A good question, though I probably don't have an especially good reply.
The boring respopnse is that I use the web a lot for incidental detail: Wikipedia for general facts (how did people ever get by without it?); Google Images for clothes, hairstyles, body parts etc.
The most difficult thing, of course, is to describe an experience I've never had. What is it like, to give an extreme example, for a woman to be fisted? Women know, or can at least guess; men can't. I use any bits and pieces I've gleaned from things I've seen written by women, but, failing that, I have to make it up.
The Internet can be surprisingly disappointing when it comes to finding specific information. I substitute imagination in those circumstances, but I'm never sure if I'm really getting it right. But, then again, do readers really care that much about authenticity in erotica, when every orgasm is perfect, every cock is almost a foot long, and every woman is slim and permanently aroused, with superb, pneumatic boobs? Maybe not. Maybe verisimilitude is a little over-rated.
But, as I said, it's an excellent question.
- polynices
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In the 'Who can turn me on in 100 words' thread, Catnip mentioned that the Swedish word for 'cunt' is 'fitta'. I'm wondering if 'fitta' has any other meaning.
The origins of the English word 'cunt' are notoriously obscure. I've been told that the Dutch (i.e. Nederlands) word is 'kut'. 'Kut', of course, suggests a 'cut' or 'slit', as well as a cunt. - The metaphorical connection is obvious.
Does 'fitta' mean something like that perhaps, Catnip?
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The origins of the English word 'cunt' are notoriously obscure. I've been told that the Dutch (i.e. Nederlands) word is 'kut'. 'Kut', of course, suggests a 'cut' or 'slit', as well as a cunt. - The metaphorical connection is obvious.
Does 'fitta' mean something like that perhaps, Catnip?
- polynices
Here's a sentence from Angela Carter's story, 'The Bloody Chamber'. (A young bride has just discovered her older and mysterious new husband's collection of 19th century pornography).
'...I had not bargained for this, the girl with tears hanging on her cheeks like stuck pearls, her cunt a split fig below the great globes of her buttocks, on which the knotted tails of the cat were about to descend, while a man in a black mask fingered with his free hand his prick, that curved upwards like the scimitar he held.'
I'd actually forgotten the S/M elements in that description. What stuck in my mind - and the reason I looked it out to quote here - was: ' ... her cunt a split fig ...'
I think that's just about perfect.
On the more general issue, I think choice of synonym depends, as Monocle pointed out, entirely on context. I'm personally with the women who favour the word 'cunt' - as Carter does here - but I think it has to be used when the speaker or narrative reaches an appropriate state of arousal and/or obscenity. Using 'cunt' signals a throwing off of restraint - an abandon on the woman's part. For me, a 'pussy' is neat and tidy and well-controlled. Everything is folded away in its proper place. It's demure. A 'cunt', on the other hand, is open and wet, swollen and raging. Perhaps the entire trajectory of a certain kind of porno story is the process by which a pussy transmutes itself into a cunt.
It's certainly a strong word, anyway. I'm pleased to see so many women writers using it now. It's high time it was reclaimed for the erotic.
[The story I quoted from is in Angela Carter's collection, 'The Bloody Chamber', first published in 1979. My edition is by Vintage Books, 2006. There are strongly erotic undercurrents (and a few overcurrents) in all the stories but I wouldn't describe the book as stroke fiction. It's all rather literary. The sentence I quoted isn't really representative of the whole. ]
- polynices
'...I had not bargained for this, the girl with tears hanging on her cheeks like stuck pearls, her cunt a split fig below the great globes of her buttocks, on which the knotted tails of the cat were about to descend, while a man in a black mask fingered with his free hand his prick, that curved upwards like the scimitar he held.'
I'd actually forgotten the S/M elements in that description. What stuck in my mind - and the reason I looked it out to quote here - was: ' ... her cunt a split fig ...'
I think that's just about perfect.
On the more general issue, I think choice of synonym depends, as Monocle pointed out, entirely on context. I'm personally with the women who favour the word 'cunt' - as Carter does here - but I think it has to be used when the speaker or narrative reaches an appropriate state of arousal and/or obscenity. Using 'cunt' signals a throwing off of restraint - an abandon on the woman's part. For me, a 'pussy' is neat and tidy and well-controlled. Everything is folded away in its proper place. It's demure. A 'cunt', on the other hand, is open and wet, swollen and raging. Perhaps the entire trajectory of a certain kind of porno story is the process by which a pussy transmutes itself into a cunt.
It's certainly a strong word, anyway. I'm pleased to see so many women writers using it now. It's high time it was reclaimed for the erotic.
[The story I quoted from is in Angela Carter's collection, 'The Bloody Chamber', first published in 1979. My edition is by Vintage Books, 2006. There are strongly erotic undercurrents (and a few overcurrents) in all the stories but I wouldn't describe the book as stroke fiction. It's all rather literary. The sentence I quoted isn't really representative of the whole. ]
- polynices