This past weekend, a little-known Twitter user with only 15 followers lamented that a Japanese game coming to the states will be censored.
Censorship in localized Japanese games has caused quite a stir on the Internet lately. Nintendo removed a boob-size toggle from the American version of Xenoblades Chronicles X and a “gay conversion” scene from Fire Emblem. The American version of Tokyo Mirage Sessions changed the bikini top from one of the characters and removed her pelvic definition that one Twitter user fatefully termed “vagina bones.”
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@CensoredGaming_ #TokyoMirageSessions Not only did they remove her cleavage, but they also removed her vagina bones. pic.twitter.com/lrTXuU99tZ
— Sebban (@Sebban_E) May 13, 2016
Twitter users soon came out of the woodwork to mock the Twitter user, Sebban, for lacking understanding of the female anatomy.
@Sebban_E @hentailogic @CensoredGaming_ the vag bone's connected to the…
— Jordan Hello World (@DELICIOUSKEK) May 14, 2016
@haurchefants distant cousin to the lesser known Titty bone
— rom's bara titties (@aubadier) May 15, 2016
Hey look, even guys can have those “vagina bones” pic.twitter.com/GGxFP7Qa6t
— ♡♡ Weird Kitty ♡♡ (@LadySerenaKitty) May 14, 2016
In summary: a reference by one user with barely any followers eventually turned this controversy into a full blown #vaginabonegate. Some commenters even invoked the long-running Gamergate saga, where censorship has also been an issue.
@Lady_Cyprus @Sebban_E @CensoredGaming_ it's what gamergaters think the penis bone goes into
— Everyone's Grudge (@paulengelhard) May 15, 2016
@Sebban_E @CensoredGaming_ that you for demonstrating how little understanding Gamergate possess when it comes to women. Vagina bones smh…
— Andy A (@playablepixels) May 14, 2016
Waiting for a video where a gamergater steals a prop skeleton from their high school biology class to prove vagina bones exist
— YOU GOT THAT WRONG (@NotFaulty) May 17, 2016
The indictment eventually became of “gamers” as a whole, through a DailyDot hit piece.
But it turns out Sebban was probably making a reference to a five-year-old meme, and is not necessarily the femalephobic basement dweller that Twitter thinks he is. Vagina bones are actually a reference to a poorly translated line from the anime Yumekui Merry.
4chan/a/ picked picked up the phrase and memified it.
But vagina bones goes back even earlier. In a 2010 episode of The Jersey Shore, Snooki referenced it. “Did you ever get kicked in your cuca?” Snooki asked JWoww. “I thought I broke my vagina bone!”
The earliest reference easily available on Google comes from 2006 on Urban Dictionary.
wait people have never jokingly called them vagina bones before? i do that all the time y'all are squares
— Scully? (@LucidSpike) May 14, 2016
Vagina bones have a storied history in popular culture. They shouldn’t be used to denigrate gamers, but celebrated as the absurd catch-all term for the enigmatic pelvic region only the most seasoned anatomists truly comprehend.
