Did you ever play the penis game when you were growing up? The boys in my high school used to play it in math class, and I remember thinking how weird it was that they’d use a part of themselves as a dirty, funny word.
I will never be a good erotica writer. I get annoyed with the euphemisms, I’m sick of the crashing oceans. I’m fed up with the metaphor, the impossible dance to balance the delicate with the raw. I’ve had terms churning up in my mind for weeks now, full of frustration.
I simply do not like any of the words we have in this language to refer to our genitalia. And you must admit, erotica does generally contain genitalia. It’s the nature of the two-backed beast.
This is what I do with my time. I sit around and try to figure out why I don’t like words.
I’ll start with the obvious. The technical terms, if you will.
Vagina & Penis
The Vagina Monologues really nailed the word “vagina” right on the nose:
“It sounds like an infection at best, maybe a medical instrument: ‘Hurry nurse, bring me the vagina!’”
Seriously, that is one awkward conflux of sounds. The “v” comes humming off the tongue nicely only to be brought up squeaking short by the high-pitched vowels. It’s not a word I’d like to run my tongue over; it actually sounds distasteful. Clinical.
“Penis” isn’t really doing much better. Pee-niss. The onomatopoeia of the word “penis” is not sex; it’s urine. I realize that’s right on the nose for some, but I am not quite happy that one of the most inevitable words in sexual language is screaming piss play in my face. A sterile, yellow fluid for a sterile, yellow word.
Insert and remove the penis from the vagina, ensuring a sufficient amount of lubrication has saturated the area to allow for fluid motion. Repeat until climax.
Yes, that’s definitely how I want to spend my nights.
Our vaginas and penises are pretty much the only body parts we still consistently use euphemisms for. We’ve grown past the tightly buttoned morality of the Victorian era that danced around chicken breasts and table legs, but we’re still in a culture where it’s just not okay to admit to sex out loud. Our sexual organs are swearwords.
And the euphemisms are even worse, which goes against the very definition of what a euphemism is supposed to be.
There are, of course, the obvious choices.
Cock & Pussy
What am I, keeping a farm now?
I really don’t get the word “pussy.” It’s a bit squelchy, in the end. I feel as though this word got picked up to mean “vagina” because no one could think of a better option. I have no ownership of the word. The area between my legs, although hairy and soft, does not seem adequately represented by the word “pussy.” This edges into the nonsensical for me, a combination of baby talk and misplaced modesty.
The word is far more illuminating in its derogatory use: don’t be a pussy. Don’t be a wimp. Don’t be passive. Pussy is a swearword of weakness and impotence. Isn’t that just fantastic; we’ve managed to make the word we use for a women’s genitals simultaneously dirty and weak. I can’t really avoid that when I say the word pussy. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
“Cock” is a word that I’m warily all right with. It sounds arrogant and hard and clever. But it is undeniably a bit blunt for some situations. The language forces my hand, the very rhythm of the word like a loud misplaced drumbeat in a quieter symphony. I ran my fingertips gently along his cock.
It’s like a linguistic game: one of these words is not like the others, one of these words is not like its brothers.
Cunt.
Here’s the thing about the word cunt. I actually like it; that’s right, I like it. Its vulgarity and abruptness make it a natural complement for the word “cock.” They sound nice together, an aggressive shoulder-to-shoulder brawling clash of sounds. Cock. Cunt. They are hard, fast sounds, and they work for hard, fast sex.
Cunt. Cock. Fuck. Cunt. Cock. Fuck. Them’s fighting words. Thrusting words.
But “cunt” is also a political word. It holds multiple spaces in my consciousness; a word of female power, a word of reclamation, the word so dirty I didn’t even know it existed because no one dared to use it. A violent word, a feminist word. It is politically charged in ways that my sex is not.
Also, my sex is not always the thrusting rhythm of cunt-cock-fuck sex. This is the battle between technical and vulgar; no matter what words I choose I cannot escape being one or the other, unless I just want to be funny.
So those are my choices: technical, vulgar, or funny. That’s what sex comes down to.
Really, it’s all downhill from here.
Dick.
Horrible sound. “Dick” has all of the shortness of “cock” but none of the flavor. Also, similar to “johnson,” I really cannot get past the fact that this is a name. I don’t name my vagina. I don’t want to name your penis. It’s not a pet, for fuck’s sake.
Organ. (See also: manhood, member.)
What organ? His liver? Am I having a tender tryst with the man’s kidneys?
These words are like having sex through a hole in a bed sheet; distant and full of deniability. Words of coming of age stories and exclusive clubs that I clearly cannot join. In my head these words ring of the historical distaste that made women out as incomplete men. I have organs aplenty, but not the one that counts. My womanhood is innocuous and outdated, and as for membership, well, you get the picture.
Cooch.
No. Just . . . no. I give up on this one. I have no idea how people can stand to even say this out loud. It feels like sandpaper on my tongue.
From here we devolve into the obscure and the outrageous. I cannot create my own euphemisms to use in my erotic writing, precisely because they would be meaningless. Meaningless words are the least sexy of all; they are simply baby talk. Often reading erotica with made-up words makes me feel as though I’ve stumbled into a game of dirty Mad-Libs.
