I Hate The Word Vulva

Writing erotic scenes can be tricky. Choosing the best word when referring to a woman's vulva is, in some ways, the trickiest challenge. I discovered this while writing SWEPT AWAY. 

At first I simply used the word vulva, but this elicited a strong reaction from a fellow female writer. She said simply "I hate that word." So, as I often do for so many things, I searched the web for alternative words that can be used when describing the female genitalia. 

I didn't really find an 'answer' to my question, but I did find a lot of interesting perspectives on the topic. It turns out, this is a real problem for a lot of writers, who are trying to be conscientious while at the same time producing an engaging story. 

One of the best blog posts on the topic was written by Sarah M. Anderson, in which she says 

For too long, women didn’t get to name their own reproductive organs. Men did it for them, and in a vast majority of the time, the names men gave our vaginas were not meant in a complimentary, loving way.

This seemed incontrovertible to me. Then she also went on to point out:

So we come to today. What the heck do you call the genitalia for a woman? Surprisingly, a lot of the readers who commented didn’t have a really good name for their own parts. 

It was clear from my search that there are writers out there as well who face the same problem as the readers of Sarah Anderson's post on Heroes and Heartbreakers. Case in point, Ann O'Malley. On her Writing Erotica blog, she said:

Vaginas. Umm… they exist in women. So much so obvious. This is awkwardly harder than I thought it would be, considering I have the parts involved.  

Ann O'Malley's blog post was titled Writing Erotica 2 - Vagina Terminology, and it also contained a very useful list of alternatives to the word vulva. 

Perhaps the richest find in my search was +Violet Blue's website TINYNIBBLES. That site was awesome! It contained the best description of a human body part I have ever read:

The pubic mound (or mons veneris, or Mound of Venus), is the area over the pubic bone, and is usually covered with hair that can be anywhere from thick and lustrous to thin and wispy. Women wear their hair down there in a variety of styles: all natural and furry, trimmed, waxed into bikini-line obedience, or even shaved completely off. The Mound of Venus tapers eloquently down and between the thighs; this is the area where the inner thighs meet the torso and split into two outer lips around the vaginal opening.  

Phew, pure poetry.

Which leads me to what I concluded. In the end erotica is fiction. I don't want to unnecessarily offend anyone because of a poor word choice, but there are simply some words whose power makes them perfect for use. The key is to use them wisely. I sincerely hope I accomplished that in SWEPT AWAY.