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?
