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).
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!
The cosmic stuff. You know, after you get through all the laving, suckling, thrusting and milking, after you get through all those spicy scents and flavors, after lips have slanted and delved every possible GPS point on the human body……then you get the nuclear stuff: cosmic explosions, shattering, space-time warps, dimensions full of new colors and fractals. And THEN you come back to earth with new understanding of something; yourself, him, love, life, God, being – basically you have some kind of Oprah moment. Of course, after we have mocked all this terminology, I have no idea of how you can describe a sex scene.. We’ve pretty much eliminated every thing from the first grab to the sweat drying on their exhausted bodies. Oh well. Oh, and FYI, I am sick of people fisting their hands in hair. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Pelt. Beaver. Sadly, it’s no longer 1973 but I’ve read both. Recently.
@ SAO
Yes! I don’t necessarily have a problem with a description of a woman’s vagina as tight, I have a real problem with small stature equating tight, or youth equating tight. If that is true it assumes those not of small stature must therefore not be tight, and anyone over the age of 25 must not be tight. It also kind of assume that the male is making comparisons between all of the loose vaginas he’s been in. Ick.
On the other hand, if our heroine is described as very athletic or well toned, I think it’s safe to say she’s probably sufficiently tight.
Then too, there is vaginismus. I’ll just say, ouch.
“Down there” e.g. He opened my pants and touched me down there.
I rarely mind the language in sex scenes, be it clinical, purple, or crude. Although I read something recently in which the heroine distended her tongue. No.
I think turgid is a fantastic word but know I am in the minority on this.
Laved used to bother me but it’s so ubiquitous I don’t even see it any more.
“Puckered Strawberry” in reference to someone’s a**hole. YUCK!!
Thank you to the person who mentioned the word “tummy”. The use of the word “tummy” by anyone older than 3 — no, thank you.
Definitely “laving” and any of the appalling euphemisms above for bodily fluids – am heartily sick of “seed”. And if I never read “scent of her arousal” ever again…
Oh. And “slit”. Anyone’s.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of the word tummy for any adult. Frankly, I don’t think children should be allowed to use it. Worse though, is those weirdos who have babies in their stomach.
Why you eatin’ babies!?
Uncool.
THIS IS MY FAVORITE GAME!
“Tall and painfully hard, wet with my GROOL.” (Jasinda Wilder, Alpha)
Grool.
Quim. Also any use of the word hump.
I’m the person who requested everyone’s assistance — just wanted to chime in to say thanks. We are going to have one rocking game of bingo! Frankly, I wish we could all play together — with champagne and strawberries, of course.
@ Kate: OMG, yes! Maybe we should tell scientists that sex always causes a Eureka! moment of clarity.
Bitches, please accept my blanket apology. I’ve contributed as least two of those in my novel (Greek god comparison, and the taste of kisses.) Sorry sorry sorry, she sez, bowing and scraping her way out of the doorway.
Impaling and fisting…when not referring to actual fisting. I just read a book where her vagina fisted his penis, in more flowery terms of course. Vaginas can’t make fists!
Whenever the hero is getting undressed and is described as being so hard it taps his stomach I roll my eyes. I can’t remember which author I read who abused that phrase once or twice in ever book but I remember it being one of many phrases that started getting on my nerves.
This is worst I’ve ever seeen. My eyes came to a juddering halt on the page, and I found myself unable to go on. I put the book down and never returned to it. Can’t, for the life of me, remember what book it was either.
“cuntal flanges”
wrong on about fifty separate levels. Just say no.
@Ethelthefrog:
*blink blink*
Talk about technical terminology… Admit to being lazy and not looking it up, but is that a real term? Oh, and omg wtf sort of book had it?
@Ethelthefrog
Somewhere, someone right now is starting a band called, “Cuntal Flanges.”
@Brittany:
If vaginas could make fists, imagine the punches! POW! RIGHT IN THE KISSER!
‘down THERE’
I seriously saw that once in a romance. And it was from the hero’s POV, no less. I laughed myself sick over that one
Thanks to E.L. James I can’t take “down there” in a sex scene anymore.
Also “what she lacked in skill, she made up for in enthusiasm” is WAAAAY overused. And always about blowjobs. Never anything else, despite the many things I am unskilled but enthusiastic about.
Has anyone mentioned “nether curls” yet?
Nub, nubbin, pearl, folds, lacy or frilly in reference to labia. Also “pink.” I am half Asian and half Caucasian–my bits aren’t pink. I’m not saying you should describe a heroine’s nipples or labia as brown (because eww), but if a heroine is any variety of dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned maybe consider what parts are described as pink.
I think someone may have mentioned “pluck/plucking” previously (back in the early days of this thread…), but I just came across it in actual usage. Now I have the inevitable mental mash-up of the intro to “Dueling Banjos” being “played” on erect nipples warping my brain. Someone make it go away, please. And while you’re at it, take “strumming” with you, too.
Also, I read “fleece” somewhere… aka pubic hair. I couldn’t stop laughing for at least 5 min
aching womb
dusky nipples
neverland
manspear
Leaking or weeping. No. Please. No.
Please tell me someone has included the “cock twitch”.
Ugh, I can think of so many, but none offends me like “sex” as a noun. As in, “he pushed his hard sex into….the folds of her sex.” No, no, ALL THE NO!
Showering. As in “he came, showering her with his soul”
I collect ones i encounter in the wild on my tumblr: http://isuffersoyoudonthaveto.tumblr.com/
I agree with all the no weeping..anythings. Or juices either. And, boys, stop ramming it home. That does not sound fun.
Cream in reference to bodily fluids. Yuck.
Sopping. Double yuck. Do you need a sham-wow?
Perky, especially if it’s a guy thinking it about boobs. No, not gonna happen.
Any reference to male nipples, flat male nipples, nipples like pennies, etc.
Quivering flesh. It just makes me think of a tuning fork…
Oh, these are just too good. So many of them are just complete mood killers. The manhood thing (throbbing or otherwise) always squicks me. And “her femininity,” as if that’s a thing he could slide his manhood into. Yuck.
And lately, I’m getting heartily sick of “folds.” I’m not exactly sure what would be better, but goodness, find something else!
I’m too late for the contest, but I really despise ‘nest’ as in love nest, hidden nest, tangled nest, ad nauseam.
[…] Reader Assistance Request: Bad Sex Bingo – So this is a week old and all, but I thought the post and comments were good for a chuckle. My pet peeves are “her core” (for a vagina), “his manhood” (for a penis), and any sexy use of “nub” or “nubbin.” […]