Jill emailed me asking for some Bitchery assistance. She needs some additional terms for “Bad Sex Bingo.” (I think I actually heard many of you sit up straight in your chairs!)
I’m co-teaching a workshop on how to write a sex scene. To illustrate the importance of proper vocabulary, I’m thinking of having the group play Bad Sex Bingo, an idea inspired by your Romance Novels Workouts.
I’m looking for the wince-inducing doozies–cliches, words that may be correct but just sound awful (such as turgid), sexist concepts (such as “one concession to femininity”), etc.
Here is Jill’s list so far – oh, sweet memories. I’ve read maaaaaany of these. Repeatedly. Oh, romance, please don’t ever change your turgid, sexy ways.
- Aching bulge
- Anything + “of love”
- Breasts like apples
- Breasts like cantaloupes
- Breasts like grapefruit
- Bud
- Button
- Dingle + anything else
- Distended
- Engorged flesh
- Family jewels
- Heaving loins
- Hilt
- Laved
- Length
- Love grotto
- Love sausage
- Lush folds
- Maidenhead
- Man-root
- Member
- Neglected nipples
- Nipples like cherries
- Nipples like pearls
- Nubbin
- One concession to femininity
- One-eyed
- Pendant
- Pert
- Phallus
- Pouting nipples
- Pulsating
- Purple
- Ram
- Ripe fruit
- Rod
- Ruched nipples
- Salami
- Shaft
- Silken grip
- Silken steel
- Snake
- Spear
- Straining masculinity
- Sword
- Tender sheath
- Throbbing manhood
- Tumescent
- Turgid
- Vagina like flowers
- Va-Jay-Jay
- Velvet purse
- Velvet steel
- Womanhood
- Wrinkled
I know you can think of many, many, maaaany silly, strange, odd, or perhaps excellent euphemisms used in sex scenes, or descriptions that made you tilt your head and frown. Please share in the comments if you’d like!
To make this even more fun, I have a set of Cards Against Romance Tropes, the Cards Against Humanity-esque game created by the Chicago North chapter of RWA for their Spring Fling in 2014. I will select a winner from the comments at random to win their own set of Cards Against Romance Tropes (CART).Â
Standard yadda-yadda applies: Void where prohibited. Open to international residents where permitted by applicable law. Must be over 18 and prepared to say the word “turgid.” We’ll sell you the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge. I’ll select a winner at random from the comments on Friday 1 May 2015 and announce the winner same day.
So, bring it on: your turgid, your winsome, your throbbing members yearning to break free! We await your favorite, most goofy, wtf-y, and enjoyable sex scene terms!
Time to announce the winner! The winner of a set of CART – Cards Against Romance Tropes – is Christine! Congrats and enjoy – and thank you all for a very funny discussion!
Haven’t seen one of the more horrific terms yet:
“Keening”, as in “keening whimper” or “keening wail”. The first makes me think of a dog that’s just been hit by a car (& then I get all weepy, but not vaginally). The second – it’s a toss-up between a wannabe actress in a Halloween haunted house, or the poor partner suddenly realizing that s/he has just had the sex with a dolphin.
Although, after some of the reviews I’ve read on
SBTB, maybe it really WAS a dolphin…
Must toss this in re: “shuddering” – there’s at least one historical romance editor who believes it’s “shuttering”. I’ve seen that in print at least 2X (different authors) in the last 3 or so years, always in a MM version, so whoever it is is definitely a pro. It may originally be the authors’ mistakes, but someone’s getting paid to catch it. And didn’t. Nothing has jerked me out of a book faster.
I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned or not, but I don’t have time to go through 80 comments right now… But one that has me rolling my eyes is any variation of “If we don’t stop now, I won’t be able to stop”.
I just rolled my eyes writting it…
Ohhhhh, I just thought of another phrase that makes me giggle or shudder, not sure which…
‘he took me all the ways a man can take a woman’….umm being that she is usually a virgin, he did her in the ass first go round too???? Poor girl!!! haha
The phrases that always get me are the ones with some form of :
Gonna do such and such that’s illegal in such and such states.
The only stuff I think of are things I really don’t wanna hear about… ever.
