quizzical pussy

I swear vulvas have to be every bit as unique as fingerprints.

There are so many variables to them: What do the labia look like? How do they fold together? How big is the clit? Its hood? Where is everything positioned relative to its neighbors? And damned if nearly every variation I’ve seen isn’t mesmerizing.

I’ve never paid all that much attention to the actual vaginal opening before, though. Obviously I’ve paid attention to the way mine feels when something enters me, or how another woman’s feels when I slip my finger inside, but I’ve never spread the labia wide and studied the way a vaginal opening looks before. Turns out it’s absolutely fascinating.

In the past I’ve noticed by feel that there’s this little dangly bit at the bottom of my vulva. It flirts just behind the base of my labia minora, not quite peeking out. It’s almost like another little clit that mirrors the real one at the top. Feels almost like one when I play with it, too.

I finally got around to looking at it last night. I suppose I just assumed that it was a sort of diacritic to my inner labia. Not so. Not so at all.

I never noticed before how, well, ruffly my vaginal opening is. Its architecture is positively Boroque. It has its own folds and pearls; it has its own whorls and fingers. And I see exactly, precisely what it’s doing, the brilliant little cunt: It’s embellishing itself in every possible way to maximize surface area.

A simple ring of flesh would suffice, of course, but my pussy is having none of that. When a penis, a toy, a finger enters me, every knob and ruffle of my entryway strokes it, and all those extra nerves hungrily drink in the sensation.

No wonder that moment of penetration steals my breath and stops time.

Of course, this is another place where there’s tons of variety depending on whose anatomy we’re talking about. Some openings are neater than mine, and others even more embellished, no doubt. I’m not saying mine is anything special.

Except wait: it is special. That’s my whole point. My vulva is amazing. And so is yours, if you happen to have one. They all are, and every time I notice something new in one, that moment unfolds a universe. It’s almost, almost enough to make me believe that there’s a creator, and that s/he considers physical pleasure a profound virtue.

(image source)

If Receiving Cunnilingus were my girlfriend, our Facebook relationship status would be “it’s complicated”. While some women don’t care for it at all, and some literally can’t get off outside of a tongue placed just so, I’m somewhere roughly completely outside those extremes. Oral sex gets me off fast, and well, and feels amazing. I love it, really. But on the other hand, I always try to dissuade my partner from giving it to me.

At this point it’s probably occurring to you, and rightly so, that I’m not the altogether most healthy, normal person you’ve ever come across.

What is it about oral sex that turns me even more neurotic than usual? I think it’s the focus. While one of the things I love about giving oral sex is being able to focus on someone else, I feel guilty once the tables are turned. I feel like it’s really unfair for me to accept that level of attention.

I’m aware that this isn’t exactly rational.

Early on with a new person, it’s usually much easier for me. There’s a lot of lust flying around, and everyone wants to put their mouths everywhere. But after a while things tend to settle down a bit, and I start feeling like it’s getting to be a chore, going down on me. Like my naked vulva is sitting there expectantly and prompting an aggrieved “Gawd, this again”.

Not that there’s anything preternaturally trying about giving me oral sex, that I’m aware of. I come within seconds, I give enthusiastic and appreciative feedback, I reciprocate, and I don’t think I taste weird. Sometimes I squirt, but definitely not always! My problem is really conceptual more than practical.

The thing is, I’m not hard to satisfy in bed. My orgasms come fast and boisterous, and although it takes some effort and skill to blow my mind, it can usually be done without a lot of fuss. In no way do I need oral stimulation. So it seems almost too greedy in my case to ask a partner to pay attention to me in any way that’s so one-sided. That’s where the guilt comes in.

Sure, sometimes I want it. Sometimes I even crave it. It feels really good, and the exact orgasms I get from it don’t occur elsewhere. But in my experience, once you start seeming reluctant to receive oral sex, you kind of get fewer and fewer offers for it. And that situation is both comfortable and depressing. Because in my weird, twisted little world that somehow makes perfect sense, asking for oral sex would be even more unforgivable than actually getting it!

I’m absolutely insane.

(image source)

I quite like giving oral sex. Putting the main focus on someone else’s pleasure has some amazing perks, like getting a chance to really notice how much they’re enjoying themselves, which sometimes gets obscured in the torrent of one’s own orgasms, where one is me.

