Lesson Three: What not to name your and your partner’s body parts during cyber, and why. There’s quite a few no-no categories here so let’s break them down and tackle each one at a time.
Animal metaphors: You may be used to referring to your spitting trouser snake, her beaver, or her pussy (which I’ll cover again further down, and that sounds so wrong in the context of this post) etc. Avoid using these terms: Beyond the fact that it sounds silly and will leave at least one of you sniggering, you need to keep in mind that a lot of people don’t use the same animal references or even know what that animal is! Not everyone has english as a first language or comes from countries that contain these creatures (we don’t have beavers where I am from and when people call it a beaver I always find my mind wandering to whether beavers are snuggly creatures and if they would be useful pets for plumbers). So let’s ride the flag up that pole off the bat and place this in the no category (and I might stop mixing metaphors to reward you for your sensibility).
Cutesy names: You are an adult (I hope). So stop calling your hoo-hoo a hoo-hoo. Stop referring to your whatsit as your la-la or your noo-noo as your vajayjay. It will quite possibly make your partner think you are underage or immature or afraid of sexual relations or just plain odd – or a fan of “Grey’s Anatomy” (which might make you everything previously listed in that sentence :p).
The same goes for pet names - don’t call your friend “Henry” or “Jake” – chances are she knows a Henry or Jake and do you really want her thinking about them while you two do the tango? If you’ve got a bit more creative and called your little friend “Godzilla” or “The Hun” you are likely to fall back into the “o.O” category.
Inanimate objects: Your trouser snake is not a train, and it is not going to chug-a-chug into her tunnel. At least not if you go about calling it a train it won’t. It’s flesh and blood and people will sometimes find it quite insulting when you refer to it as an inanimate object – that is, they will once they stop laughing at you.
Same goes for fruit and veges: Your banana, your zucchini, your ham in her sandwich and your hot dog in her bun. If you want to get them eaten find another way that makes you sound less fruity, cause naming them food items is just going to reduce your chances of success.
Extreme slang: Be very careful when referring to her vajayjay as a c*nt. I think the word c*nt is great – very visceral and in-your-face (so to speak). But most women seem to find that word highly offensive. Along the same lines a lot of women aren’t going to be too impressed when your call her happy-place a “wound”. Like ew, you’d hope these points speak for themselves but apparently no. But this does bring us to what you should do when naming your down-below-bits:
Talk to each other.
It is perfectly fine to set out the ground rules in advance, you can even do it as part of the cyber if you like – whisper it in each other’s ears or drop very obvious hints by naming your parts your preferred way up-front. Men will frequently be happy with cock, penis, dick (yes, men are frequently happy with those things but you know what I mean). And women will often be happy with vagina. What terms women use and are happy with needs a bit more elaboration:
Some women will feel comfortable with pussy because it is a very common term, and lets face it pretty much every country has cats in it. It can lead to some unfortunate in-cyber jokes about wet kitties, fur-balls, claws and teeth, so it’s not ideal but if she’s comfortable with it, fine. Again, that comes down to talking the terms through with each other at the outset.
“Lips” is an interesting one that is reasonably accurate and can work well, but be careful because she has two sets of lips and confusing together which ones you are kissing will lead to much confusion, embaressment or hilarity. Laughing during cyber can be fine – typos are good times and are a topic I shall post about as well, I’ll cover laughter and cyber in full later because it needs a lot said about it.
“Inside your body” is often used and avoids other pet names, but creates the same sorts of problems as using “lips”. There are at least three possible “inside” places you could encounter, so better to try to clarify a bit more what you mean. You don’t want to be trying to explain half way through that you’re actually in a different hole than she was responding about. Which brings us to “hole”.
“Hole” is a rather empty word (hee hee). But really, it is kind of cold and borders on calling her an inanimate object. Some women will be fine with this, but it also potentially creates the above confusions caused by “lips” and “inside”. “Slit” is very similar to “hole” in terms of being cold and inanimate, but it’s an improvement in as far as it gets away from the ambiguities.
So let’s recap what we’ve learnt: Your best bet is to talk up front about what they want their parts called, women are likely to be more sensitive to the chosen name than the man is (he often won’t care what you call it as long as his train is losing the light). You can tell your partner what you want it to be called by whispering it to them within the cyber context, or naming it yourself within the early stages of cyber – whatever works is fine and is better than waiting half-way through.
