Lady bits!

[TheLobster]

Being an Australian writer, this American angst about cunt amuses me no end. You have joined the exalted realms of Stacnash, who found five uses of cunt in a story "vulgar", whereas fifty or so uses of ass or asshole were perfectly okay. To be fair, the story was in Anal, so that told me as much about her as it did about the story.

I'm not an American, though, so I suspect my sensibility is purely phonological. It's just a harsh combination of mostly throaty sounds with nary a vowel between them. Even "fuck" is better, because the final [k] is often subdued and it has no grating consonant smushed together like "cunt" has.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm not an American, though, so I suspect my sensibility is purely phonological. It's just a harsh combination of mostly throaty sounds with nary a vowel between them. Even "fuck" is better, because the final [k] is often subdued and it has no grating consonant smushed together like "cunt" has.

That's the best articulation of a dislike of the word I've seen, fair enough. Most of the angst I see in the AH is some strange Puritanical reaction. I had thought you were a Yank - sorry about that!

 

[SimonDoom]

Being an Australian writer, this American angst about cunt amuses me no end. You have joined the exalted realms of Stacnash, who found five uses of cunt in a story "vulgar", whereas fifty or so uses of ass or asshole were perfectly okay. To be fair, the story was in Anal, so that told me as much about her as it did about the story.

I'm an American, and I like the word. It's got an impressive history in English lit; you can find it in Chaucer and allusions to it in Shakespeare. But it's not a word to use lightly with many women in this country, who might look at you with disgust, or with a man in a bar, who might hit you over the head with a bottle. You have to know your audience. It's too bad. I like the Australian/Brit attitude toward the word, but you don't find a lot of that here.

 

[onehitwanda]

I'm an American, and I like the word. It's got an impressive history in English lit; you can find it in Chaucer and allusions to it in Shakespeare. But it's not a word to use lightly with many women in this country, who might look at you with disgust, or with a man in a bar, who might hit you over the head with a bottle. You have to know your audience. It's too bad. I like the Australian/Brit attitude toward the word, but you don't find a lot of that here.

To be fair, we find "fanny" even more perplexing.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

True story, but too vulgar for some:

About fifteen years ago I heard two dudes in an argument (this was in an expat bar) and one of them called the other a "bloody fucking cunt" and being a fan of period sex I told my companion that evening that he might have intended it as a compliment.

 

[onehitwanda]

True story, but too vulgar for some:

About fifteen years ago I heard two dudes in an argument (this was in an expat bar) and one of them called the other a "bloody fucking cunt" and being a fan of period sex I told my companion that evening that he might have intended it as a compliment.

Yeah, no, that's fighting talk. The appearance of bloody or fucking (or in this case, both, yikes) would mean someone was about to get glassed and tipped into the Medway out here in Kent.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

Yeah, no, that's fighting talk. The appearance of bloody or fucking (or in this case, both, yikes) would mean someone was about to get glassed and tipped into the Medway out here in Kent.

It's been a couple decades but if memory serves they were watching a rugby match between Ireland and England.... Maybe that was a different occasion. Anyway, definitely wasn't intended in a nice way but I never allow ill intent to get in the way of a bon mot dad joke.

 

[crookedletter]

I would probably use pussy, under mild protest, at least in some contexts, but my wife has come out strongly against the word. And my wife is my one reader who gets to tell me what to do. To an extent.

There really isn't a great word for it, to my mind. Cock is serviceable, workmanlike, which is fine for the workmanlike organ it describes. Pussy is okay for the "lady bits" but maybe has been misused too many times -- in part as a dismissive stand-in for whole human beings. Cunt feels too weighted to use as an American. Vagina too clinical, cleft slit gash too... topographical? Though I have used slit, sparingly.

Often what I find myself doing is describing around it -- her entrance, the heat between her thighs -- or using awkward adjective-cum-noun -nesses like wetness or tightness or whathaveyou.

I haven't invoked floral descriptions yet, but I can see a use for them depending on the tone of the scene.

It's an interesting conundrum. I like to describe the movements of sex scenes, but trying to describe what's happening with a very important part of that puzzle, without having a word for it that I like, is a bit like writing with one hand tied behind my back. But I've managed okay so far, I think.

 

[ronde]

Lady bits are lovely, but usually hell to describe. Not just what you call them, but all the terminology, all the descriptions, everything.

