Help A Bitch Out

HabO: Creaming

Lurker Y wrote in with one of my least favorite phrases describing feminine arousal:

I am usually a total lurker but i have been looking for a book I read years
ago and its driving me crazyy so i had to email you.

it is about a retired football (i think) player who gets a job (maybe in the
real estate or construction area) and he works with/for a women who went to
high school with him. she was more of a nerd in high school but she had a
crush on him, he never noticed her till now etc…

i think it was published in the eighties, i dont remember a cover, character
names or any other helpful info…

I do remember she tells him that in high school at some pep rally or parade
or something he picked her up and she “creamed herself” i HATE that phrase but it stuck with me

hope you can help!

Lord almighty how I dislike that phrase. It’s right up there when a heroine weeps and not with her eyelids, either. Anyone remember this book?

 

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  1. Jennifer Armintrout says:

    LOL Seriously? Why does something someone finds squicky have to have some deeper, fundamentally misogynistic meaning?

    Since the things that squick us out often have to do with societal conditioning?

  2. Rebeca says:

    I love this discussion! Smart women talking about the line between what is sexy and what’s a turn-off, not to mention the factors (cultural, personal, etc.) behind our placement of that line. So cool!
    And for the record, “creamed” isn’t my favorite word choice. Then again, I wasn’t too fond of “cunt” until James McAvoy reappropriated it. It’s all in the context.

  3. KinseyHolley says:

    Yes, it’s very difficult to write a good sex scene, and the fact is that no matter how you write it, there’s always the chance someone will be put off by a description or a word. I don’t usually describe the state of the heroine’s vag in a lot of detail. Personally, like someone mentioned upthread, I use “wet” and “damp” and that’s about it. I do overuse the “aching clit” trope, but I’m aware of it now.

    It’s the difference between connotation and denotation. Wet and damp denote a state of wetness. And they have no negative connotations – when you hear “wet” or “damp” you think…“wet” or “damp.”  Weeping denotes crying, or another circumstance under which moisture is released like in bricks or something. But it also has icky connotations – we talk of wounds or sores weeping. So you automatically get an “ooh, gross” visual.

    “Cream” has very heavy porn connotations (creampie and what have you), and not coincidentally it’s used a lot by teenage boys and douchebag men.

    And dripping just brings up a nasty visual – I’m down with feminine arousal, it’s necessary for good sex, but when you talk about “dripping” I’m like – wait, isn’t she still wearing panties at this point—and if she’s not, won’t the hero be a little freaked out? It’s just not sexy.

  4. Definitely NO to creaming your jeans, although someone mentioned that to me in a conversation years ago and it made me laugh because I hadn’t heard it for a long time. I certainly would never use it in a book. “Slick and wanting (or yearning)” is good, I think. “Dewy” is dopey—it makes me think of someone who either needs to powder her face or is trying to put a pretty look on having a hot flash, which of course, is impossible to do. Pushing that shopping cart through the grocery store that never seems to have the A/C turned on—by the time I get to the check-out, I’m MORE than dewy.

    The lip-slanting thing instead of a kiss: I’ve read that in several books and could only picture the Sims with their jerky, puppetlike movements. So let’s turn them loose in the kitchen without proper cooking training and let them burn down their own house.

  5. Donna says:

    OK, so the fact that I find sticking my hand into warm cooked spaghetti squicky means I’m actually conflicted about my Italian heritage due to society’s cliched perception? I thought it was just because it feels gross.
    And I still think the book was a LoveSwept & was perhaps set on the West Coast.
    And lurker probably never realised what a can of worms she was opening.
    And warm cooked spaghetti feels like worms….

  6. El says:

    Oh, yeah, the slanting thing in kissing—in Kay Hooper’s early categories (as Kay Hooper and as Kay Robbins) she used that all the time. I don’t remember seeing it elsewhere, though I probably have. (Was a MAJOR Hooper fan back in the day. Still occasionally reread a few.)

