Romance Novel Euphemisms

A 'rod of joy'? In her 'lady cave'? It's more likely than you think!

Hello everyone! If you weren’t scared off by the title of this post, welcome! I’m so happy you’re here for this week’s thoughts™ on euphemisms in heterosexual romance books. If it wasn’t already clear, I am going to be talking about genitalia in this post, so if that’s not your jam, now is your chance to run.

Two years ago I decided I wanted to write my own romance book, and because I can’t do anything by halves, I endeavoured to read 100 romances in order to study the craft. What ended up happening was three things.

1. I learned that romance as a genre is not inherently ‘feminist’, which is how it had been sold to me for many years.

2. Nobody wants to say the words ‘penis’.

3. It was very easy to start a google doc part way through my romance-reading escapades and start collecting the alternative words for, uh, body parts. And acts.

Because this both pains me and brings me immense joy, I’m going to share some of these euphemisms with you today. That’s right, you don’t even have to put yourself through these books (some of which were quite questionable in their depictions), you get to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think to record the name of the book as I went, but I’m quite nervous about naming books and authors online so maybe it’s a win-win.

Let’s enter the euphemism ‘lady cave’

‘Womanly garden’

Ah, so feminine and delicate. I don’t have much to say about this. It’s not terrible.

‘Cave of Desire’

Okay, not bad either. I’m imagining a dragon up inside there, but go on.

‘Core of her womanhood’

I’m not a fan of essentialising gender and genitalia, but it could be worse. I also find it funny to imagine it as a big red button.

‘Her innocence’

🤨 No thanks.

‘Tender feminine folds’

Sometimes I read these things and I’m like, yeah… I guess. I guess you can call it that if you like. It’s fine.

‘Palace of Delight’

Okay, this is fun! It’s playful, it’s delightful (ha).

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All in all, I feel like the euphemisms for women’s bodies aren’t as funny or as creative (or frightening) as men’s often are, which is a shame. Allow me to have a crack at it:

• Tender petals of womanly delight

• Lovely lust-filled cavern

• A lust-moistened ballroom of pleasure

Yeah, I think I’ll stop now. Thank you and I’m sorry!

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Let’s enter the euphemism ‘shaft’

‘Enormous, inexorable maleness’

The word ‘enormous’ scares me. How big are we talking? Is she going to be okay?

‘Masculine girth’

Just in case it wasn’t clear, this man’s penis is extremely male and masculine. And girthy. But mostly manly.

‘Meat’

I mean, did we really have to call it that?

‘Rod of joy’

This one made me think of an arcade game joystick.

‘Rod of desire’

This one made me think of a magic wand, and I got a good laugh out of thinking of some dude’s rod as a literal magical object, like Jack Sparrow’s compass that points to what he desires most.

‘lust-swollen rod’

A lot of rods.

‘Hard, thick man-root’

This one went into the group chat hall of fame. It’s got everything from feel (hard) to width (thick), and even comes with hyphenated imagery. There’s also something here about how we refer to ejaculate as ‘seed’, so as funny as it is, it’s thematic.

And now, for the showstopper…

‘…great, monstrous invader that would tear her to pieces’

…yep! This exists! Every time I’d come across this kind of description, either of the man’s bits or of the act, I’d cringe.

It sounds violent and does not make me root for the two of them to actually engage in the act. I have to ask why it seems to pop up so often, at least in older works. I think contemporaries (at least the ones I’ve read) seem to do this less.

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Quite often I noticed men’s bodies being described in much more interesting ways than women’s, and while it’s often somewhat funny, it also gets a bit uncomfortable when we take more than a second to look at the language being used. I don’t understand the romanticising or the appeal of sex that includes ripping, tearing, claiming, or colonising a woman’s body. In most of the books I read, the pain of sex was framed as something desirable and or unavoidable, that the man’s manly appendage is a blessing that the woman must suffer pain from first.

I personally don’t like how often they’re analogous to flags being planted, objects claiming or conquering, and or are quite gender-essentialising, but that sounds like a whole other substack. Is it patriarchy? I think it’s patriarchy.

I don’t think I need to have a crack at making up any more euphemisms, but I’m very curious…

How would you describe an inexorably male rod?

Alternatively, have you found that non-hetero romance novels tend to describe body parts and acts in interesting ways? 👀