I’m coming out of a over decade of sex and body-negativity after being exposed to porn much too early. It gave me a skewed perception of sex as something violent, vulgar and objectifying and I basically didn’t want anything to do with it for the longest time.
After months of therapy, I unearthed this issue and started to work through it. I also met the first person I’ve ever been attracted to, which really helped me come to terms with sexual feelings and thoughts.
We were talking in a sexual context the other day and they referred to my genitalia as my ‘’cock’’. They were clearly demonstrating attraction to me and I appreciated that, but the term itself made me uneasy. It felt vulgar and much too reminiscent of porn, not tender or affectionate. I feel similarly about ‘’dick’’ and ‘’pussy’’, for what it’s worth.
First, I’m not sure how to explain this to them. They know about my situation and are very understanding, but I feel like I would sound a little irrational if I explained this. Second, I don’t know what other word they could use. I know that just ‘’penis’’ would feel very apersonal and definitely not sexy, but I don’t know any other word I could suggest.
Does this make any sense to anyone?
3 comments
It’s likely possible to separate your aversion to porn from standard, everyday synonyms for scientific body part terms. You may not be able to have porn without such words, but you can definitely use the words without involving porn. People were saying cock pussy tits borthorl for hundreds of years before cameras were invented. Maybe there was a cave painting that said cock or something but you see where I’m going here.
I would just talk to them about.
What you are saying makes sense tho …. ‘penis’ sounds medical or classroom-ish.
your gentiles can be referred to as “it” as your partner. “I want it inside me”.
“I want to touch you down there”. “I want it inside my mouth”. Etc. These phrases all seem plenty erotic to me.
You can either say, “can you call it xyz” or just use thr words you prefer yourself.. they’ll likely catch on and mimic yours.