Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Hmmm, I’m pretty used to the word “cock” in Romance, and I don’t think I’ve seen it only in erotic Romance or Romantica, either.  So much preferable to Loretta Chase’s favorite “rod,” IMO (although I’m pretty sure even she used “cock” in Mr. Impossible—in addition to my very favorite term, privy counsellor).  I actually prefer it to many of the alternatives (dick, manhood, sex, erection, staff).  Now you’ve got me curious, though, to note how many more mainstream Romances use cock as opposed to another term.

I can’t think of many men in any time period who would start referring to a state of priapism as a “hardened member,” “rearing stalling,” or “firm arousal.”

Heh. I believe you meant “stallion”, unless you have a Regency gent with e.d.

Can’t say I’ve noticed, and I would have thought it appropriate in any case. IIRC, even the Romans referred to “it” in such fashion. Or then again, I could have hallucinated that. :-)

Hah! My anti-spam word is “Came18.” Heh, heh, heh. The computer said “came.”

What other words would you like? In my freebie my histoical hero referred to himself as having an erection, but becuse he was laced so tight he couldn’t use euphimisim for himself. I think cock and cunt have been around for a long time though.

Sometimes I think it’s just the abrupt hard c that jolts.

I like cock. But then, who doesn’t?

Seriously, I prefer “cock” to a lot of other euphamisms/slang terms since it’s at least plausible. I’ve also been seeing the word “erection” lately in historicals, which strikes me as less embarrassing than rod, shaft, staff, phallus, pink torpedo, throbbing member, et al.

I won’t be impressed until I see someone successfully use “meat and two veg” or “junk.”

Is the day of the ‘tumescent manhoods’ coming to an end?  One can only hope.  I hadn’t noticed that much, but I read a combination of historical and contemp, so it’s possible that I’ve become more acclimated.

I do think that in general sexual scenes in all types of books have been getting more detailed and more erotic. I’m left wondering if it’s the effect of the growing erotica market, or the popularity of the erotica market is representative of female readers who want more explicit sex.

I’ve been reading romances for so long that I got used to all the euphemisms long ago.  I, too, have noticed the use of real words in a lot of mainstream books lately.  Doesn’t really bother me--in fact, it brings to mind something Evanovich said about wanting to just call it a dick. 

But, I’ve always been curious why most women seem to prefer the word cock over dick.  Especially when the man is referring to himself.  I’m not sure why but it feels wrong to me. Seems like he’d prefer dick, too.

Am I the only woman who sometimes thinks the word cock sounds a little smarmy… or fowl?  heh heh

Not always.  Sometimes it fits, but I’m curious to find out if most readers would be entirely put off by the use of the “d” word.

Oh and another thing I’ve wondered--do most editors change up the word if you do use it?

All the words for penis and sex, including the f-word, have been around for a long, long time.  The only words for penis that don’t date back to the 10th-14th centuries are “schlong” and “dong” which are early 1900’s.  Even “whang” goes back to 1536.  And we’ve lost some nice ones, like “tarse” (c. 1000). ;)

1772, G. A. Stevens, Songs, Comic, & Satyrical “For Cupid’s Pantheon, the Shaft of Delight Must spring from the Masculine Base.”

LK, who knows this kinda stuff. ;)

“Junk” would crack me up. LOL

Whenever I read “erection” in an historical setting, I think of that scene in Kate & Leopold where they’re dedicating the Brooklyn Bridge as “the greatest erection of our day.” But no—OED has penis erections cited as early as 1594: “As to woorke an erection of those engendring parts.” Oh, that makes me hot.

I like cock. But then, who doesn’t? Lesbians :)

I don’t worry about the slang as long as the description doesn’t get too clinical.  If the vas deferens gets mentioned, then the author has gone too far.

“Cock” I can handle

It’s “Man Root” that gets the book tossed right into the garbage

You guys need to compile a list of ways to refer to a dick. That would probably be the best article ever. “Drooling organ” is probably the funniest example I’ve seen.

All the words for penis and sex, including the f-word, have been around for a long, long time.  The only words for penis that don’t date back to the 10th-14th centuries are “schlong” and “dong” which are early 1900’s.  Even “whang” goes back to 1536.  And we’ve lost some nice ones, like “tarse” (c. 1000).

I love this sort of trivia. Those middle age types had such dirty minds and so many ways of saying what was on it. ;)

I think cock does sound a little cruder than dick, but maybe that’s the point in the books.  It does make me think of a more passionate sex scene is coming, with wall-banging sex involved.

It’s the other way around with me.

