Letters to the Editor
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I've thought for a long time
that women change their prejudices instead of getting rid of them. It is a mechanism akin to preservation of energy in physics, energy does not disappear, it merely manifests itself in a different way. It is like someone changing position on the couch, you don't actually float off the couch, just orient yourself differently. So, because something has been changed by feminism, women seek a new comfort zone by closing off something else.
One of my girlfriends used to have this bad, she absolutely loathed certain words, I can still see the expression on her face twenty years hence. You would think she would blow a blood vessel over certain words, but it was cute on her anyway-- shows you what guys will put up with.
I never did understand it though. I thought it made her seem immature and selfish (prescient, since I perceive most women today, but that is beside the point)
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prescient, since I perceive most women TO BE THAT WAY today, but that is beside the point
is what I meant to say
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Interesting
I have ALWAYS hated the words "moist" and "panties" and so has one of my (male, gay) best friends. I am off to email this to him immediately.
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It strikes me that there is only one reasonable response to this apparent word taboo...
Oh good grief.
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calling it "offensive" is overkill...
That is not to say that I don't identify with the cringe factor when it's so coyly used in a suggestive context. But, I think we should just laugh it off.
Anyway, it's going way too far, in my opinion, to put a ban on words like "moist". You'll never eliminate every word of phrase that makes someone cringe. For example:
For me, it's when people use the term "double-dip", like to refer to making withdrawals from their investments (it may sound uncommon, but I hear it used on the radio and in casual conversation much too often). It's like fingernails on a chalk-board to my ears!
A friend of mine insists (in a joking way) that I avoid using the word "lube" in any context - apparently he has a hangup about that. Long ago, he and I sat around trying to come up with the MOST DISGUSTING TERM in the history of man, and we concluded, finally, that it is ... "QUIVERING ASSHOLE LIPS". Now after that, who cares about something as mild as "moist"? LOL
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how ironic, brightstar
..."immature and selfish" is exactly how I view you (and I have read enough of your comments to form such an opinion).
no offense, as I'm sure you intended none either.
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Offensive?
Must women find everything "offensive" now? Finding a word cringe-inducing is not exactly finding it "offensive", is it? Unless you're joking about it with one of your colleagues, who apparently must run and write something about it. Most of the people I know who hate the word moist are men. And look - other men have mentioned it too! That must prove ... nothing. How about we hold off on calling things "offensive" until they actually are.
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Ms. Lloyd wrote:
"Is there a growing Victorianism lurking in our verbal closet?"
Yep. Times ten. We're all strung too tight. Sex is used to sell us EVERYTHING. At the same time, I can't recall having a single lover who could actually chat about sex...not in the purient, leering, pornified way, but freely and funly. So, sex in media ratchets us tighter and tighter and we have no mature release, thus we squirm for words.
We're pathetic, but hey, hey, hey, those jeans and energy drinks and everything else sure are selling.
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It sounds like what it is.
Moist is also one of those words that sounds like what it is. Moist--pay attention to the movement of your mouth when you say it. It's kinda drawn-out and gooey. "Wet" and "damp" don't have that same kind of movement.
And just because things give us the willies doesn't mean they're offensive. A lot of people are weirded out by clowns but wouldn't say they're offensive.
Aside: anyone see that episode of CBS's How I Met Your Mother where Lily is weirded out by the word "moist," so Barney invites the gang to his one-man show where he just repeats the word "moist" for an hour?
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you know what term makes me cringe?
Labiodental.
(jk)
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Facebook "club" ?
Oh dear ...
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Hahaha, yes!
I *hate* that word, and so does every other woman I know. My guy friends are totally oblivious to the word's effect, I had to explain it to one of my friends and he was astonished.
I also have a friend who despises the word "nipple".
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Madness
I encountered this aversion to certain mundane words while dating a bisexual social worker. According to her, the word panties sounded "childish" and she told me under no uncertain terms should I ever use it again in her presence.
The more I got to know her, the more it struck me that this person who outwardly proclaimed to be such an "open" and "open minded" (not the same things) person was in truth far more bigoted and repressive of herself than I could imagine.
If you can't tolerate the usage of a word that four-year olds think is normal how good are you with ideas? How set in your ways are you that your own personal connotations to an everyday word compel you not only to cringe inwardly but to speak out against the word rather than reflect on why you feel that way? Isn't such a thing the hallmark of a serious psychological disorder?
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It's the proliferation of bad porn
...exploiting this otherwise innocent word that twinges women's brains--the wrong parts at the wrong times. Nobody really gave a hoot about the Freudian impulses behind the word until recently, as in the last ten years. It's the internet, silly. Most of the time people aren't googling for fudge when they encounter the word. It's hard to think of instances in which "moist" could be worked into everyday parlance outside of food and sex.
Women are not into sex unless they want to be, and the word "moist" may *feel* like an unwanted sexual advance. Or perhaps it somehow equates the desirability of the vulva with potting soil and turkey breast. I mean, really, why would a man say "moist" and in what situations has he seen the word? Quite suspicious. Sounds absurd, but it's just how he mind works to associate language with experience. If you were doing exercises to enhance your memory skills, and as recommended by experts, made "stories" or "pictures" for each word, what would "moist" trigger for you? If you answered, "Betty Crocker chocolate cake," you are one of the lucky ones.