I get that some of us have moved beyond these hang-ups, although clearly I have not. I can talk about almost everything; I spent the beginning of Friday night regaling a complete stranger with my opinions on dildoes. I can talk about sex. And yet I feel hemmed in by these terms: cock, pussy, cunt, penis. I don’t like how they sit on the page. I don’t like that our sexual organs are weighted with such unsexy language.
I mean, coochie snorcher? What the hell?
18 Comments
While cock is fine with me I prefer penis and (sort of) phallus.
Likewise cunt, vagina, clitoris.
I’ve never recovered from junior high school. Most of he slang I associate with ignorant teenage boys. That has left them for me tainted with immaturity and utterly unsexy.
Phallus is a bit too obscure for me, and also very art-history. I don’t know quite how to explain that.
I didn’t touch clitoris (or labia, shaft, head, etc) because I’m actually okay with most of those words. I quite like “clitoris” and ‘labia.” But those are parts of the whole.
Ugh. Junior high. Ugh.
I comment here only in reference to writing. Two points.
a) It is indicative that the sort of writing which concentrates on sex must use these words so inordinately often that the reader must develop a pathetic awareness to them. An example of this is the word “egg.” If the word is used often enough in a paragraph, its possible to slightly unfocus the eyes and see the repetition stand out. Cock, dick, pussy and so on are like that in many pornographic novels, simply because they get used over and over. I find generally the best pornography eschews these words, and eschews euphemisms for these words. I find generally the best pornography is not about vanilla sex.
b) My second point moderately disagrees with my first point; I am aware of this. It is the nature of being a writer that one is much more conscious of the individual words within a text than a reader. A writer will notice the twenty-third time that the words “he said” appears during a four page dialogue. The reader will not. The reader is looking for information, and is therefore not self-conscious about the manner in which that information is delivered, as a writer is. Writers will sometimes think they must use words like “explained”, “added”, “argued”, “exclaimed”, or “effused” in replacement of “said.” It is, in fact, the replacement which is more likely to rip the reader from the work than the repetition of “said.”
Along these lines, writers of erotic literature are much more conscious of the use of the words above debated than readers. The reader is much more interested in the subtext then the text. The use of the word itself, however silly in sound, or common, or nauseating, depends not on its actual cachet but upon the nature of the speaker (including the narrator). Obviously, if I wished to denote a crude, slightly weird freak as a narrator, I am more likely to say that “I porked the girl” than that “I eased myself into her.” Depending on the context, both are stupid and both are potentially appropriate.
Writers do best to get their head out of the language and into the head of their fictional speaker.
Hi Alexis!
Re point a) I heartily agree with your opinion on what is generally the best pornography. I do, however, like to have sexual organs sometimes involved with my BDSM pornography, at which point I feel that the awkwardness is still very relevant.
Re point b) This is a linguistic lesson I’m also aware of, although I came to it through writing and editing non-fiction essays while in school. Sometimes it is simply more appropriate to use one word multiple times than to rack one’s brain trying to find alternatives, and most of the bad essays I had to correct suffered horribly under the weight of their synonyms. I’m amazed at how much clarity is allowed to suffer in essay work because of misplaced creative language.
Getting my head into out of the language and into my character inveitably works better in fiction, with characters who aren’t myself. When writing about my own experiences, this tangle of language becomes an accurate representation of what’s going on in my head.
You’re not a character?
At least “clit” is a nice simple word.
I can handle “pussy” but not “cunt.” I never got around to the reclaiming part of “cunt” and to me it’s just something that a nasty misogynist calls a despised female.
I usually say “cock” but Jos often says “dick” and I’ll use that word when I’m being more casual. (Um, as opposed to those formal occasions when I say “cock”?? What I mean by ‘casual’ is more like ‘not sexual’ I guess.)
“Cunt” is a big favorite of mine. I like it particularly much because it’s actually a really, really old word. I’d pull out my Chaucer for you to quote the Wife of Bath using it’s ancestor, also the ancestor of the world “quaint”, in reference to her lady bits (which she also calls her “belle chose”), but you’ll just have to trust me on this. The first major usage of the word that would become “cunt” was by a woman who loved herself, took care of herself, and had fucked four husbands into early graves. That’s a word I can get behind.
Also I generally use “cock”. You’re right, they do go together well.
Eileen,
Probably I’m strongly conscious of clitoris because for a guy of my generation it was still obscure but so very important to learn about.
Junior high may be the nadir of life :)
Dev,
I’m comfortable with cunt partly because before prudery came to have the power it obtained in the 18th century it seems to have often been just a word honorably used by educated people. And - probably most importantly - the women I’ve known seemed very comfortable with it.
I like cunt, but I almost never use it during sex. It doesn’t flow of my tongue well, but I’ll sometimes use it when I write - along with pussy, which I *do* use in bed. But choosing when to use each word when writing is situational.
When I casually refer to my self, I actually use a whole bunch of different terms for that area down there. When I talk to my mother, I say bagina. The ‘b’ softens the fact that we’re talking about sexual organ.
