The Problem of Sex Euphemisms

There are the metaphors your parents used: The birds and the bees. Rounding the bases. Going all the way.

There are the metaphors your friends used: Get some. Get it in. Make it. The in and out. Get laid. Bump and grind. Do it. Get busy.

There are the metaphors that imply male domination and leave out the woman's agency and/or desire (though these can also be used by women to leave out the man, it just happens less often): Bang. Nail. Screw. Pound. Mount. Get into one's pants. Getting some ass.



Now, before I begin explaining the problems with some of these metaphors, let me say that I am not against using euphemisms for sex. They can be fun, convenient (and funny) when in a public place, and downright gross/hilarious/both. Even trying to come up with more for that intro, I had fun going through a website with a ton of euphemisms listed. But the intention of the post is to explain the problem that arises when most (or all) of our sex conversations revolve around euphemisms that explain nothing about the mechanics, pleasures, and/or risks of having sex.

I was fairly sheltered from sex growing up. As I've expressed before, I knew very little to nothing about female masturbation and female pleasure during sex. I also knew very little about the act of sex itself. Hearing people talk about different bases confused me. For one thing, I've heard more than one variation on what each base is.

The Bases of Sex, A: 1st base = making out, 2nd base = heavy petting above the waist, 3rd base = heavy petting below the waist (I'm assuming this was another way of saying hand jobs and the like), 4th base = sex.

The Bases of Sex, B: 1st base = making out, 2nd base= heavy petting above and below the waist, 3rd base = oral sex, 4th base = intercourse.

The Bases of Sex, C: 1st base = heavy petting above the waist, 2nd base = heavy petting below the waist, 3rd base = oral sex, 4th base = intercourse.

In the first version, the one I was most familiar with growing up, oral sex isn't even mentioned. Where does it fit in? Do we count it as sex, or do we count it as 3rd base? Many of my friends and I still don't agree on this (and if we can't define sex, how can we define our boundaries or our desires?).

Now, the variations between these different versions seem fairly small, but they can also very big consequences. Imagine a girl who only knows to know talk about sex (or who is only comfortable talking about sex) within the baseball euphemism. Maybe she tells the guy she's on a date with that she doesn't want to go beyond second base. What's his definition for 2nd base? What's hers? What if his definition goes "too far" for what she meant to agree to? Or, what if her definition goes too far for him?

When most of our conversations, especially those we have with young children and teens, are spoken in this sort of code, we are doing our children a huge disservice. Having a talk about the birds and bees says nothing about men and women (and doesn't make any sense!!!). Telling your daughters (or sons) not to go beyond a certain base may leave them uncertain about what happens at that "base," or what the possibilities and risks are at later "bases."

Many people are saying that parents should teach their young children the proper names for their body parts (penis, vagina) instead of euphemisms (tallywacker [the one my dad was taught], private place) so that they can better understand and speak up if/when they have been violated. How can you tell your parents you've been molested if you're just a three-year-old with a pee-wee?

This same logic should apply to how we discuss sex with children and teens. We should be explaining what sex is, how it works, how it's good and how it's risky. We should explain pleasurable alternatives to sex (my mother once told my sister that "mutual masturbation" was the safest bet; we're still working out what exactly she meant by this but we've narrowed it down to two theories).

If you don't want your teen ending up with an unwanted pregnancy or an STD, they need to understand what it actually means to round the bases and go all the way. Euphemisms are only fun when you actually know what they're explaining.

Let's be honest: phrases like "fill the cream donut" and "part the pink sea" are only funny (and disgusting) when you know exactly what they're describing.

Editing Out Sex

Recently, I heard Bruno Mars' "The Lazy Song" on the radio. It's a weird song. It's all about not doing anything all day. I get it; everyone loves a day off. I just don't know that the best way to sing about it is by crying "I'm gonna kick my feet up and stare at the fan, Turn the TV on, Throw my hand in my pants..." No reading?

Anyway, the main problem I have with this song is the way that it's edited on the radio. One verse's lyrics are "Tomorrow I'll wake up do some P90X, Meet a really nice girl have some really nice sex, And she's gonna scream out 'This is great!'" When I was driving along listening to the radio, the word sex was beeped out. Why?



Going back to my discussions on the book, The Purity Myth, and on abstinence-only education, our country is overly obsessed with sexual purity, even while our culture is bombarding us with overly sexual images. And abstinence-only education only teaches kids and teens to stay away from sex: no explanation of masturbation, no explanation of desire and attraction, no explanation of safe sex options. So, somehow, I'm not surprised that just the word 'sex' is considered so risque that it has to be silenced out of a popular song (a song that 13-year-olds are listening to everywhere, a song in which the edit does absolutely nothing to keep listeners from knowing what the silenced word is). But I wondered, if the line referenced drugs, if it said "Meet a really nice girl, do some really nice X,"would the line be edited in the same way? It might be; I don't know. But the fact that I even wonder, that I think our culture might glorify drug use more than responsible sexual encounters, is pretty sad.

What's worse is the attention given to specific words. The only reference to sex in "The Lazy Song" is the word sex: no details, nothing explicit. On the other hand, we have Katy Perry's song "Last Friday Night," a huge hit right now (complete lyrics here). It is all about a hungover morning after a blackout night and a one night stand. The entire song is about reckless drinking and un-remembered sex. However, this song isn't edited on the radio. Why? Because it doesn't use the words sex, drinking, one-night stand, etc. Can kids read between the lines? Of course! Do they know what this song is about? You bet! But without a specific, single word to edit out, it doesn't seem to matter.

Now I'm not saying that Katy Perry's song is inappropriate or should be censored. But I am saying that songs, films, and other forms of popular culture get edited all the time, and for all the wrong reasons. We need to stop focusing on single words and images that seem "dangerous" or "risque" and start looking at the bigger picture.

Does Virginity Exist?

It seems like a ridiculous question, right? We all know virginity exists because we have all been told to hang on to it until marriage (at least, all us women have). But how can you define virginity?

Jessica Valenti points put in her book, The Purity Myth, that there is not a single, standard, medical definition for virginity. Not one. So how can we go about hanging on to and protecting something that we can't define?

Think about it for a second. How do you define sex? Do you only count heterosexual intercourse? Do you count oral? Do you count an experience in which you didn't have an orgasm? If we can't even settle on what counts as "sex," how can we say when we have had sex for the first time and, therefore, lost our virginity?

Valenti's book is great because it provides a whole new way for thinking about sex and sexuality. She mentions a friend of hers who only labels an experience as "sex" if she has had an orgasm. This blew my mind. It doesn't focus on mechanics; it focuses on pleasure. And one experience could count as sex for one partner and not the other. So what? We all know that not everyone gets off at the same time or even in the same night, but why does it matter? By thinking of sex as something that culminates in pleasure, we can change our entire attitudes about sex entirely.

And even better, we could begin to eliminate the gray area that some people seem to find between sex and rape. We could live in a world in which sex for everyone is a comfortable, fun activity to be enjoyed when desired (for all people). And we could live in a society in which virginity didn't have to be hoarded and saved, but instead, one in which sex was a series of activities and experiences to be explored at one's own pace.

I would very much enjoy this world.