I try to steer away from "cunt". The exceptions are in Rulk the Rat and the Demon Dagger and What Scabby Saw In The Bathhouse, where "cunts" and "tits" fit the diction of the POV characters: lowlifes from the gutter.

I find myself using "entrance", "folds", "mound" and "moist enveloping warmth" a lot. After a comment that I overused "cream" I've been using "arousal" (or "the slickness/cream of her arousal"). In one story - can't remember which one - I have something along the lines of "her folds, like pursed lips".

So do you prefer "steaming cunt" or "delicate petals", or something in between? How do you navigate between coarse and flowery? Have your readers ever complained, and if so did you tell them to fuck off and write their own story?

In any form of art, context is everything. That context includes the time period and the personality of the characters. I would never use "cunt" to describe the female genitalia in a story about today unless the character making the description was particularly coarse. I used "cunt" freely in any story taking place before 1800 because the word was in common use before that, though a "gentleman" of the era probably wouldn't use the word in mixed company.

"Pussy" has been in common use at least since Shakespeare, so it's appropriate for any time frame. A modern alternative is "kitty". Another that fits some cultures is "coochy".

I dislike most euphemisms like "slit" or "gash" but I would have a coarse character use them. I usually use "sex", "lips", or since I'm from the South, "peach".

I also don't like the medically correct terms of "vulva", "vagina", and "labia" and especially "cervix" and "womb". Many male writers have no idea about which is which and seem to think a woman's cervix is an erogenous zone and that a male character can directly pump his sperm into the female characters womb. Save those descriptions for your story about a medical fetish. They're appropriate there as long as used correctly.

Please spare me the descriptions that include "steaming" or "dripping". Both these adjectives as well as several others make me laugh. I don't think I could ever stick my cock into a "steaming cunt", and I think a female reader would be more inclined to think a female "dripping" indicated a problem rather than being erotic.

 

[Kat90xx]

I now endeavour to write a Medieval piece purely to use the word “queynte” as Chaucer did

 

[HordHolm]

Ah, we do like a bit of 'lovely wet cunt', but then we're British, so that probably explains a lot. OTOH I find 'front bottom' bizarre, even though it's mild, whilst 'gash' is... well... no. And being of the lower classes, what we particularly enjoy is when a sensual, upper-class beauty says that she needs something in her cunt. We do love it when a posh girl talks dirty.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I also don't like the medically correct terms of "vulva", "vagina", and "labia" and especially "cervix" and "womb".

Uterus

 

[Gamblnluck]

I try to use terms like I thinkthe character would. In one, I had young 22 or 23 year old ask his old buddy if the girl 'had hopped his hose or had me dive down to fluff her muff'. Then he realized his father was listening in and apologized, but then quickly said "she's a fox."

I use pussy a lot and occasionally hoohah. I've had nurses even use hoohah. I about fell over when an OR nurse said she wouldn't work OB because she "couldn't stand to mess with some other woman's hoohah."

 

[StillStunned]

Uterus

The Roman god of implausible erotica.

 

[Bazzle]

Does anybody use Beaver any more?


Or Muff/Muffin?

That would depend on the shaving...a beaver being full on hairy...were would could have buff muff?

 

[EmilyMiller]

The Roman god of implausible erotica.

Oh baby, fill my uterus with your elephantine phallus. Stretch my cervix good, baby.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Oh baby, fill my uterus with your elephantine phallus. Stretch my cervix good, baby.

Even my shape-shifting space cephalopods never penetrated any woman’s uterus. Alimentary canal might be another matter .

 

[onehitwanda]

 

[alohadave]

Lady bits are lovely, but usually hell to describe.

 

[ronde]

Uterus

Especially that one.

 

[crookedletter]

(Should this be a Writing Exercise?)

I'm starting to think a fun writing exercise would be to write a scene with all the worst possible descriptors of the various body parts.

 

[stickygirl]

Quim, yoni, panty hamster, vadge, box
There's a few others but I don't wish to cause offence

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm starting to think a fun writing exercise would be to write a scene with all the worst possible descriptors of the various body parts.

I've thought the same.

"My happy man, straight and true, spelunked joyfully into her damp, dark love cave." That sort of thing. Make it as cringey as possible.

 

[onehitwanda]

Quim, yoni, panty hamster, vadge, box
There's a few others but I don't wish to cause offence

I worked with a younger woman who was infamous in the office because she'd say "Right, going home to let my rat out."

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I've yet to see 'wetness' maybe I missed it or perhaps it has been intentionally excluded.