Writing pet names for men

Omni

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Jun 11, 2001
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I write a lot and there are certain things that are difficult to keep coming up with, while striving to stay fresh, innovative, and shoot even appropriate for the dialogue. Like good believable exclamations are difficult. One that stumps me many times though, and sends me on hours of mental exploration are pet names for men. The tried and true honey, baby, and sweetheart, while cherished, get old!
Here are a few twisted from my imagination, most have never fitted right yet. Yet, sometimes if you just bravely stick them in there and live with them awhile, they grow on you.

Sugar man
Darlin’
Handsome
“my man”
Amour
Sex thing

Short list? Well, I said it was hard! Can you imagine writing in at the appropriate moment, gasping, “My man! My man!”?

So anyone care to add to my hopeless/helpless list?


*bang bang* (that is my head against the wall)


Omni :rose:
 
Pet names for men

The obvious solution is don't call him anything. Think about how long you go in real life, not saying the name of your SO.

Actual names shouted in moments of ecstasy are not a good idea. There's always that chance of yelling out the wrong one.

If you just really have to call the guy something, use anything relating to sexual prowess. "Stallion", and "Hunk" work in that situation. I doubt if any women ever got a negative reaction to "lover", or "big guy".

Many men are conditioned by the military and sports experience. That's why we answer so well to "hey you", and "dickhead".
 
Many men are conditioned by the military and sports experience. That's why we answer so well to "hey you", and "dickhead".

Laughing at that but........

Quarterback
Tight end
Solider!

They could work you know.

Thank you Axle "lover" should have been obvious. And, calling them nothing certaintly occurs to me as a easier way out.


Omni :rose:
 
Makes perfect sense to me!

The answer to your question may lie in the genre you prefer writing in. NC opens up a whole new field of forced silence, avoiding the question of names altogether. BDSM gives a very different meaning to "pet names." Incest gives you the option of titles ("Daddy!"), Fetish conceivably opens the animal/mineral/vegetable kingdoms (okay, that WAS a stretch), and in Non-English...hoo boy, the possibilities are endless!
 
Good question, Omni. How about "Babe"? Isn't that a unisex term. It seems to work better for a confident female and a confident male. Just a thought.

Sure
 
Sweetie, darling and babe all work. Any woman who calls me Stallion will not impress. I don't know whether I'm just a freak, but stuff like that sounds...well stupid really. Wouldn't you feel a pillock calling someone Your Big Guy? Depends on your character really though.

The Earl
 
well in a standard conversation i tend to use darlin or sugar being raised in the south has that effect. LOL
but in a sexual situation if hes doing it right saying a name gets damn hard, though 'oh god' comes out a lot and what guy at some time doesn't think hes a god right? LOL
 
I'm a bit confused - are you talking about normal conversations or the heat of passion? In normal conversations, the list could be endless - all the way from "hon" or "babe" to even "snookums". (shiver)

In the heat of passion, well I think it would depend on the story genre. Can't see a woman in NC saying, "Hey, stud!" On the other hand, Romance would seem to almost demand more romantic, sentamental terms be used.

So, I guess I would have to say - it depends!
 
You could use the one Seinfeld used...

SCHMOOFIE..... gag... vomit....

I think some people just use "terms of endearment" more easily than others. I have to work on it.

mlyn :rose:
 
Well, like a lot of other questions, this one is hard
because it assumes a contrafactual.
Sure, there are pet names which could be applied to any
man, just as there are pet names which could be applied to
any woman. But the pet names that one lover uses for the other is
often something which applies to just that one person.
Sure, "darling" works. But so does "Bob." There is a
woman on ASSD who refers to her husband as LW; it stands
"lottery winner," because someone told her that the man
who won her heart would be as lucky as a man who won the
lottery.
What is the background of your couple? I had one of my
heroines call her husband "counselor" ironically. Wouldn't
work for most people, but it makes sense for a lawyer.
Another story had the woman held by the man and calling him
her "coccoon."
Sure, "stallion," "Tiger," and "hunk," work; but many times
you want something which is private between the two of them.
 
Uther makes a good point. Pet names should grow naturally out of your characters and their realtionship.
 
Thanks everyone!

Yes you are right Uther. I have done that also. Picked something in the situtation that worked for their story. It felt right to. Also, I have just picked a love name out of the blue for a man in a story and at first it felt akward, but it grew on me.
I think maybe the endearment might not always become known at the beginning of writing a story. So the best bet is to write it and do not worry about it until the end. By then, I would imagine it will be easy to see what could be used. Just like picking the title. I always start with a temporay working title. Yet, I have never once used that title by the time I finished writing the story.

Thank you Uther and everyone eles answering this post! Oh by the way, in the story I am working on now "sugar man" came to light, shortly after this post!


Omni :rose:
 
I think Uther_Pendragon had a valid point to make, about personalizing nicknames between lovers. Of course, sometimes you want to distance the two lovers, especially if it's a story about mindless sex, or even deliberately mindless sex, but sometimes there's a line that has to be drawn. Is the story about intimacy? Control? Romance? Favoritism?

In my series "Mr. Bear" (BDSM), you wouldn't *think* a Domina would deliberately give her sub the honorific "Mister" in front of her nickname for him, but it works in the storyline; she encounters a drunken idiot in a bear suit at a Halloween costume party, and proceeds to shame and humiliate him, while still being as polite as possible, considering he's not yet an actual, official submissive of hers. By continuing in the following chapters to refer to him as "Mr. Bear", instead of using his given name or some other title or nickname, she deliberately invokes those original mixed feelings of humiliation, pain and unbelievable pleasure accrued during their initial encounter. (And of course, it's also an irony of sorts that the male character isn't very hairy at all, not at all like what the homosexual community commonly refers to as a "bear". Sort of a play on the old 'Fuzzy Wuzzy' poem we learned back in childhood...)

Sometimes, the characters come up with nicknames for themselves, as the story progresses. Unfortunately, they don't always do so...and you have my sympathy for those frustrating moments when they don't.

lotm, Domina ex arcanum
 
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