Would They Talk Like This?

[MeredithEighty8]

Writing a sort of time period piece that takes place between 1910 - 1925. Story centered around interracial couple (white male/black female) in the south. As I'm re-reading some of what I've already written, it occurred to me that the female character wouldn't talk the way I had her written, or would she.

I have her using terms like cock, pussy, pre-cum, orgasm, etc. and him wanting her to give him oral sex, and be tied up, as well as have sex in various positions aside from just missionary. Is this something that would happened then?

She is mulatto (mixed), about 20yrs old, school teacher at the colored school. He is white, prosperous business man, owner of large farm, accustomed to getting what he wants.

 

[LadyVer]

She wouldn't have heard the term cock or pussy in the deep south in that time period at the age of 20, teaching, from a middle class background. I grew up in the south in the 60s. The first time I heard the word "fuck," I was 12. "Cock" and "pussy" were years later... Sounds like a good story though. Although in fiction and in life, anything is possible...

 

[MeredithEighty8]

She wouldn't have heard the term cock or pussy in the deep south in that time period at the age of 20, teaching, from a middle class background. I grew up in the south in the 60s. The first time I heard the word "fuck," I was 12. "Cock" and "pussy" were years later... Sounds like a good story though. Although in fiction and in life, anything is possible...

Thanks LadyVer.

Does anyone have any clue as to what words/terms would have been commonly used during that period in a sexual context?

 

[LadyVer]

You're welcome. I'm sure there are those in the know around here. Have you looked up any erotica that was written around that time period in the south? I would guess that there's not much, but I've only read a few erotica stories from the Victorian Age set in England... I found one on guttenberg a few weeks back. It kind of freaked me out though. It was written around 1850 and the writer used terms and scenes I couldn't believe.

I was on a religious school outing when I first came across the f word. Some of us got curious and wondered off the college property and opened up a door to a shack that the owner had left a note saying if anyone entered his property they were fucked and cursed. When I got home at the end of the day, I asked my mother what fuck meant. She about fainted, but she never answered my question.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Thanks LadyVer.

Does anyone have any clue as to what words/terms would have been commonly used during that period in a sexual context?

cock, pussy, horny, poon tang, and other terms were common from the late 1800s.

Some terms, common back then, now have different meanings. Cock, for example, referred to the female pudenda, and a cock-hound was a Southern Casanova. Horny referred to male erections (think rhino). Pussy was an affectionate term of endearment.

I'd steer clear of any terms that will confuse readers.

 

[sr71plt]

This might help a bit:

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-1097.html

Basically, there was a lot more cussing and obsenities--including words we might consider modern--much earlier and more prevalent that many think. The TV show Deadwood showed this to be the case.

There is quite a bit you need to tread carefully in writing something like this--for instance in even referring to an interracial couple in the South in that era. They couldn't have been thought of as a couple at all.

Think an interesting and erotic story can be done on them coupling, but you'd need to be very careful to maintain an atmosphere of taboo and danger. They'd act and talk very much differently in public and toward others than they would when together and alone. Then, yes, I think having the woman talking vulgar and each of them being wanton in sex would be a good story element and could be a real turn on.

The hook would be the difference--and the heat between them when they were together in a very taboo setting.

 

[emap]

What they said, though the link is not exactly the best one to use for the time period of 1910-25. Course you need to lock down the time frame because certain words, didn't appear a year before.

Flapper is a good example. It was used to talk about someone who never shut up in the decade before prohibition, 'His lips kept right on flapping in the wind'.

Now if you go to after prohibition started, flapper is a gal who goes dancing and gets drunk. This is because of the dancing style of the time. Their arms flap about as they dance. This is because Jazz was quite popular in a speakeasy.

As for the words used, honestly for the most part, it was about the same as now. The difference came in who said it. Blacks in the south would say fuck, whites would use the classic phrases you hear in more or less all southern stories. I do declare is quite popular.

Keynote here, no matter what color a person in the south, they all sound alike, what is said is the only difference. The black gal will say go on honey fuck my hole. The guy will be a little more laid back on the terms used, talk of things like member, pussy, and screwing.

Flapping actually appears for sex, his ass is flapping to the wind but I aint getting over the edge. The difference is mostly in what is being talked about. To a southerner there is no orgasm, cock is a rooster and so on.

 

[MeredithEighty8]

"There is quite a bit you need to tread carefully in writing something like this--for instance in even referring to an interracial couple in the South in that era. They couldn't have been thought of as a couple at all."