Of course, sometimes I get off just sucking cock, but it’s not the fast and furious coming that happens when I’m getting penetrated. It gives me more leisure to enjoy the process, to survey the shivering, shuddering, gasping fruits of my labors.

This might be odd, but in a way I never feel as sexually powerful as when I’m giving, not accepting, an orgasm. Not dominant, not submissive, just powerful somehow. Or no, powerful is probably the wrong word. I guess it’s more that I feel most sexually useful when I’m concentrating on giving pleasure. And maybe that’s almost like something vaguely approaching feeling sexy. For me, at least.

Perhaps this is why it’s so important to me to believe that I’m good at giving head. Maybe that’s why I was so scared to have sex with women before I tried it. It was terrifying, imagining that I’d have nothing to offer a sex partner. I’d had enough positive feedback from men that I could reasonably believe I had a moderate level of proficiency at blowjobs, but I’d be starting from square one with a chick. And if that was the case, why should she even bother?

Luckily, eating pussy didn’t turn out to be the obscenely treacherous puzzle box that popular culture would have me believe (at least not the pussies I’ve eaten so far). I imagine that possessing female anatomy barely hurts the learning curve either. I’m not saying I’m a rockstar at it yet, but I’m not inept either!

Of course, there can be drawbacks to giving oral sex. Some people just don’t taste all that great (in my experience, these people most often have shitty diets, but my sample size isn’t large). Pubic hair isn’t designed for easy swallowing. Jaws get tired, tongues get sore. There are STDs to worry about (as with most any sexual contact, but it seems a lot harder to convince someone to use barriers with oral sex), and there’s the frustration that can come when you realize that you’ve just sated a partner beyond any hope of further fun.

Often these issues are greatly mitigated or simply absent, depending on whom you’ve chosen to interface with. Some people taste good, have been tested recently, are always eager to reciprocate.

But there’s one thing I can never get away from that makes giving oral sex (specifically blowjobs) kind of less awesome than perhaps they should be. Wrapping my lips tightly over my teeth to eliminate any untoward scraping, I somehow always end up cutting the inside of my upper lip with my two top incisors. If I give another blowjob before that’s healed, the cut gets worse, and so on. I think I might need a mouthguard. Or maybe some tips from my clever readers.

(image source)

I’ve never dated, fucked, or even made out with a guy who admitted to naming his penis. I’m one click short of naive enough to believe that this proves beyond a doubt that I’ve never been with a guy who had a name for his penis, but if you were the sort of person to name your genitals do you really think you’d be the sort of person to hide that fact?

While I like to name things as much as the next sexual deviant, naming my genitals would feel too much like dissociating myself from them, and that’s the last thing I want to do a) because that’s where I have a great deal of my fun and I have no wish to start living vicariously through my own body parts, and b) because if they got to have opinions they’d probably be very disappointed in me just now because I haven’t been keeping up on my caretaking duties (read: masturbating) lately.

I have jokingly given my tits names before, patently unsexy names that I throw out at really inconvenient times.

INT. SOME RANDOM COUCH – NIGHT

Groping is happening. Groping moves in a booberly direction.

Quizzical Pussy (indicating left breast): Ooooh, see that’s Statler.

Confused Dude: Huh?

Quizzical Pussy: The other one’s Waldorf. Now back to the balcony, kiddo! The old boys aren’t quite done with you!

Confused Dude: You sicken me.

Quizzical Pussy: Ah ah ah I lahve eet!

…This sort of thing is really great fun until I run out of people willing to fuck me. That’s when the laughter stops.

(image source)

I wonder if other chicks are as splendidly neurotic as I am sometimes. Am I the only one who feels mortified when I feel like I might have crossed that nebulous line from “self-lubricated and ready to go!” into “superfluity of cuntjuice”? I’m not talking squirting here. That’s another neurosis altogether. This is more like when bodies are curling and undulating against each other and tongue is pressing tongue and hands go down to explore my nethers and mouth breathes “you’re so wet“.

And for some reason I want to apologize.

