{"id":1373,"date":"2017-10-11T22:06:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T02:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/?p=1373"},"modified":"2017-10-11T22:06:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T02:06:33","slug":"situations-where-the-word-pssy-should-never-be-used-in-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/situations-where-the-word-pssy-should-never-be-used-in-romance\/","title":{"rendered":"Situations Where the Word P*ssy Should Never Be Used In Romance"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This post was first published on the I Smell Sheep\u00a0<\/a>blog as part of my RECKONING blog tour)<\/p>\n

I love cats! When I was stationed in Afghanistan, I kept a literal pile of snacks behind my desk that I could dip into and think about home. Despite this horde of food lying on the floor of a building in a third-world country, no vermin ever touched it, thanks to the community of cats which roamed the camp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
We called him Toonces, despite the fact we never saw him drive a car. We just assumed that he could, because he kicked so much ass. This war-cat had our backs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
My epic food horde. Every soldier has one, though mine was especially impressive. Back, vermin! It’s MINE!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So it\u2019s really a travesty to me how the name if this fine animal has been coopted by the forces of sexism and misogyny. The fact I need to put an asterisk in the word to keep this post PG-13 gives proof to its negative connotation, and yet for some weird reason it\u2019s a staple in contemporary romance literature.<\/p>\n

Not that the word can never be used; rather, there are situations where it should definitely not<\/em> be used. Here are those situations:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A man referring to a woman\u2019s vagina<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    With the exception of purposely smutty talk, how many men do you know who respectfully refer to a woman\u2019s groin as her \u201cp*ssy\u201d? The key word here is respectfully<\/em>. It\u2019s hard to root for a hero who uses such a crass term to describe his lady love, even if it\u2019s only in his mind, or to describe how \u201ctight\u201d he thinks she is down there.<\/p>\n

    Dude can fart and tell you it\u2019s a compliment, but it still smells.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. A woman referring to her own vagina<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      How many women, who are not porn stars or not engaged in dirty talk, refer to their own vaginas as their \u201cp*ssy\u201d? None<\/em>, that\u2019s how many. \u201cHi, I\u2019m calling to schedule an appointment with my gynecologist to get a mammogram and p*ssy check-up.\u201d NOBODY SAYS THAT. Yet I don\u2019t know how many books I\u2019ve read where a woman internally monologues about how her p*ssy is clenching or is wet or whatever at the sight or thought of some hot piece of beefcake. The fact that the female is using a derogatory term to describe to herself how she feels puts her experience squarely in the male gaze, which is a jarring disconnect that pulls me right out of the story.<\/p>\n

      Internalized sexism is not sexy.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. A man (who is not the villain) describing himself or others as \u201cp*ssies\u201d to connote weakness<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Cats aren\u2019t weak. They are stone-cold killers who will dutifully keep rodentia<\/em> off your precious snacks. They have sharp teeth and claws, and will viciously attack you if you pet them wrong! So why would someone use the word \u201cp*ssy\u201d to mean weakness? \u2026Ah, because they actually mean \u201cfemale.\u201d In other words, something that is \u201clesser\u201d and not worthy of respect. If a character uses this term in disdain, we\u2019d better not be expected to sympathize with that jackhole.<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/a>
        Get your kicks with kitten puzzles! That’s right – we glued them together and hung them up, because that’s how we do in a warzone. Respect.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        So if the goal is to establish a character as a sexist asshat douchcanoe, then go ahead and use the word p*ssy. Or perhaps if you\u2019re referring to a feline who will protect your valuable-as-gold supply of Oreos with their lives, then sure.<\/p>\n

        Otherwise\u2026don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/a>
        Damn right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        (This post was first published on the I Smell Sheep\u00a0blog as part of my RECKONING blog tour) I love cats! When I was stationed in Afghanistan, I kept a literal pile of snacks behind my desk that I could dip into and think about home. Despite this horde of food lying on the floor of … <\/p>\n

        Continue reading “Situations Where the Word P*ssy Should Never Be Used In Romance”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[307,305,104,306],"class_list":["post-1373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-afghansistan","tag-cat-puzzles","tag-sexism","tag-war-cats"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Vyi8-m9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1373"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1381,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}