on writing smut and terminology

[warning: frank sex-talk in this entry]

All right, so I am guilty of wasting a fair amount of time on fanficrants.

And if not ever day, then every other day, a rant about words used in smut scenes comes up. Just today, somebody didn't like the word "impaled." And somebody didn't like the word "cunt."

No comment on the former, but as I was reading through the comments on the latter, I ran across:

Reading all the comments I just realized why I LOVE writing yaoi - no need to struggle with stupid names for the female [genitals].

And I've got nothing against the poster for saying that. In fact, I get it. Maybe there is not a word for my genitals that I like as well as "cock."

But here's the thing—that fact really bothers me.

Why don't we have names for female genitalia that we like as much as "cock"? Why don't we like the names we do have?? The reason they sound "stupid"/make us uncomfortable must have more to do with our cultural conditioning than the words themselves. It's not like "cunt" is a less pleasing sound than "cock," right? Why do words like "pussy" and "snatch" feel awkward or derogatory to us?

Maybe because we never hear them in contexts that please us. But couldn't we, you know...make an effort to use them in those contexts? It's not like the word-fairy is going to descend on us and give us brand new words that we will like better. For the most part, we gotta work with what we have.

I am glad to say I do feel like I am slowly seeing more and more "specific" terms for female genitalia in, say, fanfiction by female authors than I have in the past. So I do think we're headed in the right direction to reclaim some of this terminology. The more we see these words in contexts we like, the more comfortable we'll become with them.


Just to be clear, I'm not saying we shouldn't have word preferences! We all have preferences. I like those anglo-saxon words for both genders' genitalia, after all (okay, truth: I like anglo-saxon words for everything better). Some people prefer the latinate. And some people prefer to refer to both sexes' genitals without any names attached. That's all cool. I still, however, think we should be making a little bit of an effort to get over our internalized "rules" of what words are and are not okay. They're all just words. I might never find the word "penis" that sexy but it doesn't need to be off-limits and it shouldn't make me squirmy (in the bad way) either. I should at least grant the words that describe my genitals the same tolerance.

Unless they are really flowery euphemisms like, idk, "tunnel of love." Or really silly euphemisms—like "smoosh mitten."

In that case, I'm just going to laugh.