dying to have answered, e-mail him at mlugo@ucdavis.edu.

It is with great sadness that I extend my sympathy for the loss of our dear comrade, Proposition 19. Robust and lively, he will always be remembered for his ambitious and progressive character.  

He gave a whole new meaning to keeping California “green.”

He is survived by his lifetime partner, Mary Jane.

Let us have a moment of silence.

And much like a person pours out some liquor for a homie who is six feet under, I’m pouring out bong water in memoriam of what could have been.

Isn’t it a tragedy when a life ends much too soon?

Sad, sad.

But hey, it could be worse. eMeg could have been packing her boxes to move into office 15 miles away from campus; but instead, she’s unpacking her boxes of invoices. (It’s worth noting that more Californians voted for Prop. 19 than they did for Meg Whitman, though she spent a whopping $141 million of her own dollars compared to a wee $1.4 million spent by Richard Lee.)

We constituents react in different ways.

Washington breathes a sigh of relief.

Eric Holder releases his iron grip on his telephone – no need to call the D.E.A.

Snoop Dogg doesn’t give a flying you-know-what; he’s rolling one as we speak.

UC Davis students continue with our daily grind. We go to class, study, take midterms and even play. For some of us, that means taking massive rips off percolator ice bongs.

Basically, much will remain the same with Prop. 19’s lamentable exit.

All that media coverage and wild talk of the future, and nothing!

Assuredly, though, dialogue about marijuana legalization and use has gone more mainstream than ever.

News outlets have been having a field day with the ballot measure’s defeat. But with something like 3,392,438 votes of support, it’s hardly an epic fail.

In pot-friendly cities like San Francisco, the smell of marijuana still lingers in the air during public events, on the bus and sidewalks – remnants of somebody’s good time.

Dallas television sports anchor Newy Scruggs (what a name!) was reporting on the first World Series games in front of AT&T Park.

“Right over there, there’s some people smoking weed, because it’s coming this way. We are truly…we are truly in San-…I’m standing here like, that’s not cigarettes! That’s weed. That’s weed!”

Yes sir, weed indeed.

And I found myself regretfully stuck in Davis last Wednesday, missing out on a historic championship parade.

I asked a girlfriend how it was, and she casually replied, “You couldn’t really see anything. There were too many people. We were standing around for hours, but it was okay, ’cause I was high, and it smelled like weed everywhere.”

Ahh, ’tis no surprise that Prop. 19 drew its strongest support from Bay Area folk. What can I say, a whole lot of us know all about the joie de vivre.

So if that’s l’esprit, let us celebrate the merry enterprises that marijuana has so luxuriously and generously brought to some of our lives.

Light it up; here’s one for you, Mary Jane.

Here’s to buying your first piece in Davis. Here’s to knowing someone who knows someone who knows someone who sells who you already know. Here’s to keeping the stench out of the dorm room (paper towel roll, dryer sheets, open window, air freshener, need I say more?).

Here’s to vapin’, rollin’ and smokin’. Here’s to edibles.

Here’s to automatic joint rollers, doob tubes and hemp beauty products. Here’s to cannabis cups, fairs and entrepreneurs.

Here’s to Doug Benson, Nancy Botwin, Willie Nelson and Tim Lincecum. Here’s to Harold and Kumar; I could easily see them fitting in at UCD.

Here’s to Bubba Kush, Blue Dream, Green Crack, Northern Lights and Trainwreck. Here’s to that GDP. Here’s to indicas, sativas, hybrids and not having preferences, too. Here’s to cross breeds, indoor and outdoor strains, glistening trichomes and deep hues of purple, orange and many shades of green.

Here’s to solitary smokers, deep in thought, blowing smoke out into the cool night air.

Here’s to intense hotboxing sessions where you not only release smoke from your mouth, but from your soul.

Here’s to great conversations, and exiting rooms that look like there were fog machines on.

Here’s to bonding.

Here’s to a fantastic, fruitful culture that crosses many boundaries.

Here’s to the medicinal, social, and as we’ve come to see, political and economical uses of marijuana.

Here’s to the growing recognition, popularity and acceptance of cannabis consumption.

Let’s have a toast – or perhaps a toke. The future will only be greener from here on out.

Reach MAY YANG at mayyang@ucdavis.edu.

Recently I was invited to be one of several guest speakers at a meeting of the Black Graduate and Professional Student Association here on campus. At one point the members of the BGPSA were being asked to stand up, one by one, to identify themselves. When the sequence of introductions came around to me, I somehow instinctively sprung up from my seat and gave my name and major, eliciting smiles among many who interpreted what I did, as a white person, as a symbolic gesture of goodwill and unity.

After I went home I got to thinking more deeply about it, and realized maybe there was more to it than that. For a long time now, I’ve understood that Africa is the origin of all of humankind, and in that sense, in the broadest historical context, we are all African. I’m sure this is old hat to the BGPSA members, even if it’s still taking me years to internalize the truth of this realization.

What’s interesting, though, is that, even as a European American, I do have closer physical and intellectual connections to Africa than are at first apparent. Europeans did not live in a vacuum throughout history, and it should come as no surprise that there was a lot of interaction between southern Europeans and northern Africans, both socially and sexually.

My grandma has passed away now, but she was incredibly special to me. Once, not too long ago, while thinking about those loving feelings and conjuring up the image of her face, it occurred to me that several of her facial features which I also considered to be “French” may have ultimately been of African origin. If I only had a crystal ball and could look backward in time through the generations, there must be a fascinating story to be told that would turn my understanding of my identity on its head – or more accurately, turn it right side up!

I didn’t have an inkling of any of this when, as a child, my newly divorced mother moved us (including my two younger brothers) into a racially integrated housing complex in my hometown in Illinois. In reviewing the experience of those three-and-a-half formative years of my life, from ages 9 to 12, I honestly cannot think of a single incident involving any overt racial conflict between any of us children. This includes my experience in seventh grade at a racially integrated middle school, which was named Martin Luther King Upper Grade Center. Somehow we managed to create our own relatively harmonious “children’s society,” which was probably more just, since children live closer to the reality of nature, and our heads hadn’t been completely filled up yet with the false adult ideas which promote racial division.

Rather than being a complete outsider, or person of an “other” identity during my visit to the BGPSA, maybe it should be described more as an instance of the group’s boundaries being temporarily expanded in a natural and commonsensical way for a special occasion. After all, there is only one human race.

Should I feel jilted in some way for not really qualifying to be a regular member of the BGPSA, despite the connections that exist? No, not at all. If we consider life to be like a conference, it makes perfect sense that there would be break-out sessions where different groups of attendees would gather together to discuss specific concerns which more closely align with their experience, interests and goals. The important point is that we are all attending the same “conference” and that we all come together as a whole during the “plenary sessions.”

I haven’t done a complete inventory of my personal identity yet, but I’m sure that I’ve incorporated many values from black culture into my identity, even though there surely must be some dysconscious (repressed) compartmentalization going on with some of my values conflicting with each other at the subconscious level. This is why it’s important that members of groups like the BGPSA have their own space, to work out issues among themselves without the interference (well intentioned or not) from people like me. As we know from the recent studies of the concept of “privilege” that scholars in the field of cultural studies have put forth, there’s much work to be done before the human family can finally function as a cohesive family, without hegemonic elements within the family unfairly taking advantage of other members.

All in all, I was gratified to be invited, and felt inspired to hope for greater inter-ethnic harmony here on campus and within the UC system.

Reach BRIAN RILEY at bkriley@ucdavis.edu.