  7. AgTigress says:

    It can be difficult to separate word-associations (which are both personal and cultural) from the actual things they describe, and I think Jennifer Armintrout’s intervention was valuable in making people think more carefully about this, rather than just coming up with an instinctive ‘argh’ , or possibly ‘yuck’, response.  Several people mention that ‘creaming’ is used by teenage boys.  I have never heard it used by anyone, and have only ever seen it in pornographic American writing.  So we have completely different (though equally negative) associations for it. 
    Ultimately, the emotional and physical symptoms of sexual arousal in women can be markedly different in different women (how many of you get a strange tingling sensation inside the fingers?  Just asking.).  Vaginal lubrication for some of us is the final stage when matters have become pretty serious, not something that happens at a mere glance or touch.  At least, as far as I can recall at my age…
    When you add to that the fact that the regional dialects of English (British, Canadian, American, Australian, New Zealand, to name but a few) have varying associations for words—and that different generations in each and every one of those areas, and more, have different vocabularies too—I think we need to cut the authors some slack.  We all know what they mean.  Nobody ever said writing was easy.

  8. I avoid “creaming” and I had an editor who hated “weeping” so she more or less cured me of that one.
    Cream to me is the thick pale yellow stuff you put on your strawberries, so no, yuk. If you’re creaming you need a doctor.
    But – it’s really difficult to write a sex scene that’s fresh and different. I try to do it from the viewpoint of the character involved – but how many men go beyond “uh – woman – now”!
    It is difficult. There are exactly two words that precisely describe a woman’s – lady parts – before you start getting biological. I rather like “petals” because of the orchid connotations, but a lot of people don’t.
    Final confession – when I write a sex scene, I’m not thinking about who is going to read it. Only later, when it gets to my editor do I get to think of the book as it will appear to the reader. Sometimes I’m really surprised. But without that editor, I’d go badly wrong from time to time.

  9. DS says:

    Nope, don’t like creaming in a sexual connotation.  And weeping makes me think of Weeping Cock, where people post bad sex scenes—I don’t want to think of either sex’s genitalia as weeping. 

    What do you do with the fact that moist is one of the most hated words in the English language?  Not just moist panties but moist towelettes and moisture and mildew.  It’s a word that makes me think of cold and slimey not hot and wet. Says a lot that Terry Pratchett can convince me to like a character named Moist von Lipwig. 

    As said in an article entitled “Who Do We Hate the Word Moist”

    But word aversion has something to do with the sound and structure of the word itself. As commenter Shannon said on a recent Language Log post, some reactions are “…bred of the mysterious relationships between language, emotion, memory, sound and ‘mouthfeel.’” I’m more used to seeing the word mouthfeel in discussions about beer, but it sure does get at the physical violation some feel when saying certain words.

    You can read the rest here:  http://www.good.is/post/why-do-we-hate-the-word-moist/

    As Freud said in one of his more laid back moments, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

  10. Tessa says:

    Ha!  Ok, confession time: I may have read this book; though in the book I read, the former football player ends up paralyzed (temporarily?) and I think the heroine cares for him and that’s how they end up hooking up despite her wallflower tendencies, and when I read that she “creamed her panties,” it was a revelation to me: Oh!  That’s what that’s called!  It happens to other people, I’m not a freak! (Or at least not for that reason.)

    What can I say?  It was the 80’s, I was a repressed teenager in rural Maryland with no kind female relatives to answer even basic reproductive questions, so I got most of my info. either from romances stolen from my best friend’s older sister, or Judy Bloom (anybody else learn about sex from “Forever?”).

    So “creaming” doesn’t really bother me, though as a baker, I do smile every time I read that I’m supposed to “cream the butter.”  Most of the rest of the liquid terms: “weeping,” “dripping,” etc. do gross me out, but only because I think “infection” instead of arousal.  I love it when the author focuses on the other signs of arousal, but I can’t think of anyone who does it really well.  (If anyone can name someone, I promise to go read their books.)

    And I suspect it’s just really hard (!) to write a sexy sex scene.  Now that I’m no longer a teenager looking for info., I tend to skim them.  “Yeah, yeah, engorged…slick, ok, they have sex, got it, now where’s the witty dialogue?”

