Sex Scene Vocabulary

[rheasilvia]

Slash fans, what is your preferred term for that part of the anatomy frequently featured in m/m sex scenes that is not the throbbing jade tower of desire?

- opening
- ass
- anus
- crinkled pink pucker of earthy delight
- ...?

Personally, I tend to feel that anus is too medical, ass only fits very specific character voices and contexts, and

Comments

[indelicateink]

ahaha, great question. y'know, you've got me thinking--as you mention, it really depends on context? (Like there are some AUs set in centuries past that make use of the word "prick," and it totally works--and I dig that the author reached back for a time-appropriate word

[indelicateink]

PS "pink twitching love hole" is just... never okay. XD

[rheasilvia]

Yikes! I completely forgot about the 'hole' variants. 'Hole' itself is already too much for me to deal with in most scenes. Although in a certain context... ;-)

[daegaer]

Rosebud of desiiiiire

*flees*

[amnisias]

I would agree that quite often, if fic is written well and the scene is that up right, you don't have to use any nouns because everybody knows where the action is and what 'he pushed in' referres to. Anything that's too clinical or vulgar puts me right out of the scene, and any of these flowery, long-winded phrases only work in a self-ironic kinda way....

[rheasilvia]

Fortunately it's been a while since I've encountered any memorable flowery phrases... maybe they've fallen out of fashion? We can only hope! :-)

Yes, skillful avoidance of the term is often a good solution. Doesn't always work, though. In situations where it's not an option, do you have a preference? Something that reads as neither clinical nor vulgar?

[amnisias]

Opening? Probably. Entrance? Works too. Hole?. Possibly. Back entrance? Iffy, but could work in certain situations.

[daegaer]

Another vote for vague hand waving of the "he pushed in" variety! We can all work out what was pushed where, after all. Mind you, specific characters would use particular words, or avoid certain words (Bracy and Gedge either know no words for such things at all, or are a mixture of forthright and given to suddenly breaking into Latin. "Per anum, sir? Oh, you mean up the arse.")

[rheasilvia]

Yes, the hand is certainly the safest option. That way no readers will be put off by the use of terms they dislike... and I'm assuming that there is a wide spectrum of opinions when it comes to anus terms. ;-)

Character- and setting-appropriate terms can indeed be a great thing, but regardless of how in character, some of them can nevertheless reduce the sexiness of a scene for me. (Like, indeed, the use of "sir". But that's just me. *g*)

[daegaer]

You know, I've seen a lot of German-speakers on LJ say that sex-scenes auf Deutsch are too brain-hurty for them to consider even fleetingly which makes me wonder - can Schuldig only talk dirty in English and/or Japanese?!

[rheasilvia]

Brain-hurty in what way - because they're too difficult to get right? Or something else?

I do think that it's more difficult to hit the right register in German, where it's way easier to charge straight into horrible purple prose and/or complete clumsy awkwardness. So it does require somewhat more skill and sense of style than in English, I'd say. But it's entirely possible, all the same!

What really doesn't work is directly translating sex scenes from English into German. In the majority of cases, that will lead to horrendously overwrought prose of the "swooning while clutching your trembling bosom" variety. English is more tolerant of dramatics, somehow. ;-)

As for Schuldig, I think he is up to the challenge in any language. :-) And the truth is that it is easy to sound very filthy in German, with relatively little effort. Should be right up his alley!

Not a pun. Ahem.

[glitterburn]

i agree with the general consensus on arranging the sentence so no specific word needs to be used! personally i use whatever word fits the characters and the emotion of the scene. for contemporaries i pretty much use 'hole', which is as good a description as any and (for me) still has a frisson of rudeness. unless an author uses a (to me) icky-sounding term ('poop-chute' is something i never want to see again) or a flowery term,i don't notice, so use whatever the characters demand.

[rheasilvia]

...

Poop-chute? You found a story using that term in a supposedly sexy context...?

Wow. I have no words. (Maybe it was the same author who wrote a meant-to-be-sexy sex scene featuring the man giving a blow-job throwing up mid-way through his partner's orgasm because there was so much ejaculate, and then promptly going back to swallowing. I am still puzzling over that one.)

There does seem to be a consensus for the elegant solution of not saying anything, if you can't say something nice. ;-) The more I think about it, the more I agree that it really is the best way to write truly sexy sex scenes for the largest number of readers.

[glitterburn]

The author who used 'poop-chute' (and thereafter 'chute') was a man. I also recall 'throbbing gristle' for another part of the anatomy!

...throwing up jizz and then re-swallowing it? Okay, I think that author invented a whole new kink. That's like snowballing a Roman shower.

(btw I read the latest book in the terrible series and it was almost completely LOL-free, so the author must have found a decent editor. I'm actually disappointed. Although my favourite typo: 'He parsed his lips')

[rheasilvia]

Throbbing gristle...? That's a new one for me. Seriously, talk about having a gift for words. It's beginning to sound like an accident at the meat-packing plant.

The Roman snowball was the invention of a male author, too - the plot thickens! Is yours called Hephaistion (or rather some weird spelling variant thereof I have since forgotten)?

My theory is that this scene was supposed to show the immense virility of the guy ejaculating; from what I remember of the description, he must have had several liters of jizz in him. I assume that this overwhelmingly high volume of ejaculate was meant to be sexy, not the vomiting itself.

It's too bad about the steep upturn in the quality of the Regency series! Not one absurdly ahistorical bit?

The parsing of lips is nice, though. ;-) Clearly this is a very exact man.

[geekslave]

Like others I tend to go vague and not describe it because a lot of the terms I can use put me off.

Anus definitely feels too clinical. I think if I anything, since I mostly right British characters I use arse. Sometimes hole. But I don't love it, so don't use it often.

Stacey

[rheasilvia]

(LOL - your icon! How very fitting! *g*)

It really does depend on the characters to a degree, but I agree, even when character-appropriate, many terms are simply not sexy. The vague solution is probably the only possible way to please everyone. Or most readers, at least! I'm sure some prefer an explicit term...

[geekslave]

Hee! I thought it felt appropriate.

Stacey