Vagina Thesaurus

17 March, 2013

The popularity and, arguably, quality of E.L James’ Fifty Shades series has made a joke out of using the word “sex” as a moniker for a character’s naughty bits. Editors have asked me to change the word in my drafts. Other writers speak out against using the word. Musical theater even has a laugh at the word’s use. However, as an erotica author, I take offense.

I enjoy using the word “sex”, while writing first-person, to describe a submissive character’s cunny. “Sex” is cute, coy, and timid. Author Steph Sweeny writes that using the word in this manner is like closing your eyes during penetration (paraphrased), and that is exactly why I like to use it.

I want some of my submissive characters to be cut-off from their sexuality. I am usually writing stories of sexual discovery and find it helpful to have those characters feel like prudish, reserved human beings in denial about their desires. I want them ashamed at the beginning. I want them to start the stories as sheltered beings in search of something they find more interesting. I want their sexuality sealed away in box while they focus on careers or other items in their lives.

This is not to say that I want even my naïve characters to rely on the word “sex” in every paragraph. I like a character’s sexual vocabulary to expand in proportion to their limits, as a story progresses. I am not about to start a story with a shy protagonist referring to her slit as such. Instead, a bashful beauty might use terms such as “nethers” or “down-there.” Better yet, perhaps she will avoid saying anything at all and merely allude to the juncture between her thighs by clearing her throat or with a demure downward glance.

Resources like Literotica often have articles dedicated to the beaver basics. One such example, Whispersecret’s Erotic Synonyms, offers the common terms: box, bush, cleft, crease, crevice, crotch, quim, and several others. These may seem obvious to you and I, but what of our less-experienced characters?

Vivian Wood keeps a list of titillating terms she likes and others she does not. She keeps things simple with: softness, wetness, sheath, center, and core. She also has a way to categorize how explicit her writing may be that she likens to “a Kinsey Scale of romance novels“. I think tying a kinky thesaurus together with such a smut scale could be an interesting experiment, especially for prim romance stories or characters of a similar nature.

U.S. television and radio are an excellent source for muff metaphors when they push the boundaries of what censors may allow. Writers of the show Cougar Town recently labeled one of their characters the vaginasarus (vagina thesaurus) with the use of terms such as: a snooze, a sizzle, a hoo, a Hot Pocket, Bonnie Hunt, a woolly mammoth, No Country For Old Men, and The Hurt Locker. While many of these terms were likely meant only for laughs, they are exactly the sort of phrases I might use in dialog between a group of catty femmes.

While many of these are valid and interesting alternatives for describing a character’s cooch, I find “sex” as a moniker useful for inexperienced characters. Beyond that, I like using the word, as it often fits the mood for stories I write. I refuse to abandon the term solely because another writer made the word’s use infamous.