Writing Erotica Part Two: The Words
New to writing erotica? Don’t know where to start? Think “love pole” is too frilly for you? Not quite the type to use “lick, suck and fuck” in your erotica as a descriptor (although those activities are quite fun aren’t they).
There are two categories of words you can pull from, the softcore and the hardcore words. Depending on your comfort levels of course, personally, I’m a hardcore word kind of girl and prefer the more “shock value” descriptors. I will taper down depending on the audience of course and use the softcore words depending on the niche I’m writing for. Here are some of the more common and well used soft and hardcore words in erotica writing:
| Soft Core Words | Hard Core Words | Anatomical Words |
| love pole | cock | penis |
| love sword | dick | testicles |
| manhood | balls | vagina |
| love mound | head | clitoris |
| woman cave | clit (clitoris) | vulva |
| womanhood | pussy | glans |
Some lovely names there huh! I also went ahead and included (not in any particular order for any of these words) the anatomically correct words for penis and vulva – yes there is a difference between vagina and vulva – vulva is the outer and inner labia, clitoral hood, and clitoris of the female outer sexual organs. The inner sexual organs are the vaginal (vagina) canal, cervix, uterus, etc. Huge difference.
Someone is looking at that word glans (I can feel you staring at that word, yeah you!) and scrunching up their nose going “what the hell is a glans?”. It’s the head of the penis. The most sensitive area on a man to play with! The clitoris and glans are one and the same when it comes to human soft tissue that resides below the beltline. Both developed from the same tissue, the only difference is at 12 weeks utero-hormones flood to say hey this little guy is well…a little guy or they don’t and that little gal …you get the idea.
Knowing what words to use and the biology of the anatomically correct words is half the battle. You’re a guy writing erotica and want to corner a female dominant niche with your work? Not understanding her biology is going to be a sore spot for her (trust me, in my opinion, 50 shades of crap…uh Grey is a very good example of a sore spot – especially for BDSM folks). It’s literally half the battle of writing for a female readership. Women, knowing how his biology functions are half your battle too. For both, knowing how biological psychology is the other half of the battle. For now, getting comfortable with the softcore, hardcore, and anatomical words is the first step. Write them, recite them in your head, and out loud. Don’t be shy about it, there is absolutely no shame in using these words, it’s not taboo, and talking about it is okay.