  11. DS says:

    Well, I screwed that post up.  I meant to type “Why Do We Hate the Word Moist” and my blockquote tags didn’t work.

    And it took reading Denise Mina’s novels set in Glasgow to cure me of any squeamishness about the word cunt.  By the time I finished the third one I was totally desensitized.

  12. BH says:

    No on the ‘creamed’, ‘weeping’ and ‘dripping’. Creaming sounds like junior high boys talking.  Weeping and dripping need medication.

    Wet, damp, slick, moist are fine. Probably others I can’t think of right now.

    I was going to have a cup of coffee, but since I use cream…well, nevermind that now. Tea is fine. And I’ll have to pass on the spaghetti for a while. 😉

    Have no idea on the HabO, sorry.

  13. JamiSings says:

    Cream seems so – childish. Like something I would’ve said in high school. Don’t care for wet either, makes me think she peed herself. As someone with a lot of bladder & kidney problems I read “She was wet” and the first thing I think of is she held it too long.

    I like “slick.” Not “slick with her juices” – just “slick” – “hot and slick” works too. Makes me think she’s turned on and doesn’t need any KY to help her along.

  14. KinseyHolley says:

    Tessa: This one time, at church camp

    – we were around freshman age – someone smuggled a copy of Forever from home. Late at night in the girls’ cabin we’d take turns reading it, and they all asked me if the stuff in it was true – because they knew I was already reading “dirty” romances (Woodiwiss, Rosemary Rogers, etc.)

    I still see some of those people at church to this day. If they knew I wrote dirty werewolf books….

  15. Maria says:

    I read a lot of erotic romance (why stop at the good parts?). Creaming and weeping and even dripping, running and leaking (for women) can be okay, depending on how they’re used and the writer’s general voice—but they can go wrong fast. I’m fine with damp, moist, wet, slick, ready, etc.

    Turn-offs for me in love scenes include: vagina and penis (they may be correct, but the dirty words sound hotter) and when a man calls a woman, “Baby.” It sounds like porn film talk to me, or like he can’t be bothered to remember her name.

    I think it’s interesting, the variety of ways women react to the same words.

  16. Isabel C. says:

    Oh, man, I cannot *stand* “baby” as an endearment to an actual adult woman: like, I can tolerate it in Dirty Dancing because it’s her name/nickname, but anywhere else? God. No.

    I

  17. geekgirl says:

    I normally hate the term myself, even in Dirty Dancing (maybe especially in Dirty Dancing). 🙂 But in one tv show it worked. The first time he did it, the character said “back at you baby” just in passing, and it totally flew under my Ack! radar. The funny thing is it specifically stood out in my mind after as a “why didn’t I hate that?” moment. I think it may have been the fact that we knew the character really truly loved and respected the woman he said it to as an equal. Absolutely no condescension possibly implied.

  18. KimberlyD says:

    Ha. My husband and I call each other baby. It just happened one day and now I can’t stop calling him that (though I do interchange honey, sweetie, darling with baby sometimes.) I’ve heard all the reasons why people hate it but it works for us. And neither of us means anything by it. Its just our preferred term of endearment.

  19. sandra says:

    Is that ‘picked her up’ as in ‘lifted her bodily’ ?

  20. JamiSings says:

    Now see, some of my favorite songs have the word “baby” in it. Like “My Baby Loves Me” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” – but maybe I like the word “baby” because “Jami” can be so easily substituted in a song for it….

  21. KinseyHolley says:

    It must be a regional thing. It’s a very common endearment in the South, like “love” in England. Old ladies in Louisiana call everyone baby, my daddy always called me baby (just like Delta Dawn, for those of you of a certain age), I call the 8 year old Diva baby, and lots of couples (including us) call each other baby. It’s another case of connotations, I guess.

  22. Abbie says:

    I’m okay with “cream” if used as a noun, but not a verb. As in, “he licked her cream off his fingers”, not “she creamed herself”. For some reason it reminds me of peeing yourself. Don’t know why. It just does. As far as the discussion of the use of “cunt”, that is my one no-no word. I’m okay with dirty of any kind, but cunt is my deal breaker. If it’s a book once, I’ll probably overlook it, but if it’s used frequently to describe the girly bits, I’m done. Not to hijack this thread any further, but someone needs to come up with some words for the girly bits that aren’t too “purple-y” and that aren’t used in a derogatory way.

