{"id":376,"date":"2016-06-14T10:21:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T10:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/?p=376"},"modified":"2016-06-14T10:21:02","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T10:21:02","slug":"erotica-banned-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Erotica: Banned words"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><a href=\"http:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/affection-1299580_1280.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-377 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/affection-1299580_1280-288x300.png\" alt=\"silhouette of heterosexual couple facing each other erotica\" width=\"288\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/affection-1299580_1280-288x300.png 288w, https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/affection-1299580_1280-768x799.png 768w, https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/affection-1299580_1280-984x1024.png 984w, https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/affection-1299580_1280.png 1230w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a>Editing erotica presents its own special challenges.\u00a0By the time something gets to copy-editing stage I don&#8217;t want to suggest a major rewrite, but there are some words that get so much use in erotica that I would like to put them on my &#8216;banned words list&#8217;! There&#8217;s nothing wrong with these words per se, but if you&#8217;re a writer and you&#8217;re thinking about using any of these in a sex scene, please, I implore you, think again:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>manhood<\/li>\n<li>nub<\/li>\n<li>mounds<\/li>\n<li>glided<\/li>\n<li>throbbing<\/li>\n<li>moist<\/li>\n<li>wantonly<\/li>\n<li>channel<\/li>\n<li>globes<\/li>\n<li>bulge<\/li>\n<li>appendage<\/li>\n<li>heaving<\/li>\n<li>rampant<\/li>\n<li>slippery<\/li>\n<li>pert<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;d also like to put in a special plea for authors not to describe pubic hair as either coarse and wiry (ouch) or soft and downy (sceptical\u00a0hmm).<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re an editor or proofreader, are there any words you&#8217;d like to add to the &#8216;banned words&#8217; list? I&#8217;d love to hear about anything I&#8217;ve missed!<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t supposed to be a dig at authors who have used these words in their books, and I&#8217;m certain that there are some excellent erotic passages (ahem) that contain them. However, they all seem to get used a lot, so if you want to be rigorous about avoiding clich\u00e9s, you might want to think of something else or see if you can get away with removing that word altogether.<\/p>\n<p>Bonus points available: outside my office someone has marked up the pavement ready for some forthcoming works. They&#8217;ve written &#8216;SERVICE TRENCH&#8217; in large letters. Every time I see it, I wonder whether this phrase could be worked into an erotic scene. Bonus points for any author who can manage it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editing erotica presents its own special challenges.\u00a0By the time something gets to copy-editing stage I don&#8217;t want to suggest a major rewrite, but there are some words that get so much use in erotica that I would like to put them on my &#8216;banned words list&#8217;! There&#8217;s nothing wrong with these words per se, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[66,155,50,153,69,154,56,4],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-authors","tag-cliches","tag-copyediting","tag-erotica","tag-help-for-writers","tag-sex","tag-writers","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Erotica: Banned words - Catherine Dunn<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you&#039;re a writer and you&#039;re thinking about using any of these words in a sex scene or erotica, please, I implore you, think again.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Erotica: Banned words - Catherine Dunn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you&#039;re a writer and you&#039;re thinking about using any of these words in a sex scene or erotica, please, I implore you, think again.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catherine Dunn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-06-14T10:21:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/affection-1299580_1280-288x300.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Catherine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Catherine\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/\",\"name\":\"Erotica: Banned words - Catherine Dunn\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/affection-1299580_1280-288x300.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-14T10:21:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/11f7bc3f987350d342d9098fa993109d\"},\"description\":\"If you're a writer and you're thinking about using any of these words in a sex scene or erotica, please, I implore you, think again.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/affection-1299580_1280.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/affection-1299580_1280.png\",\"width\":1230,\"height\":1280,\"caption\":\"silhouette of heterosexual couple facing each other\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/14\/erotica-banned-words\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Erotica: Banned words\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/catherinedunn.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"Catherine Dunn\",\"description\":\"editing &amp; 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