I looooove the word "labia." It has such a sexy sound to it, a soft and squishy word in the mouth. :)
it's very telling that there are so many ways to refer to genitals -- i think it's a case of necessity requiring invention because for so long, and even now in some respects, it simply wasn't acceptable to use the correct terms for those parts of the body. i mean, there aren't multiple ways to say 'arm' or 'leg' and that's because we've only needed the one term. lexical creativity has only been necessary for the parts that are secret or forbidden.
Yes, exactly! And that's both annoying and kind of wonderful, because all that lexical creativity means that we have a lot of differently-flavoured meanings that we can call on as writers, each word giving a different feel to the scene and the character.
Re: Word Choices in Smut
it's very telling that there are so many ways to refer to genitals -- i think it's a case of necessity requiring invention because for so long, and even now in some respects, it simply wasn't acceptable to use the correct terms for those parts of the body. i mean, there aren't multiple ways to say 'arm' or 'leg' and that's because we've only needed the one term. lexical creativity has only been necessary for the parts that are secret or forbidden.
Yes, exactly! And that's both annoying and kind of wonderful, because all that lexical creativity means that we have a lot of differently-flavoured meanings that we can call on as writers, each word giving a different feel to the scene and the character.