I know sex scene vocabulary is very much a case of ymmv...

[ratcreature]

...but why would anyone pick "spongy" to describe a penis in a sex scene? It's such an unpleasant sounding word. I associate it with mushrooms or maybe moss, not anything arousing. Granted I appreciate penises in sex scenes mostly for their narrative function, rather than their physical details, spongy or otherwise, so...

Poll #24628

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

View Respondents

Spongy penises?

View Answers

Yes!
0 (0.0%)

No!
29 (82.9%)

I'm feeling neutral towards this description.
6 (17.1%)

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I feel neutral because, well, it *is* made of spongy tissue. But a "sponge" sounds soft and squishy, which is not what the author was going for in a sex scene, I guess.

[ratcreature]

My issue isn't with the accuracy of the description, and since the use was in the context of licking and exploring the glans of a penis during oral sex, the author might even have wanted to evoke "squishy" more than the common "hard" used during penetrative scenes, it's just that "spongy" sounds kind of gross to me. Like describing a vagina getting wet as getting "slimy". Technically "slimy" might be even more accurate than calling it "wet" if you think about the properties of the fluids involved, and yet...

[disterra]

i've never read 'spongy' being used in that context either. weird and would definitely throw me off the mood.

[ratcreature]

I've seen it a couple of times in fanfic, though the encounter prompting this post was in a pro m/m romance. It thankfully isn't a super popular descriptor.

[krait]

Neutral.

It's not particularly sexy, but neither is, say, "red" or "soft" or "girthy," and any of them would be fine in a fic as long as it's something I can believe the POV character would use!

[ratcreature]

To me "spongy" is less neutral than "red" though. I don't really associate anything nice with it, so it seems inherently weird that a character, while appreciatively licking a penis glans, would pick "spongy". And tbh seeing a penis described as "girthy" would probably throw me out of a story too, but unlike "spongy" I've never seen that.

[krait]

Well, I did say it would depend on the character! But it's pretty neutral to me (there's actually a discussion about this exact word going on in a comm I follow, too! Coincidence?) and I'm sure some characters would find it neutral, too. I could certainly see a geeky virgin, or a Vulcan, or an English major, for example, noting the spongy texture in those words and finding it excitingly sexy/new/alien/evocative.

"Girthy" is one of those Nifty.org sorts of words, for the most part. :D I rarely encounter it in fanfic, but if I did I would probably just guess that the author has read some original web erotica and move on without a fuss.

[ratcreature]

Well, like I said, I get that sex words are very much ymmv-- you do seem to be somewhat in the minority though in the non-representative sample of my poll.

And at least for me a sex scene being in character is necessary but not sufficient to enjoy it. Like wildly OOC internal monologue would throw me, even if I found the description hot (though depending on how much it pushes my id buttons I might appreciate as pure porn without context), but a character's descriptions could also be totally IC yet if I find their vocabulary very off-putting (whether weird, or gross, or even ridiculously flowery and coy for that matter) I'm going to kind cringe and skim. A single "spongy" won't get me to be totally squicked out of a scene, but it's a kind of strike against it.

FWIW, the character here was a hockey goalie, not particularly geeky but had been an English major some time ago in college, and not a virgin, but a bisexual new to m/m sex, but my problem wasn't characterization, but that for me it's an unattractive word that's associated with unpleasant textures, and somebody contemplating sponginess put a wet blanket all over a scene that was otherwise quite nice, with some mild D/s vibes and obedience and praise kink stuff I enjoyed before that intruded.

[krait]

It does seem to be a minority faction, both on your poll and at the other discussion. Maybe it helps that I think of sponge cake more than the weird sea animal? :D

I'm sure I have run into IC-yet-cringey vocabulary, but aside from the notorious "weeping cock" I can't think of any - not from fanfic, anyway. I suspect my occasional dive into Nifty and Literotica have recalibrated my Awful Sex Words Detector to be a bit more lenient, given the kinds of egregious OTT vocabulary that's popular there!