I’m not making puddles or anything. There’s still plenty of friction. I just have this feeling that if my pussy were dispensing the normal amount no one would mention anything about it. So I worry about it. I worry that my glands are belying my “I’m not desperate for this sex I’m dying for us to have, I swear!” act. And it’s not like I’m always wet. No, I just get very wet when I’m turned on. So I can’t say “Oh, it’s been like that for years. Just ignore it.” I’d be lying! It’s really a highly sensitive feedback system saying, “Put something in me, you lovely creature you!” There’s something embarrassing about being completely unable to hide the fact that your body’s clearly expecting something.

Keep in mind that I feel terribly rude expressing sexual interest. But I can’t get around it sometimes. It took me years to train myself to keep from humping a partner’s leg when I was aroused. I’m not even sure I can train this away! I am such a horny, horny girl, and not at all discreet about it. Maybe it should take lots of foreplay before I’m ready to go. Maybe I should require a ladylike dab of lube. But that really isn’t me.

In that way, sometimes I feel like my pussy’s the most honest part of me. I can be very shy and timid in the moment, but once the panties are breached the truth comes out that I’m really into it. It’s not easy to play your erotic cards close to your chest when your knickers are dripping. But damn, sometimes I’d like to have the option of coming off a bit more demure on occasion.

On the other hand, I don’t spend much money on lube.

Tight pussy, wet cunt, sore kitty, sloppy twat. Lady business.

I make enthusiastic use of both vulgar and euphemistic slang when it comes to my girl parts, for reasons manifold. First of all, there’s no good catch-all official term that includes all female genitalia. You know the whole “boys have a penis, girls have a vagina” thing? It’s tragically incomplete. Girls each have a vagina, yes, but that word only comprehends the internal canal, and that really doesn’t cut it when we’re talking about sex organs– even just the fun ones. The external genitalia is called a vulva. So when someone says “she has a cute vagina” that someone is probably either wielding an autopsy saw, or just plain confused.

You can argue that the term “penis” doesn’t describe a man’s complete genital package, considering that testicles are left out. However, vulvas and vaginas and penises are all usually considered central to sexual response and interaction. Balls are more a fun embellishment, like nipple stimulation or perineal play. (Anyway, stop trying to derail my pedantic flow with your pedantry.) The vulva/vagina combo is fundamental. The way I see it, it’s more like the head of the penis and the shaft than the penis and balls. It’s one well-oiled, multi-faceted, stupendous orgasm-making machine. But what do you call a vulva/vagina combo? I dunno. A pussy, right?

Or one of the countless other colloquial solutions. I mean, no one ever insists “No no no! My cunt doesn’t include my labia majora. Why on earth would you say that?” Slang is so deliciously vague. And we need that forgiving linguistic mist, or more people will walk around calling vulvas vaginas and I will just scream. I don’t want to live in that world.

There are other reasons for the slang, though. To some people, hearing “I want you touch my vulva like this…” doesn’t exactly provoke feverish lust. It’s too clinical. “Slap my little cunt harder” or similar might get a more enthusiastic response.

Also, some of these terms are terribly fun to say. We’ll come back to that.

When it comes to advertising, there’s a special problem, because apparently even when we’re talking about a body part in the most practical, least sexual sense, networks don’t want to hear the word, as Kotex recently discovered when they tried to air a pert little tampon commercial that mocks tampon advertising tropes and featured the word “vagina”, which is incidentally where you put tampons. The networks didn’t even want to hear a euphemism like “down there”, which Kotex used in their second cut after “vagina” was rejected. I’m supposing they sure as hell don’t want to hear “cunt”.

Which is one of the reasons I think Moon Cup’s new website loveyourvagina.com is clever. (For those of you who don’t know, a Moon Cup is a soft silicone cup that you put in your [actual] vagina to catch your menstrual discharge instead of using a tampon or pad. I suspect the motive for all this has to do with ecology, feminism, or possibly both. I’m half tempted to try a moon cup and review it because I think it could potentially end up being my comic masterpiece. Please comment on this entry to let me know if this is a great idea or too horrifying.) I can’t say that their hours-of-fun list of publicly generated and ranked terms for female genitalia has anything to do with Kotex’s recent debacle, but it’s definitely an internet fuck-you to network sensibilities, which is what viral marketing is all about, I guess. And! “Cunt” is coming in third!

