You want me to suck your what?????

"My tender femininity aches to feel the thrusting of your firm maleness."

I scarcely remember the movie I first heard that line from, but I do remember groaning out loud when I heard it. Until the other day, that quote got my vote for the most heinous usage of sexual euphemisms ever. But I have to admit it, the line has staying power. It was the first example that sprang to mind when I realized the topic of today's post was going to be euphemisms.

Then I discovered dewy petals.

There's a fine line an author has to toe in order to balance original love scenes with downright flowery prose. For me, that line is the shakiest when I'm writing love scenes. Let's face it, I'm southern born and bred, and still a product of a very sexually repressed era. At times, I swear I can hear thunder rumbling a Divine "ahem" when I'm writing down and dirty, wild monkey sex...

(One little drunken pole dance wouldn't disqualify me from my belle status, would it?)

I do like a little mystique with my love scenes. For that reason, I'm not a big fan of "cock and balls" grit and downright clinical descriptions of the human sexual apparatus. I imagine that's why I give myself plenty of reasons to cringe when I'm writing love scenes. Often, the words penis, clit, balls, and that other *c* word simply aren't appropriate for the POV I'm writing from. In staying true to the POV character's voice, I try to filter the language of a scene through his/her personality. And sometimes, I screw up. Big time.

I've noticed an increasing trend toward flowery euphemisms in my reading lately. Probably the worst offender was embedded in a scene told through the heroine's point of view that referred to her own labia as "dewy petals." Uhhhh....I don't know about you, but never once in my life have I referred to my nether regions as dewy petals.

Not even during the drunken pole dance.

Now granted, I've probably committed worse euphemistic sins than "dewy petals" in my day. It's a genuine risk of writing in the genre of erotic romance. So what's a writer to do? Lately, I've been using the checklist below to "fact check" my euphemisms before inflicting them on my editor.

1) Consider the POV character of the love scene in question. How would he/she describe the heat of passion in his/her own internal monologue during the act itself? Granted, passion inspires dirty talk, but just how gritty is *this* character going to get inside his/her own head?

2) How deep is the POV of the scene? If you're in deep male POV, your reader is *hearing* the hero's (or heroine's) internal self talk, I promise no man alive has ever referred to a vagina as a satin love glove during the heat of the moment. Men just don't talk that way. Not even the gay ones. :D (Thanks T.R. for being my guinea pig gay guy as I wrote this piece! I love you, babe!)

3) Setting/Time of the piece. Let's face it. A vestal virgin isn't going to know what a throbbing dick is, much less refer to it during the heat of passion. Make sure when writing historical and period pieces to do your research on the time period and setting you're writing from. Also consider the sexual mores of the day. A Victorian alpha hero, rake or no, is still a product of time and place. Make sure his language reflects this. He will push the edges of propriety, but I doubt he'll throw it completely to the wind and spout off in jargon more appropriate to modern times.


4) Let your character's backgrounds and internal conflicts drive the language they use/think during the heat of passion.

5) Read your euphemisms aloud. Record them if you have to and play them back. Be honest with yourself. An outrageous euphemism is going to glare and jar you (and your readers and editors) out of the story *moment*. If your descriptions of sex parts do that, it's time to send them straight to the recycle bin and try again.

With all this said, I am the queen of purple prose. It's my writerly Achilles heel, and I can't completely promise I'll never spin another rediculously flowery reference to penises, vaginas and their related bits and parts. And if I do, and said useage happens to slip past my editor during, I dunno, a fit of plague induced delirium, I hope my readers will feel free to call me on it--in a very loving ROFL kind of way of course, because, yanno, I still have that writerly ego thing going on. :D

What are the most outrageous euphemisms you've either created or read? How do you feel about them? Do you prefer more clinical language to describe sex, or are you a fan of language that removes you, as a reader, from the grit of the moment? I really want to know! And the best answer might just win a big old prize (aka amazon.com gift certificate).