LadyTown (for, ah, ladyparts)
ripe peach (either boobs or LadyTown)
squirt (from either him or her)
“Silken curls”
“Feasting” on things – please no!
Anything with dripping. The va-jay is not a leaky faucet, people. And if it is, you need to get that checked.
Also, I’m thinking that some of the sex position from Sex Criminals should be referenced somehow. Just because.
Also – “floss”. Aside from the whole
dental plaque imagery, my grandmother’s
lifelong nickname was “Floss”. Need I
say more?
Any variant of “suckle” always makes me think of a mama pig and 8-10 piglets.
Mewling. Please, no mewling.
Also, while lave is bad, lathe is worse. Please, please don’t lathe the heroine’s sensitive parts – ouch!
Overuse of ‘literally’ can also be terrifying. ‘She literally exploded’, ‘she literally caught fire’, she was ‘literally mindless’ – none of these things put erotic images in my head. Quite the contrary… They (literally) make me flinch…
Catherine
I’m de-lurking to add:
1. “cooter”
2. “dew”
3. “Hoo-hah”
You knew we’d come up with at least 4 pages worth, didn’t you?
Ones I’ve seen a lot are “velvet sheath” and the reciprocal “velvet rod” or “velvety steel”. Bonus points if you collect the set in the same book.
Also “jutting breasts”. Makes me feel like they’re made of granite and have handholds for mountain climbers.
EC Spurlock – a good comment – remember, granite can crumble with time.
That being said, I remember reading a “romance” with military/Nazi overtones (back 40+ years ago) that described one woman’s breasts as “she wore her breasts like an Iron Cross” – maybe she had interchangeable breasts depending on the audience? Always wondered about that one. Also have wondered how nipples point to the sky unless woman is lying down on her back.
Anytime they talk about ‘parting her pubic hair’. I mean, I know it’s a regency, but gah.I read the book with the cucumbery cock as well and I laughed my butt off, but now I can’t remember what it’s from! Any help?
I think “clenching” in reference to anything other than a jaw sounds very painful. Also “sucking” or “milking” in reference to the heroine’s big O. It’s not a vacuum people!
I don’t mind desire pooling, or things being moist (because they get that way if things are going well!), but am tired of people slanting their mouths all over each other. It makes me picture the two leads standing there with lips touching at awkward angles, thinking “Well, now what?”
Also, using “loving” to mean the physical act of intercourse, as in “he finished loving me and slowly pulled out”. I don’t remember now what book I read it in, but that totally turned me off.
Her lush garden
Anything that visibly quivers
Any mention of his rod being so large it touched her womb (or cervix, etc). Makes me think of a pap smear. Eww.
But hands down, the most over-used word in the romance genre whether in a sex scene or not is “bemused,” as in “after the waves of his passion subsided, he stared down at her with a bemused grin.”
Start looking for it. It’s everywhere. I tried to boycott books with this phrase, but I had nothing to read. ALL these characters are gazing up/down/at each other bemusedly. It reminds me of Olaf from Frozen. And that’s not sexy. At all.
I am currently sick of reading “…like peaches” and “…like ripe peaches”.
From Bertrice Small:
Temple of Sodom
Temple of Venus
Back in high-school, some 30 years ago, my best friend and I came across a sentence that made us laugh to the point of herniation and pants wetting:
“He stood back and presented his heated pride.”
I can no longer remember the author or the novel, but that sentence in all its hilarity remain.
Suckle or suckling. He suckled her nipple or she suckled his… Ugh! Grosses me out everytime. Am I supposed to picture him nursing from her breaststroke like an infant, or her using his pens as a pacifier? NOT sexy. Referring to her juices (yuck!) as gushing or soaking her thighs. Did she pee on herself? 🙂
Weeping cocks (or other names for sex organs).
I know, it’s been hated on already, but I guess I’m not the only one who associates this description with STIs
I can’t stop giggling. Thanks for relaying the request!
I’ve been reading M/M for a bit now and one that pops up that totally ruins the mood is: starburst. O_o Really? ‘Cause he’s just so divine he’s got stars coming outta his rear end.
Spew/Spewed his seed. I always think they should stop and find a mop or a garden trowel immediately.
Crashing waves. ‘Nuff said.
