Sex Mix: Wet Dream Adolescents. Hookup Culture.
Soft-Porn Selfies. The Girl Everyone Wants to Fuck.
Make Love [Fucking Euphemism]
Before she was old enough to go to an R-rated movie
by herself, Nicky was facing charges that put her
in the company of some of society’s most despised criminals.
She had been arrested at the age of 15 and labeled a
child pornographer. The reason: Photos that were sent
to her, but that she swears she never even saw.
The saga started when another student at her high school
stole an iPod Touch from a classmate’s locker.
The device contained partially nude photos of its owner
— another teenage girl — who had taken the selfies
to send to her boyfriend.
Teenage Girls in
Their Bedrooms
The photos would eventually show up in two places.
Hard copies were mailed to the parents of the girl
who owned the iPod and digital versions were sent
to Nickey’s email account.
She insisted she hadn’t opened the images or shared them,
but it didn’t matter. She was charged and convicted of
distributing and possessing child pornography.
felonies that come with a requirement to register as a sex offender.
Hookup Culture
Soft Porn Selfies
The artist decided to do a test. She posted a picture
of her bottom in a bikini to her 24,000 Instagram followers.
The post received 75% more views than usual.
Most of the viewers were other women.
“I’m a grown woman. But imagine if I was a 16-year-old girl.
What would this tell me? It would tell me that my body is
more valued than anything I could say, more valuable than,
say, posting my exam results. Quite possibly it would mean
I would put up more photos of my body to increase my profile.”
“We live in a world where Kim Kardashian has 70
times more Instagram followers than the Louvre.
She’s producing overwhelmingly narcissistic,
self-objectifying, highly sexualised imagery.
She’s promoting unrealistic beauty standards, rather
than enriching visual art, which is what the Louvre offers.”
The Girl Everyone
Wants to Fuck
Make Love [Fucking Euphemism]
Carnal Knowledge
Short sharp terms make big points clear. But people often prefer to soften their speech with euphemism: a mixture of abstraction, metaphor, slang and understatement that offers protection against the offensive, harsh or blunt.
Euphemisms range promiscuously, from diplomacy (“the minister is indisposed”, meaning he won’t be coming) to the bedroom (a grande horizontale in France is a notable courtesan).
A euphemism is a kind of lie, and the lies peoples and countries tell themselves are revealing.
The richest categories are the cross-cultural taboos such as death and bodily functions. The latter seem to embarrass Americans especially: one can ask for the “loo” in a British restaurant without budging an eyebrow; don’t try that in New York.
Lavatory and toilet were once euphemisms themselves; they in turn were replaced by water closet (WC) and the absurd “rest room”. British English encourages lively scatological synonyms: foreigners told that someone is “taking a slash” or “on the bog” may be mystified.
Sex outstrips even excretion as a source of euphemism. The Bible is full of them: “foot” for penis, “know” for intercourse, with “other flesh” if transgressive.
Masturbation was self-abuse or the sin of Onan to the Victorians; oral sex is “playing the bamboo flute” in Japanese.
A prostitute accosting a client on the streets of Cairo will ask Fi hadd bitaghsal hudoumak ? (Literally, “Do you have someone to wash your clothes?”)
Even the most straight-talking obfuscate that line of work. Swedes, like many others, refer to världens äldsta yrke (the world’s oldest profession).
A brothel in Russian is a publichny dom—literally a “public house”, which causes problems when British visitors with rudimentary Russian try to explain the delights of their village hostelry. In China many hair salons, massage parlours and karaoke bars double as brothels.
Hence anmo (massage), falang (hair salon) or a zuyu zhongxin (foot-massage parlour) can lead to knowing nods and winks. For obscure reasons, Germans call the same institution a Puff. In Japan, such places are called sopurando, (a corrupted version of “soapland”) or a pin-saro (pink salon).
Euphemisms for the act itself may be prim (carnal knowledge), poetic (make love) or crude (shagging). Over time such expressions lose their suggestive power and may even become off-limits themselves.
To engage in sexual intercourse in German is b umsen (to thump), along the lines of the English “bonk”. To masturbate is wichsen (to polish). In both cases the slang sexual connotation has overtaken the original one.
Personal ads provide an entire subgenre of euphemism. “Cuddly” means “fat”. “Romantic” means needy and clingy. “Old-fashioned” means inconsiderate sex (if male) or infrequent (for females).
“Outgoing and fun-loving” mean annoyingly talkative, promiscuous or both. “Open-minded” means desperate.