When Kurt Andersen took over as editor of New York Journal, he printed out an inventory of “annoying phrases” he didn’t need his writers to make use of. Once I was 32, I wrote about this record on Cup of Jo, then added a phrase that I actually hated: moist.
Moist? Ew, gross. In case you described banana bread as moist, it sounded vaginal. And I actually didn’t just like the phrase vagina. It was bizarre, type of icky. I averted saying it, even on the physician’s workplace. *shudders*
I used to be removed from alone. In 2012, The New Yorker requested their Twitter followers which phrase ought to be eradicated from the English language. “Ultimately, there was a runaway un-favorite,” they wrote. “Moist.” 5 years later, meals author Emily Johnson even lamented this cultural aversion in her Bon Appetit piece “Cease Getting Mad at Me for Utilizing the Phrase ‘Moist,’” explaining that “you’ll be able to solely describe a rooster thigh as juicy so many occasions.”
@amazonmgmstudios Some prefer it moist. Some prefer it dry. Your name. See Rosamund Pike in Saltburn, in choose theaters this Friday and in all places Thanksgiving
And did you ever see this scene from Saltburn? “I used to be a lesbian for some time, you recognize,” the mom says. “However it was all a bit too moist for me in the long run. Males are so beautiful and dry.”
Effectively.
Now that I’m older, and fortunately the tradition has grown and shifted (large nod to Broad Metropolis right here, which loudly celebrated ladies’s our bodies and wishes), the phrases moist and moist and damp really sound so heat to me, so compelling. They remind us of ladies? Of intercourse? Good! I can’t consider how a lot they’ve modified in my thoughts, with out my doing something aside from passively absorbing the tradition round me.
The phrase “vagina” additionally sounds utterly completely different — shut and endearing, just like the beloved title of a long-time good friend. My good friend’s younger son just lately misremembered my title and known as me “Vajenna” all night time, and I used to be so honored and charmed. How attention-grabbing, proper? Do you’re feeling the identical? Or in a different way? Or nothing in any respect?
As we speak, Toby and I toured a highschool, and the admissions director led us down a stairwell peppered with ceramic tiles made by college students. One tile confirmed the Statue of Liberty; one other, a basketball. After which I noticed one among a vulva. “Oh, look!” I stated, pointing. “How cool is that?” I liked that the scholar had felt impressed to make it and the varsity had then displayed it.
It really wasn’t the primary vulva paintings my youngsters had seen — my sister, Lucy, has a sculpture by Sophia Wallace in her eating room, which means a terracotta clitoris seems within the background of many household photographs. And I’m excited to see the Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, which options one among Wallace’s big clit sculptures, impressed by the energy and beauty of swans.
Additionally, necklaces!
What about you? How do you’re feeling in regards to the phrase “moist”? “Vagina”? “Vulva”? Have your emotions modified or stayed the identical? No improper solutions, in fact; please share your ideas under. xoxoxo
P.S. Intercourse-positive parenting for prudes, and is that this the sexiest podcast?