  23. Carin says:

    I think baby is regional in the US.  I’m more northern and it really bugs me that my more southern mother-in-law uses it with my much too old kids.

    I’m not fond of baby or honey or dear.  I KNOW that tracks to hearing my parents use it a lot before their divorce.  I made some sort of kid connection between “love that doesn’t last” and “dear/honey” etc.  And I love nicknames that come from your name or something you did or said – it’s just the generic ones I don’t like. 

    Cream for me conjures images of over the counter meds for infections.  I’m ok with pretty much anything else liquid.  I do really appreciate the effort to describe other parts of female arousal as well.

    Although I’m used to cunt now that I’ve read some erotica, growing up it was in the top tier of worst swear words ever.  I actually like it when authors use “penis” and “vagina”.  It’s never bothered me.

    I remember reading “the good parts” of Forever with friends in a music practice room in middle school and certain scenes from Flowers in the Attic at a sleepover at about the same age.  When I got older and was babysitting, I read romances off the shelves of the families I worked for.  I was very embarrassed that I might get caught, so I read with one eye on the window watching for headlights. 🙂

    As for the original question – sorry, no idea!  I do recommend early Sandra Brown, though, I like her stuff a lot.  I think I’ve read them all and don’t remember the HABO book.

  24. Tessa says:

    Oh yeah, I forgot:  not that I’ve ever read it in a romance, but I positively squick at the word “smegma.” 

    Yes, I know it is a medical term, and maybe this is where my social conditioning kicks in (though both males and females produce it), but…just…ick.

    I lived in Seattle during the late 80’s/early 90’s and there was a spinoff project by a few members of Pearl Jam (formerly of Mother Love Bone, notice a trend? Thank you Stone Gossard.) named Smegma and I couldn’t bring myself to say the name. (Yeah, I was still recovering from the repression…).

    So, “cream:”  better than “smegma.”

  25. Y (the lurker) says:

    Glad to see I’m not the only one who can’t stand the dreaded “creamed”
    @ sandra, yes it was “picked her up” as in “lifted bodily”

  26. Zoe Archer says:

    “Creaming” and the description of a woman’s “cream” makes me think of something that’s opaque, and if something opaque is coming out of your nether regions, it’s time to see a doctor.

  27. Sycorax says:

    @Tessa – ‘smegma’ just makes me laugh because I associate it with Red Dwarf (where ‘smeg’ is their main swearword)

    I think cunt is a great word, but I can’t stand it being used as an insult (though rather inconsistently I don’t care about dick or prick as insults). There aren’t too many good words available to describe a vulva, and ‘vulva’ can feel as awkward and un-sexy as vagina when used about yourself. Mind you, I can’t remember ever seeing ‘cunt’ in a sex scene, and I don’t particularly want to. I’ve heard too many men using it as an insult to want to see it in that context. Maybe that will change.

    I hate, hate ‘pussy’ in sex scenes. To me it feels demeaning, though I’m not sure where I garnered that association. Probably because it’s yet another insult I do like ‘quim’ in Victorian novels, though only a few authors use it. It’s refreshingly free of association for me.

    This is an awesome thread, by the way. 🙂

  28. Diane/Anonym2857 says:

    I wish I had an answer for the HABO, and I wouldn’t rule out an old Lovewept, Brown or otherwise… but I guess that word has never jumped out at me (enough to be memorable) in the old categories.  I’m sure I’ve read it in newer ones, just not vintage ones.