So many good points and you're so right. In just the little bit off research that I've done I found out that race mixing/miscegenation (sex period!) was illegal and even more surprising, that at some point oral sex was unlawful. Obviously these laws did not keep people (men?) from wanting and doing it. Particularly if you had a young, vulnerable "colored" girl to use.

It's mindblowing to think that the quiet, shy Mrs Smith next door was happily enjoying these activities with Mr. Smith behind closed doors. A lot of the 1920s porn that I've seen so far has a lot of cock sucking and pussy eating going on. . .

Thank you for your comments, I can see I have a lot of work to do before I really start writing this one.

 

[sr71plt]

I found that interracial marriage--even Caucasian to third generation Japanese--was illegal in Virginia in the 1960s.

 

[MeredithEighty8]

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-1097.html

Checked out the above link, very interesting. I was surprised at the number of words we use today have been "in use throughout the century".

Thinking of my proposed character, even though she would have been 19-20 years old, I can't imagine a situation where she would have heard these words (cock, pussy, etc). If in my story she begins using these terms it would be because he taught them to her and wants her to use them when they are in private.

As far as sexual intercourse, other than the man is on top and that's how you make babies, she probably wouldn't have know anything about that, until he started "messing" with her, and telling her what he wanted and how he liked it.

Geez, writing this might be a little harder than I thought.

 

[emap]

Especially since you are completely wrong. Women do learn all they need to know about sex, this is before computers. Sex talks with mom normally is not terribly informative, but the friends talk and it is rare no matter what time you are talking about that not a single friend gets laid.

Course since we are talking about the south and colored girls, they will have had sex long before they think about getting married, and most likely with a white guy. You pointed it out already, she is mulatto. White guy marrying a black girl didn't happen, doesn't mean the white guy does not push her down and enjoy her.

Keep in mind one thing, the south did, and in some cases still, thinks of blacks as slaves, beneath a white person, and ungood at doing anything besides carrying something from point A to point B. Which is why blacks having sex with whites happened behind closed doors, unless it is a white man having a black girl, then it could and did happen in plain view of others, who probably cheered and then did her after.

Trust me, your black girl will not be innocent, and probably be the one teaching him words, positions, how to please a gal and so forth. Especially the last one if he is not just shoving her down, men tend to be bad at the pleasing.

 

[MeredithEighty8]

Especially since you are completely wrong. Women do learn all they need to know about sex, this is before computers. Sex talks with mom normally is not terribly informative, but the friends talk and it is rare no matter what time you are talking about that not a single friend gets laid.

Course since we are talking about the south and colored girls, they will have had sex long before they think about getting married, and most likely with a white guy. You pointed it out already, she is mulatto. White guy marrying a black girl didn't happen, doesn't mean the white guy does not push her down and enjoy her.

Keep in mind one thing, the south did, and in some cases still, thinks of blacks as slaves, beneath a white person, and ungood at doing anything besides carrying something from point A to point B. Which is why blacks having sex with whites happened behind closed doors, unless it is a white man having a black girl, then it could and did happen in plain view of others, who probably cheered and then did her after.

Trust me, your black girl will not be innocent, and probably be the one teaching him words, positions, how to please a gal and so forth. Especially the last one if he is not just shoving her down, men tend to be bad at the pleasing.

Wow, I think you are assuming a lot about black women/girls in general. Why would you think that in the 1910 - 1920 timeframe of my story that "colored girls, they will have had sex long before they think about getting married" or that "your black girl will not be innocent, and probably be the one teaching him words, positions, how to please a gal and so forth".

My main character is female, mulatto, educated and "colored" middleclass. Her mother is a seamstress and her father a shop owner. She was an innocent, impressed by the important white man, his friendliness and attractive appearance . . . she was a virgin until he corners her on her way home one night.

You sound as though you think a woman's character, sexuality and morality are determined solely by her color .

 

[sr71plt]

I don't see what the black girl couldn't have picked up heavy cursing from within the family unit of her raising. There's no saying that blacks conversing among themselves in those time periods didn't use profanity.

Then, again, a strength of the story could be the contrast of how she spoke and acted in public outside of the family unit--and much of the heat of the story could come from the language she used while the white man was fucking her--starting a cycle of this turning him on and becoming rougher, which turns her on, which makes her freer with her language, which turns him on further, and . . . following mutual orgasm, both realizing that all society-dictated barriers between them are down now--and even that it isn't all him getting what he wants but is a mutual satisfaction. The barriers then being down, they could move into the deeper coupling aspects you want the story to head in.