You already got my least favorite “nubbin” but I also detest:
“pearl” (what, not enough berries and flowers, we need gems now?)
And the inevitable:
“core” (as in, she felt a clenching in her core)
Every time I see that in a novel, I think of Pilates…
Every time an author uses fruits to talk about a woman’s reproductive organs… I’ve seen peaches and cherries and apricots and some that I’ve, thank god, forgotten.
Oh god, I’ve snort-laughed at so many of these. I just have to add “ropes (or strands) of pearlescent fluid jetting from his manhood”. Blech
I had to go look this one up to get the quote just right. “…pounding into her a few times, then bellowing out her name as he stiffened, shuddered, and bathed her womb with heat.”
Excerpt From: Howell, Hannah. “Highland Conqueror.” E-Reads, 2005.
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned “yoni” yet. I saw that word pop up in a Victorian romance once that had zero to do with India.
And “love grotto.” Bertrice Small LOVED that phrase.
Scoops of flesh (in regards to breasts)
Where the cringe comes from all the reasons.
Also ruffles (I don’t care if labia minora look fluffy, all I picture is rummaging around under a bed skirt)
And springy/crisp body hair. It’s a chest, not a lawn.
@AndiLeigh
Mind Games (Disillusionists #1) by Carolyn Crane
I actually thought I misunderstood what I was reading first. Like maybe there was some other “c” word that could be used in context. Nope.
But I am still going to read the rest in the series and pray no other veggie metaphors are used during sexytimes.
Just reading this right now: “Twitching”, as in
“He adjusted his twitching cock”.
Um, might I offer you (& a multitude of rappers)
a full can of Tinactin?
Juices… love juices… and forbidden channel
There’s a romance where the hero has entered the heroine and is about to come when she makes him stop, because the radio is on and she’s just heard something on the news about the man who’s been trying to kill her.
So the hero pulls out. I could understand him being none too happy, but his penis is described as “angry and red and inflamed”. It was now the rosy Hulk of sex organs.
Always freaky when the penis is a sentient body part that nods along with the hero’s assessment of the heroine, or salutes her, or weeps for her, or talks to the hero. Like it’s the hero’s smaller conjoined twin.
ooh I forgot one! Not a word but when his penis is ENORMOUS – are they all porn stars? – and she worries it won’t fit…but the worse is this combination plus him “assuring” her saying her channel spands to give birth so she should take him alright. I mean ..ca you say OUCH?
I also worry when penises start to seem almost sentient: like it’s moving in her direction, twitching or seeking her..on it’s own! @_@
Also I can’t believe no one said this but: “Hard enough to pound nails” I mean I read this since I was 12 can’t they find a new way to describe it? Besides the mental imagine just makes me giggle
Tight. Tight as a virgin. It always seems to be passing judgement on those of us who’ve had a few kids. Surely romance heros can have a world-rocking, awesome time with a woman who is not the female equivalent of a guy with a meter long schlong.
Bruised lips (strangely, only happens to women) after kissing. I’m picturing her lips looking like a black eye, maybe split– not sexy, and sounds more like fighting than fun.
Descriptions of how people’s mouths taste during kissing, as if each person has a distinct and unchanging flavor, rather than tasting like toothpaste and whatever they last ate. What do wild, untamed, etcetera taste like?
Referring to small breasts (or any breasts really) as “handfuls” or “delicious handfuls”
And heroes referring to their penis as “little ‘insert name here'”
@ Beth Not Elizabeth, that’s it! Hehehhe, so ridiculously awesome.
I hate it when writers describe vaginas as tasting like peaches or strawberries or other types of fruit. I’ve seen descriptions of flowery scents coming from the nether regions as well. These are all annoying because they are so blatantly untrue.
Tummy.
That’s a word that should never be used by anyone over the age of five to begin with and NEVER in a sex scene. And yet I see it pretty often. Off the top of my head I know it shows up in Lisa Kleypas’ Scandal in Spring, no fewer than SEVEN times in Archer’s Voice by Mia Sheridan, and I’m 99% sure I’ve even spotted it in a Courtney Milan.
“Her tummy clenched with desire.”
“His kisses trailed down her tummy and lower still.”
Just NOOOO.