The effect is to retard their progress—giving them too little opportunity and too little incentive for copying the language of adults— and a little later the child is pained and the parents' ears tingle at hearing a chance remark: “ How terribly backward she is about talking."

Rabbits, silly ziggers and zaggers, are so busy in snow that their tracks turn to half-pipes, patterned over and over with lucky footprints, like the path of a giant mole with its roof removed for study.

Outside the romantic paradigm, some people form what they’re calling “queerplatonic” relationships. The word indicates nothing about the gender of the participants, but speaks to the desire to “queer” our understandings of platonic friendships. These are relationships of care — “life partnerships” that go quite beyond what most of us consider ordinary friendship. Many sexually ambiguous literary or onscreen relationships — think Frodo and Sam, Holmes and Watson, Thelma and Louise — can also be read as queerplatonic.

Other treatment plans can also include: biofeedback, physical therapy, exercise of the pelvic floor muscles, cognitive behavioral therapy, or in extreme cases of recalcitrant localized vulvar pain, surgery (e.g. vestibulectomy) [ 10, 11 ].