You're then challenged by what the resolution of the story is, though. Him coming home to find that the black girl's brother had gone through the same process with the man's white wife?

 

[MeredithEighty8]

Thanks for your comments.

I don't see what the black girl couldn't have picked up heavy cursing from within the family unit of her raising. There's no saying that blacks conversing among themselves in those time periods didn't use profanity.

Then, again, a strength of the story could be the contrast of how she spoke and acted in public outside of the family unit--and much of the heat of the story could come from the language she used while the white man was fucking her--starting a cycle of this turning him on and becoming rougher, which turns her on, which makes her freer with her language, which turns him on further, and . . . following mutual orgasm, both realizing that all society-dictated barriers between them are down now--and even that it isn't all him getting what he wants but is a mutual satisfaction. The barriers then being down, they could move into the deeper coupling aspects you want the story to head in.

You're then challenged by what the resolution of the story is, though. Him coming home to find that the black girl's brother had gone through the same process with the man's white wife?

 

[Bramblethorn]

"There is quite a bit you need to tread carefully in writing something like this--for instance in even referring to an interracial couple in the South in that era. They couldn't have been thought of as a couple at all."

So many good points and you're so right. In just the little bit off research that I've done I found out that race mixing/miscegenation (sex period!) was illegal and even more surprising, that at some point oral sex was unlawful.

"at some point" - in fact, up to 2003 in several US states. Even between husband and wife, oral sex was often covered by "sodomy" statutes. Some of those laws are still on the books, but Lawrence v. Texas means they're no longer enforceable.

 

[MeredithEighty8]

"at some point" - in fact, up to 2003 in several US states. Even between husband and wife, oral sex was often covered by "sodomy" statutes. Some of those laws are still on the books, but Lawrence v. Texas means they're no longer enforceable.

While researching on the internet last night, I came across a story (news article?) from the 20s or 30s that talked about a white man who was "coercing" a black woman to have sex with him.

Even though it was unlawful, everyone knew. Sometimes the sheriff would threaten him and the woman with jail if he didn't stop seeing her, in fact during one of these official visits and after quite a bit of drinking, he told the sheriff exactly what they did and why he wasn't going to send her away (apparently several laws were being broken). The relationship went on for years, up until he died.

 

[emap]

She would have known sex before him for one simple little reason. She is not a white girl. Illegal or not it happened plenty and the sheriff, police would simply go that is too bad. If not asked how she didn't enjoy it.

South is where racism more or less was created, it is perfected, so to speak, in the south. Trust me, there is very little a black women in that time period didn't see and experience.

Again, blacks in the south swore before anyone else, because it allowed them to be different. They wanted to get away from what was shoved on them still. A black man never said master, unless it was his job and then it was simply to get a tip.

A black woman walking along the street, day or night, could expect to have a car of white men pull up, stop and they would come out to pester if not more. Schools at the time were segregated. Blacks had schools and were taught by blacks. Whites had schools and were taught by whites. Black schools would have a book for the class, one book. White schools were given most of the money.

It is not until college that schools get better, and then not by all that much. Unless a black girl or boy can get a scholarship to a college not in the south they had a black college. The only thing keeping them close to as educated is simply the federal standards, which were not that great for the time period.

Being in the south in 1910-25 isn't like anywhere else at the same time. Same for right now, racism has just gone a little under the rug so you don't see it as bad as then. KKK was a powerhouse and did cross burning to keep blacks in line, people would be hung out of their own tree. Houses would be broken into and the women raped, men beaten if not just killed. The police come and go there is nothing I can do nigger.

This is why she would not be a virgin, unless she moved to the south from elsewhere. Course if that happened she would have the KKK visit, cross burnings, any pets killed so on so forth.

 

[hylas_]

With just a few indicators, you can turn your story into an "alternate history" piece. Which means, you can be inspired by real history, but ultimately make up all the rules as you like.

Whether you do that or not, I think it's good to do some research on the subject. Otherwise you might end up writing something dreadfully offensive.

 

[MeredithEighty8]

With just a few indicators, you can turn your story into an "alternate history" piece. Which means, you can be inspired by real history, but ultimately make up all the rules as you like.

Whether you do that or not, I think it's good to do some research on the subject. Otherwise you might end up writing something dreadfully offensive.

I heartily agree. Thank you.