A man named Paul would like to tell you the difference between a vulva and vagina.

The year is 2019 and a man on the internet named Paul has claimed to know more about female genitalia than a gynaecologist and oh, Paul.

I’m sorry, sir, but do you? Do you really?

Psst – here’s a handy video tour of your lady garden. Post continues after.

Random man/Twitter user Paul Bullen, who we strongly suspect possesses neither a vagina or a vulva, took mansplaining to a whole new level this week when he told a gynaecologist she was wrong about the word vulva.

via GIPHY

Responding to a Guardian article titled “Me and my vulva: 100 women reveal all” about Laura Dodsworth’s latest photography project, Womanhood, where she collated 100 photos of vulvas belonging to women and gender-non-conforming people, Paul very kindly pointed out an error he believed both the artist and author of the article had made.

How silly of them.

“The correct word is vagina,” he wrote.

In the interest of educating Paul on the correct use of the terminology, gynaecologist and women’s health advocate Jennifer Gunter chimed in.

Clarifying that she was, in fact, highly trained and skilled in the area given her profession, Jennifer let Paul know that vulva was indeed correct, linking to a previous post she wrote about the difference between the vulva and the vagina.

“I’m sick of people forgetting the poor vulva and referring to everything in the female lower reproductive tract as vagina,” Jennifer had written in the 2015 post.

She went on to explain that inaccurate language in reference to female sex organs highlighted a greater societal issue of gender imbalance.

“No one confuses male anatomy, when people say penis they don’t really mean the testicles,” wrote Gunter. “Vagina as a catch all means it doesn’t matter enough to get it right.”

The post even included a handy Venn diagram that shows where there is overlap. There you go Paul.

But rather than listen to the person whose job it is to understand these body parts, he decided to mansplain further, and boy we bet someone out there really regrets showing him how to use Twitter.

oh my god pic.twitter.com/41cPFUqcbE

— i bless the rains down in Castamere (@Chinchillazllla) February 10, 2019

I am saying that as is the case with many English words, the one under consideration has both a narrow and a general meaning, in as much as meaning can be associated with usage. I am not denying the narrow meeting. I am acknowledging the broader usage.

— Paul Bullen (@paulbullen) February 10, 2019

I thought we would circle back to your original tweet because the claims you are now making are refuted by it. You said “correct” not “modern vernacular” or “slang” or “common use.” The correct term is, indeed, vulva.
But do go on… https://t.co/DMkqi7Sk0Y

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) February 11, 2019

Several tweets later, Paul had well and truly blown the mansplaining Richter scale, having essentially argued that Jennifer’s expertise is “part of the problem” and that it’s natural that she would “prefer the technical terms”.

His argument was that because most people often just call it a vagina, that use is legitimate, which is… exactly the opposite of what Jennifer had explained in her 2015 article.

Oh, but there’s more.

He rounded it all off by actually trying to mansplain mansplaining and we are done.

That’s an incorrect use of the word mansplaining. :-). Not that I want to legitimize the term, but by its own definition it requires more than just having just a man who is explaining something. Even if some in the audience are women.

— Paul Bullen (@paulbullen) February 10, 2019

Naturally, Twitter took no mercy:

Splainception
we must go deeper

— Adam J. Thaxton (@raygungoth1) February 11, 2019

You will find upon closer inspection that while I am incorrect, I am also in fact right.

— View from Somewhere or Something or Other (@RollingLeft) February 10, 2019

Even my 2 year old knows the correct term is vulva.

— Amanda Court (@DemandaCourt) February 11, 2019

I’m going to say “The correct word is vagina” to every question I’m asked in meetings today.

— Amy Bennett (@NeutronGirl) February 11, 2019

You might be a gynecologist, but I’m a man on Twitter pic.twitter.com/DCJg1ysoNA

— Tasos Lazarides (@TLaz99) February 11, 2019

Paul sucks at cunnilingus.

— Shannon Stamey (@ShannonStamey) February 10, 2019

that’s some meta-mansplainin right there

— intensive purposes (@mbubb) February 10, 2019

He’s lost control, he’s hydrosplaning.

— Bailey (@Quotizmo) February 11, 2019

Hahahahahahaha pic.twitter.com/iqcnrc9Fjf

— clairmc (@clairmc) February 11, 2019

This reminds me of when I was waiting to be picked up from school and the teacher acted confused after she asked what car my dad drove and I mispronounced “Volvo”. Ok back to your story pic.twitter.com/WMbq5ERYyQ

— NightShift Dude RN (@absuRd_Nurse) February 11, 2019