I refuse to comment on LYV’s use of the word “vagina” beyond saying that it’s clear that their product is meant for vaginae (the real plural form of vagina, I swear!) while it’s also clear that they’re asking for terms describing the vulva/vagina combo. Sometimes I feel like I need Jeff Goldblum to put drops of water on my hand and explain incomprehensible things to me.

So I decided to review a few of my favorites from my own daily vocabulary as well as some I pulled off loveyourvagina.com. I can guarantee that very few people will agree with me across the board here, so I’m not speaking for all women or all disabled bisexuals who like dinosaurs or all anythings.

1. Pussy! (#5 according to LYV) To me, pussy is the best all-purpose term. Clever you probably guessed this when you read my site’s name. I don’t feeling dumb saying this during sex or in casual conversation. It seems playful, fun, and a little dirty to me.
2. Cunt! (#3 on LYV) I once saw a documentary TV show where an old gray-haired lady joyfully explained that the Middle English terms “cock” and “cunt” went together, and her enthusiasm softened my feelings about the c-word considerably. By sound alone, cunt is an abrupt, rude word, which isn’t always a bad thing. It is kind of annoying when people use cunt as an insult* because it sounds so violent but it just means “vulva/vagina combo”. The playfulness seems to seep out of the whole enterprise and we’re just left with a slap of a word that seems to be directed toward female anatomy. But a little levity softens it enough to make it hilarious. To describe anatomy, cunt is sometimes very erotic but it’s funny conversationally. “My cunt is hungry for manflesh” is automatically funnier than it would be with almost any other word.
3. Twat! (no rank on LYV) Old sassy ladies can use this to describe their genitals. The rest of us need to use it primarily as an insult.* In that respect, it may be unmatched.
4. Cunny! (#530 on LYV) Cunny is supremely fun to say. Try it now. I’ll wait. I can’t see myself using it in an intimate context, but it is great for daywear. If you’ve watched the B.B.C./H.B.O. series Rome, you may suspect why I particularly love this term, and you’re right! I also frequently use the phrase “wet as October” to jokingly indicate arousal for the same reason. Plus, October is a wet month where I come from.
5. Lady Business! (#176 on LYV) This one makes me laugh every time I hear it. It’s so delicate that it goes back around into filthy. Or maybe just funny.
6. Pudendum! (#278 on LYV) Derived from Latin for “to be ashamed”, pudenda is not a sex-positive term. I cannot say it without a fake accent. Can you?
7. Vajajay! (#14 on LYV) I can’t stand this one, mostly because grown women tend to use this toddler-learning-to-talk term without a hint of irony. They are what’s wrong with society. I’m only half kidding here.
8. The Downtown Dining and Entertainment District! (#2 on LYV) Although this is another overly-euphemistic, “I don’t want to say a word that might make my mouth dirty” kind of term, it’s also too cute, so I don’t mind it. I would only use it if I were talking to someone I knew would be alarmed by a more aggressive term, but also wasn’t horrified by the inherent sexual implications therein. In my world, that leaves about two people.
9. Vagoo! (#59 on LYV) This is another one I can’t imagine saying while actually using the body parts in question: “Ooooh, pound my vagoo harder! Yes!” Um, no. I know several grown men who use this one, though, and it is a glorious thing to witness.
10. Moot? (#1 on LYV) So “moot” is winning as I write this. It’s the most popular term, and absolutely new to me. A very quick google hunt tells me that it probably originates in Australia, and is supposed to rhyme with “foot”. It’s awkward to say and not even accidentally sexy, but the people have spoken! Maybe it’s a cultural thing and I don’t just “get” it. I’ll try it in a sentence, maybe: “The Australian put the boomerang in her moot.” This just isn’t working for me. I tried!

Honorable mentions go to Panty Hamster (n/a), Snatch (#21), Coochie Snorcher (n/a), Axe Wound (n/a),  Pootie Tang (#343), Cowhead (n/a), Yoni (#42), The Fiefdom (#689), and the ever-enigmatic Giraffe’s Ear (#842). Couldn’t have done it without you guys.

*Using terms for female (or male) genitals as an insult is a whole other issue that I’ll probably want to delve into another time. Sometimes it bugs me, sometimes it doesn’t.