Worst case scenario for using a badly chosen name is you will greatly offend your partner and they will stop the cyber altogether and think you’re an arse. Next range of possibilities is embarrassment or your partner thinking you’re a bit childish or pathetic. At the lighter end of consequences your partner will laugh or just find it amusing. If you don’t care what your partner thinks or if you ever get to do it again with that person, then why waste your time with pleasantries and clarifications. But if you want both of you to relax and enjoy the experience, a little communication can go a long way.
Prad Prathivi on April 2, 2009
Best.
Title.
Ever.
Dale Innis on April 2, 2009
LOL @ picture.
Banana Vella on April 2, 2009
I feature again. I should charge.
hahaha
Nice article Leg.
The MJ on April 3, 2009
I refer again to the song “Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo” by Bloodhound Gang!
Marinate the nether rod in the squish mitten!!!!
-mj, the
Mistletoe on April 3, 2009
What always gets me to snort-giggling is romance novel-style terminology.
If anything is “throbbing” it probably should be seen by a doctor, and if it’s “turgid” that just makes me go “WHAT-id?”
Your “member” had best be carrying a card.
Isn’t “manroot” a Chinese herb?
My “budding flower” is in a pot in a south-facing window, not in my pants.
If you find my “treasure mound” let me know. Rent’s coming due.
I don’t have a “chestnut patch of pleasure”. In fact I don’t have any land for trees at all.
My nipples aren’t “sentient little tips”. I’m pretty sure that they don’t have brains. (I know some guys may think we keep our brains there…)
The closest thing I have to a “silken love cave” is a very disorganized closet in which I stash fabric. And that’s really more cotton blends.
I can’t afford a “love grotto”. I’m not rich like Hef.
If I had a “hidden garden” it wouldn’t get any sunlight, and my poor tomatoes would die.
“Honey pot”?! Just NO.
Here’s the problem though. You usually get three choices when it comes to erotic nomenclature: the vulgar, the cold and clinical, or the goofy euphemism. There seems to be scarce little middle ground anywhere. Myself, I’m a “cock” and “pussy” kinda elf. But it’s the writing equivalent of “water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.” There’s tons of words, but VERY few good ones.
Legendary Charisma on April 3, 2009
Prad,
Dale, glad you like it, would you believe I already had a giant banana in my inventory..? o.O
Banana, lol, and thank you ^^
MJ, you are – as always – a wealth of the best the internet has to offer. But where’s my Blood Ninja link this time..?
Mistletoe, lmao, I like those, very clever!
Amanda Shinji on April 4, 2009
“Squish Mitten”? OMFG, I LOVE that!!!! I’m so going to try and work that into a conversation soon… Preferably with a girl I’m rather smitten by
As for the word “c*nt”, I am one of the girls who is totally unoffended by it. I use it a lot myself, both SL and RL. It’s a fantastic word.
The MJ on April 8, 2009
Ahh, forgot about Blood Ninja for everyone!
http://people.ambrosiasw.com/~andrew/funny/bloodcyber.html
‘ere ya guys go! Enjoy!
-mj, the
valentina kendal on April 15, 2009
I use ‘breasts’ and ‘pussy’ almost all the time (lol) just to be consistent, although in RL I might call them ‘boobs’ or ‘tits’, but I find those terms can be weird sometimes cybering. The first time I was with a Brit and she used the ‘C word’ to refer to my girl parts I was taken aback, but someone later told me they use it a lot more commonly than we do here in the States. All in all, its a really fine line – I mean there are only so many noun/verb combinations you can come up with if you don’t start going out there into ‘romance novel’ phrases, but the wrong turn of phrase and the moment is lost…
Legendary Charisma on April 15, 2009
Absolutely – cyber’s interesting in that way – so many fine details that people often don’t think about, but which can really make the world of difference to someone’s experience. That’s why I find it so interesting to write these posts, and to read the comments made on them too.
There’s a friend of mine in SL who is open-minded in just about every way – very sexual person – but if you use the C word (even in just every day conversation) she gets very on edge and uncomfortable. It changes her entire mood, she pretty much withdraws. She’s not the only one either, and it’s easy to see how that would ruin the experience for someone. Like I said in the post I really like the word so I’m at the other end of that spectrum, which is why (again) communication is important.
Part of the problem is being aware enough of the issue to communicate about it in the first place; a lot of people won’t put that level of thought into what they name things on other people’s bodies and will just focus on their own preferences, which is sad, and so easily remedied to everyone’s benefit.