I am not a picky woman. I haven’t chucked a guy to the curb for being super short or for liberally quoting “Family Guy” without realizing that’s the last recourse of the unoriginal. I try to accept men with all their imperfections. Even the guy who always referred to my butt as a “tush” in bed. “Tush” is a fine word to use to refer to the posterior of someone being potty training — which actually may be the last time I heard another adult say the word “tush” … when my nieces used a “Dora the Explorer” potty.
Perhaps that’s why when this guy kept referring to my “tush” in bed, I couldn’t help but pause with a brief mental image of a small child’s diapered bottom. Not. Sexy. “What am I, three years old?” I finally teased him. It turns out he was trying to be chivalrous, sort of, and failing miserably. “You want me to call it your ass?” He asked. “Or your butt? It sounds kind of crass.” True. But sex is supposed to be kind of crass, at least the kind of sex I like. I never quite broke this guy of his “tush” habit, but it at least stopped sounding silly to my ears after awhile.
Tush Guy moved on to greener pastures to make other women feel toddler-ized in bed. Alas, the guy after him was just as bad, if not a worse, offender: he liked to refer to my butt as my “booty.” I blame his religious readership of the gossip blog Bossip. To me, “booty” can describe Jennifer Lopez’s derriére or a tasty pirate snack at Trader Joe’s — not my butt.
I mean, I guess I kind of have a booty, but more in a “white girl from Connecticut, lay off the Frappucinos” sort of way than anything approaching Kim Kardashian’s globes. However, I don’t think Mr. Booty discriminated based on size: to him, “booty” could describe anything at all under the butt umbrella.
Mr. Booty could kill a moment the same way as Tush Guy: he’d say something like “Roll over and show me your booty” and I’d wonder, Is he just uncomfortable using the word “butt”? Is this some kind of cutesy thing, like the way some women get all cutesy about their “vajayjay”? Did he think saying “booty” made him sound sexy? Or is my ass really just a lot larger — er, booty-ful — than I thought? I never really figured it out.
I eventually told Booty Guy I’d prefer if he’d say “ass” or “butt” and he looked at me like I was micro-managing. And I guess I was, to an extent. But I don’t think that’s unacceptable: language can have such a profound effect on our intimate lives that it’s important we’re spoken to with words we feel comfortable with.
Men should know that using silly words like “booty,” “tush,” “junk in the trunk,” “badonkadonk,” or heaven forfend, “heiny,” can be a mood killer to the mature adult woman. Some women have strong opinions about not hearing the c-word in bed or not being called a “slut.” I’m fine with either of those things: it’s silly words like “tush” and “booty” that get to me.
Besides, how would Mr. Booty or Tush Guy feel if I his d**k a “weenie”?
Original by Jessica Wakeman