    I had to laugh, tho—several people have been passing this link around on FB today.  It seems like an interesting segue from the earlier conversation about what is acceptable for males vs. females.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/26/896386/-Want-a-raise-Wash-your-vagina

    Diane 🙂

  29. Isabel C. says:

    I wonder if the “baby” dislike is, for me, one of those deals where I didn’t grow up with the word, so I can’t dissociate it from its other meanings—and possibly also related to not wanting kids myself? Actual babies, for me, aren’t particularly endearing: I’m glad other people find ‘em so—continuation of the species and all—and I’m happy to enthuse about my friends’, because, well, friends, but the main qualities I associate with them are helplessness, incontinence, noisiness, and a tendency to drool. So I don’t really find the comparison flattering. It’s a very personal thing, though, as people have said: I’m fond of “darling” and “my dear”, myself, neutral on “honey.”

    Also, yeah, we need better words for girl-bits. I don’t mind “cunt”, like “quim”, and am severely *meh* on “pussy”: I just…cats? What? Ew. “Vagina” and “vulva” both throw me wildly out of a scene; conversely, I don’t particularly love descriptions that get all purple and metaphorical with the flowers and the jewels. (I remember some line about “the blood-red ruby of her maidenhead” in one of the really bad novels I read as a young thing. Yeeesh.)

  30. Cassie says:

    @Sycorax: I’m pretty sure I’ve read ‘cunt’ in a romance sex scene (definitely in fanfic). I too like quim . . . the jury’s still out on ‘cunny’, which sounds just a little too juvenile and cutesy to me.

  31. Sycorax says:

    @Tessa – I must add that ‘smegma’ is miles better than ‘dick cheese’, which I’ve heard used by a guy. Again with the genitalia and dairy products…

    @Cassie – I’m sure I must have encountered cunt, I just can’t… put my finger on it, so to speak. :p

  32. Ana says:

    I think Anne Stuart’s recent release, “Ruthless” used the term “cunt.”  I can’t remember if it was used in the actual sex scene; I’m pretty sure it was uttered in some context by the hero.

  33. Bert says:

    Whenever I hear “cream” I imagine thick, sweet pastry filing. So while it doesn’t gross me out like those of you who imagine infections, it just seems… improbable.

  34. oneflewtoofar says:

    For the record i’m good with creamed, wet, moist and baby. I use pet names with platonic friends and my boyfriend constantly. And tmi i’m sure but I’ve been moist, gotten wet and i’d say i’ve creamed so go me! Medical and baking conotations aside, the non-gushing influx of moisture that accompanies orgasm seems like creaming to me.

    I’m not so cool with damp though, i feel like a basement is damp, my vagina is not damp.

    Which proves that maybe an author should focus on what their characters would say not what their prospective audience would like to hear.

  35. Karen says:

    Which proves that maybe an author should focus on what their characters would say not what their prospective audience would like to hear.

    Well, yeah, except I would *really* like someone to use the below quote from Dora in a book some time 🙂

    “He looked at her, his eyes glinting like the freshly laid backsplash in that Tuscan kitchen she’d always wanted, and she watched his hair toss in the wind like a wild pony leaping after a butterfly. And then she had to go clean up because she’d creamed herself.”

  36. JamiSings says:

    I think Sherrilyn Kenyon used “cunt” in some of her Dark-Hunter books. I know for sure she used “cock” for the guy’s penis.

    I don’t really care for either word. I’d rather have the proper names then cunt, pussy, cock, dick – or even purple prose like manhood and velvet tunnel. Vulgar names for our body parts just seems – too cheap. Like if I’m not reading a love story, but a story about a man visiting a hooker.

    Then again I’m weird.

  37. diremommy says:

    To me, the terms “vagina” and “penis” are just too clinical for a good hot sex scene. There is just nothing hot about the phrase ” oh yeah, stick your penis in my vagina, baby”  Give me my cocks, dicks, pussies, and yes, even cunts.

  38. E says:

    I also hate when they spell come, c-u-m. I get it, its all juicy, but I’d much rather read ‘He made her come’ than the other. Ruins the moment for me.

  39. Francesca says:

    I remember someone describing the hero’s equipment referring to the weeping head. All I could think of was his penis sobbing away because he wasn’t big enough to play in the magic cave.

  40. Deb says:

    We were watching the movie “Grease” one evening and my younger daughters asked what “cream” meant in the song “Greased Lightning.”  My husband looked at me and said, “I’m glad they askd you, not me, to explain that one.”

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