Among friends, I refer to it as my vag, my poon, my cooch, my vajayjay, my poonani, and various other ‘one off’ terms or in jokes.
Though, I like how Dane Cook refers to them best as ‘cash and prizes’. Though, ‘downtown bonanza’ is pretty good too.
“dick” is not a sex organ - a dick is something that gets caught in your zipper.
I happen to like cock & cunt, but Mrs. Edge prefers pussy. She is sometimes still a little bashful about words; it’s really only been in the last five or six years that I’ve gotten her to stop using “pee-pee.”
No, really.
Most women I know (or at least, those who have discussed it with me) use pussy or cunt.
Coochie snorcher?
*shakes head*
My 2 year old daughter is beginning to notice the difference between herself and baby brother, so this is a very current issue in our house. What do you teach them so that they will not offend others? Being a scientist in my past life, the technical terms don’t bother me, however they are not always appropriate. So we will keep using “girl and boy parts” and anxiously await for an appropriate option.
I like the word phallus, it’s the least offensive and most sexy to me without making me feel like I am writing a medical text book.
And I LOVE the term coochie snorcher, love it love it love it. I don’t use any other term as consistently to describe my vagina as coochie snorcher when I’m talking about it.
The term I don’t get to describe womens genitals is ‘knappy dug-out’. Can someone please explain that one to me?
This issue is going to change only when sex as a whole does, and probaly far after. You’ve convinced me that we NEED a fantastic neologism for genetalia, though.
Hmm, what about this? “Darling, take off your pants so I can stroke your fantastic neologism.” Perfect! Maybe abbreviate it to FN, pronounce it Effin, and change the meaning of the phrase “Effin sweet!”
Know where else language needs some help? The act itself. Having sex/fucking/making love. “Having sex” is sort of a blah phrase - it makes “doing laundry” sound exciting. Fucking is fun (and my preferred word, generally), but sometimes I don’t want my pants-dance described in edgy consonants (see your post above, of course). So am I making love? EW. That’s too smooth jazz for me. Making love is such a euphemism - I can only think of it being used conversationally by people who would be too embarassed to say “having sex,” i.e. people who don’t generally talk about it, i.e. parents/older co-workers/teachers. It reads Awkward.
And then there’s “doing the nasty” and all that other crap. Gah, language is the harshest of mistresses. (Not that I’m testing you or anything…)
Oh, and:
Patty - check this out: http://www.dooce.com/archives/daily/04_11_2004.html
Ug, I totally agree and have been wrestling with this myself. I mean, there has to be a new way to say these things so it doesn’t sound so awful. especially for the female anatomy. something powerful and not silly sounding.
I have even gone so far as to look at other cultures and what they use, still havent found anything I like.
keep me posted if you do.
I’m a big fan of the word ‘cunt’, but you’re right - it’s extremely politicised. Additionally, for people who aren’t used to the word, it pulls them out of the flow of the writing. (I say fuckit, and use it anyway - I really don’t like the word ‘pussy’).
My biggest euphemism hate? The word ‘minge’. Gah!
xx Dee
Dev: I got exposed to the word “cunt” exactly as you describe it at first, but weirdly enough, it was *so* dirty where I was growing up that no one ever even said it out loud - I’ve heard it used as an expletive maybe twice in my life. I ended up getting the political side and some of the historical side of the word in my brain without much difficulty with the insult. And as Switch and Richard have pointed out, it has a great history. (Thanks for the word geekery, Switch! I didn’t know “quaint” and “cunt” had the same origin. Very neat.)
Although, Dee, you made a good point - “cunt” can also pull people out of a written flow. As Dev said, for some people it’s still just a harmful swear word. Have to work with what you get, I guess :).
Patty, I don’t even remember what I called my vagina when I was very small. I’m pretty sure I called it a vagina after I was about six or seven, because I remember explaining to my brother what the word meant around that age. Your daughter will probably learn all on her own what words are okay, but I’d say better to be as honest with her as possible. She’ll probably find out the proper word on her own soon enough.
Eden, I can see how coochie snorcher is funny, seriously I can., I just also think it’s weird as hell :). Possibly not as weird as knappy dugout, though. Ugh.
Maja, I love you. My fantastic neologism and I *both* love you. I don’t think that one’ll catch on, though. Being okay with the words versus being okay with the idea, which one happens first, etc . . . it’s a bit chicken-and-egg, really. As for sex, well, I usually use “fucking.” “Making love” has a bit of a “jazz hands!” edge to me, but I’ll use it if it’s appropriate. I like some of the crazy ones that people come up with in conversations, and “making the two backed beast” is still a favorite. Sorry, I haven’t got any better options for you. Read James Clavell’s Shogun sometime and marvel at how many different ways he manages to talk about sex. It’s one of my favorite things about the book. “Making the clouds and the rain” sticks in my head.
Okay, last thing. Dee, what the hell is “minge?”
You might find this video quite a bit of fun. It’s Eve Ensler talking about vaginas and their relationship with happiness. :)
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