Vagina Bones

About

Vagina Bones is an internet slang term that refers to a woman’s pelvic bones. While it has been occasionally used to describe the visible outlines of the femurs in casual conversations, mostly in the context of female characters in Japanese anime and manga, the word became a target of online mockeries in May 2016 after being mentioned in a tweet protesting the censorship of a female character’s physical features in the Western version of the Japanese role-playing video game Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.

Origin

On September 16th, 2006, Urban Dictionary^[1] user Leah&Jenna submitted an entry for “vagina bone,” defining the term as slang for “pelvis bone.”

Spread

On February 23rd, 2011, the Japanese entertainment blog Japanator^[8] highlighted a screenshot of a poorly-translated scene from the anime series Dream Eater Merry, in which young boy complains that a swimsuit doesn’t show off a female character’s “vagina bones” (shown below).

On July 7th, 2012, a Baby Center Forums^[7] member submitted a post titled “24 weeks and my vagina bones feel broken,” in which she complained about experiencing pelvic pain after giving birth. On March 29th, 2013, a Cheat Engine Forums^[6] user commented on a video game character’s attractiveness by remarking “she got them vagina bones.” On June 12th, 2015, NarutoBase Forums member NukaCola referred to the Naruto character Sarada’s pelvis as her “vagina bones” (shown below).

Censorship Controversy

On May 13th, 2016, Twitter user @Sebban_E posted a tweet comparing the differences between a female character’s depiction in the Japanese and Western versions of the role-playing video game Tokyo Mirage Sessions, claiming that the character’s “cleavage” and “vagina bones” had been removed (shown below).

Following the tweet, some Twitter users mocked @Sebban_E for using “vagina bones” while others defended his use of the slang term (shown below).

On May 14th, Redditor B-Volleyball-Ready submitted @Sebban_E’s tweet to the /r/KotakuInAction^[4] subreddit, requesting that the community would turn “vagina bones” into a “meme.” On May 17th, The Daily Dot^[3] published an article mocking the “vagina bones” tweet. The following day, HeatStreet^[5] published an article about the online controversy, noting that user @Sebban_E was referencing “a five-year-old meme.”