- This topic has 0 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated August 17, 2013 at 6:09 pm by
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The adult content in this post is mild, but the resources I reference (without linking, to limit access a bit more) are not for everyone. However, I think they do have several very specific uses for at least some of us. I don’t think anyone over 18 will have a problem reading my post, but visit the references I refer to at your own risk. Some of the “word pictures” are rather vivid, some of the words used are crude. If you don’t want to risk encountering such things, you will be happier giving this one a pass.
It isn’t that hard to find guides to slang from many eras – but those guides are often limited to relatively “clean” slang. What I just discovered, posted today on io9 (although the article seems suitable to link to here, the linked references are blunt enough that I’ll let you use the date – 17 August 2013 – and the site to find that post yourself), was a mention of a pair of resources which offer a timeline of slang terms for human genitalia through the ages. Most of these terms are not particularly offensive in our terms: I don’t think many people would even understand what the terms were referring to, if they encountered them in other contexts.
That’s why I think they might be useful, and not just for writers of historical fiction. Yes, there are terms you may want to avoid; certainly there are highly offensive terms included. But there are a lot of playful euphemisms as well. Even if you don’t write historical fiction, you could use some of these as a starting point for details in a SF or fantasy novel where you wanted to be mildly explicit without stepping on modern sensibilities, or you could even use a few of these as springboards to adapt the terminology for inclusion in a mild contemporary sex scene. That seems to be an area many of us struggle with. Obviously, your mileage may vary.
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