My patient dropped her voice to a whisper, though we were the only two in the office. "She's such a 'See you next Tuesday'." It took me a minute. People usually don't mince words in therapy; they let loose and actual words--"cunt," in this case -- fly.
I'm in the biz. People come in and talk about their genitalia, others' genitalia, and the compatibility between the two. They also call each other names -- curses -- based on their privates.
Outside of therapy, in the real world, I do wish that the two fellows spotting another benching at the gym would stick to encouraging and inciting each other by using words like "pencil dick" or "numb nuts" rather than "pussy"...,But like we say in Spanish, "suavecito." I have to chose my battles.
Thanks in large part to Eve Ensler, and a trend in parenting to use proper names for body parts (mocked in the movie "Kindergarten Cop"), "vagina" is seemingly here to stay. Clitoris and its nickname "clit" are being used more frequently than "the man in the boat." You'll hear "labia" here and there, and even the unfortunate "vulva" (which still sounds like one of the stages where a caterpillar turns into a butterfly) every once in a while.
Maybe this genitalia name-dropping has to do with levels of comfort. Surely the rise in products that profess to reach, stimulate, or simply help find the elusive G-spot could be an indicator of this trend. Now G-spot as a word is getting a lot of airplay as of late. (Case in point: author of Vaginas: An Owners' Manual, Liz Topp, is currently in production questioning if it really exists at all!)
Marketing has definitely changed the stakes. Porn, grooming, labiaplasty, piercings, and pantiless celebrities, in addition to products that range from private part "handiwipes" to vibrators with more moving parts and settings than a drive-through car wash.
In the beginning of relationships, couples dance around what is offensive and what is a turn-on for the other. Men will tell you they tread carefully, since some words make women bristle and can kill the mood faster than a dental dam. For other women, those same words might be what finally takes her over the edge and into your pants. I tell them to let her lead the way--does she talk about her vagina in the third person as "princess"? Or is it a gesture "south," an eyebrow raise - you know, "down there."
Back to my patient. Later in the session she spoke about her own private parts. What did she call "it"? "My honeypot," she smiled, "of course."
Personally I can't be around people that I have to be cautious of every word. Inevitably I WILL offend them. Heck just look at my profile. Absolutely NO LID. But at least you know what is in front of you. And if you "get it", it could be the most entertaining ride of your life.
Bueller?
Bueller?
Anybody?
Was when I was back home for my mother's funeral and my old high school girlfriend read about it in the paper, somehow found out the motel where I was staying, phoned me up and asked me out to dinner. We had a great time, drove back to her house (she was divorced) and she invited me in. I wasn't in any emotional shape to be thinking evil thoughts, but she picked up her cat and said to me, "Want to hold my pussy?"
Call me slow on the uptake. Under other circumstances, I hope I would have taken up her offer but I just mumbled something and left....
This was back when my son played youth hockey -- and I'm talking YOUTH hockey, like 6-7 years old when we still had to tie our kids' skates on. So anyway, after one game where our town team lost, I was unlacing my son's skates while the guy next to me kept saying to HIS kid, "You little pussy." (You did this you didn't do that blah blah blah.) "You little pussy...." It was so obnoxious that it cured me forever of using the term in that sense (not that I ever had -- I don't go in for that kind of insult anyway, not even in jest).
The culture described in that wonderful novel had a light hearted admiration for our nether regions and love making in general:
Golden Gully
Steaming Stalk
Jade Gate
Pillowing
Peerless Pedestal
etc.
A much healthier attitude, I would argue.
Well said!
These are interesting phenomena of cultural psycholinguistics, reflections of deep-lying historio-cultural precipitates in the psychic structure of the members of our culture. The more we are conscious of them, the less we are mindlessly at their mercy.
Ooops, I mean tiger!!