Trouser snakes and front bottoms

This article is about language used for sexual organs and sexual acts and as such will contain language that might offend people. This is a non-fiction piece about my opinions and so please don't take anything too seriously.

From reviews I have done of Erotica and reviews I have received about my Erotica one of the main issues that comes up is the language used to represent sexual organs and sexual acts. The problem is that coming up with terms that seem appropriate to everyone is extremely hard especially if you start looking at differences between British and American readers. This is mainly due to the fact that the slang words used and their meaning don't spread as well as most changes in language (except derogatory uses) especially when crossing the Atlantic.

The main problem seems to be in coming up with a decent term for vagina to fit with a piece of erotica. There are hundreds of different terms available but it doesn't seem to make the job any easier. It seems as though a common term used by American erotica writers is "womanhood" obviously coming from the idea of a man's "manhood". However, if you look at the fact that the term "manhood" came from men being embarrassed about talking about their cocks to doctors, it seems to still convey that embarrassment especially to British people where it isn't a common term. If people are writing erotica then they should have the courage to use more graphic language it would be ridiculous for a piece of erotica to use the term "front bottom" and "womanhood", at least to me, doesn't seem much better.

On a similar vein to "womanhood" is using the word "sex" is just seems as thought the author is too embarrassed to refer to a sex organ at all and would rather think of it as a symbolic act and not a physical one if you consider: 'a man putting his sex in a woman's sex' just seems to hide away from the actual act of sex.

On the other extreme "cunt" has a very powerful and forceful feel to it, this is caused by its anglo saxon roots and while this works well with the word "cock" the brutality of the word has a tendency to conflict with a lot of erotica. In a similar way "twat" has the same kind of problems probably due to the fact that in Britain it is used as an insult (I'm not sure about in America). If a word is used as an insult to then use the word in any kind of positive light is obviously very difficult.

So far I haven't really found a term that seems to work and obviously you can get round it using metaphors and similes however sometimes you want to refer to it directly and so far possibly the best term I've found is to use "pussy" it seems to have a slight 'porn industry connotation' and so still seems a bit strange to use to a tender and romantic piece of erotica.

When it comes to penis there seems a lot better choice for one thing penis seems a more acceptable word to use than vagina and then you've got "cock" which although a powerful word works in most circumstances, "dick" is slightly juvenile but still seems to work, "member" and to a greater extent "manhood" are moving to being more symbolic but can still work. Obviously there are words that generally shouldn't be used such as "todger" which are juvenile or things like "third wicket" or "little man" which are comical.

Sexual acts tend to be easier to name probably due to the fact that it's later on that teenagers talk about sexual acts than organs. There are less of the really juvenile terms, obviously there are some comical ones "bumping uglies", "drinking from the furry cup" or my current favorite "gobble stick" but these are obvious and surely no one would really use these terms in a piece of erotica unless it's for comic effect.

If anyone has any further comments on this topic then I'd be glad to hear them.

Midnight Stalker