When Kurt Andersen took over as editor of New York Journal, he printed out a listing of “annoying phrases” he didn’t need his writers to make use of. After I was 32, I wrote about this checklist on Cup of Jo, then added a phrase that I actually hated: moist.
Moist? Ew, gross. When you described banana bread as moist, it sounded vaginal. And I actually didn’t just like the phrase vagina. It was bizarre, form of icky. I prevented 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 must 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 hen thigh as juicy so many instances.”
@amazonmgmstudios Some prefer it moist. Some prefer it dry. Your name. See Rosamund Pike in Saltburn, in choose theaters this Friday and in every single place Thanksgiving
And did you ever see this scene from Saltburn? “I used to be a lesbian for some time, you recognize,” the mom says. “Nevertheless it was all a bit too moist for me in the long run. Males are so beautiful and dry.”
Properly.
Now that I’m older, and fortunately the tradition has grown and shifted (huge nod to Broad Metropolis right here, which loudly celebrated ladies’s our bodies and needs), the phrases moist and moist and damp truly sound so heat to me, so compelling. They remind us of girls? Of intercourse? Good! I can’t imagine how a lot they’ve modified in my thoughts, with out my doing something apart from passively absorbing the tradition round me.
The phrase “vagina” additionally sounds utterly totally 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 fascinating, proper? Do you are feeling the identical? Or in another way? Or nothing in any respect?
Right now, 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 in all a vulva. “Oh, look!” I mentioned, pointing. “How cool is that?” I cherished that the coed had felt impressed to make it and the college had then displayed it.
It truly 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 images. And I’m excited to see the Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, which options one in all Wallace’s big clit sculptures, impressed by the power and charm of swans.
Additionally, necklaces!
What about you? How do you are feeling concerning the phrase “moist”? “Vagina”? “Vulva”? Have your emotions modified or stayed the identical? No unsuitable solutions, after all; please share your ideas under. xoxoxo
P.S. Intercourse-positive parenting for prudes, and is that this the sexiest podcast?