I’ve asked erotic writing friends their opinions on this before--yeah, I’m weird-- and they seemed to think dick was too crude and that’s why women prefer cock.  Someone even said it was more polite to them.  They also said cock was more of a woman’s word than dick.  I’d love to get some male opinions.

Isn’t it funny how we can read/hear words so differently?  And what sort of factors are involved?  Upbringing, the men we know personally and how they speak.. maybe seeing a sleazy porno too young and hearing a particular word used in it? Where we live?

Yeah, I can see a long post about the words coming up here.  I’m continuously amused by the kind of conversations we have here.  Jeez, I’m amused that I’m jumping in so heartily.  (Okay, I was sooo tempted to write “hardly” instead.)

See?  There’s something in the water here…

I have always found that historical novels were ‘dirtier’ than mainstream novels, at least the ones I’ve ever read.  (That may be a testament to my personality more than anything.) I think contemporaries are catching up and now surpassing the ‘dirtiness’ of historicals. 

Has anyone read Susan Johnson, Virginia Henley, Georgina Gentry?  Those women were naughty.  Even Stella Cameron, who wrote for Avon, used the word ‘cock’ back in the day.

And I much prefer it to ‘throbbing manhood’ or ‘maleness.’

Count in another cock lover here. It surprised me the first time I saw it, but I quickly learned to appreciate it.

(In historicals! I’m talking about in historicals!)

I don’t know ... I can call someone a “dick” as in “why are you such a ----”, but I would struggle mightily to use “cock” in the same sense. So, for me, the one term is an epithet, the other is, well, a tool.

I like cock. But then, who doesn’t . . . Seriously, I prefer “cock” to a lot of other euphemisms/slang terms since it’s at least plausible.

I *heart* Kimber!!!

I vastly prefer “cock” to any other euphemism, it just sounds manly and sexy. I use it all over my books (ok, that sounds really, really wrong!).

I read somewhere that in the Regency period, weiner was the shocking word to use to describe le rampant manhood.  Now that’s one I’d like to see in a book.

“Forsooth, my love, thou hast made my weiner grow hard for thee...”

I think it would jar me more if I read the word dick in a historical. I think cock just sounds more authentic in a historical sense.

My husband calls it a penis when he’s trying to be polite, dick when he’s being casual, wiener when he’s being goofy, and cock when he’s being crude. The only time I use cock is when I’m being goofy. It’s just not a word that anyone used when I was younger and so it’s not a term that I naturally use. I do like it though.

Man root has to be the most annoying one, to me, though sex has to be a close second.

Man Root! 

The superhero that doesn’t wear a cape, but does occasionally don a raincoat…

Monica, I remeber reading Henley and her tossing cock in there all the time. That was back when I first started reading romance though, and it made me blush just to read it.

Great discussion! I love the word and use it in my books. To me, cock has the advantage of being both dirty (in a great way) and historically accurate. Lovely!

I actually made a list of historically accurate euphemisms for penis, though it is by no means a complete list. If you want to see it here just scroll down to January 10. One of my favorites? Sensitive truncheon. *extra loud snort*

Oh, and I believe that cock was actually a much more matter of fact word in the past (anyone else?), so try not to be thrown off by the polite hero using it. As I said, perfect for the time, and perfect for being dirty now. Perfect!

Oops, I should have said in contemporaries.  In historicals, I can certainly see cock making more sense.

I would prefer either word over man root.

As a general rule, I prefer to read cock instead of dick, for the same reason Darlynne cited: dick is used as an epithet, so I tend to think of it that way. But after ten years of reading m/m slash, I’m used to seeing both used throughout a story, so as to avoid overusing one.

RE: historicals, I’ve read two, I think, and I remember the hero’s internal monologue using the word cock, which seemed normal to me. (The novels were set in the Victorian era, so it seemed period-appropriate.)

One novel that used the *wrong* word was, oddly enough, a contemporary: Nerd in Shining Armor by Vicki Lewis Thompson, which had the hero and heroine using “penis” in their internal monologues, and every time it was used, it pulled me right out of the story, because it seemed too clinical. Hello, if I’m reading a novel where two people are having sex, I think I can handle the words cock and dick. Yeesh.

That said, any removal of terms like “tumescent manhood” and “man root” is v.v. welcome. My favorite bit of writing about sex scenes was a forewood Susie Bright wrote for one of the Best American Erotica books; she quoted Bret Easton Ellis as saying he preferred the sex scenes he read to be “unadorned.” I think that’s a perfect way to think about it: give me straightforward words like cock, dick, pussy; anything else is too much euphemism.

The two euphemisms I remember really jarring me out of the moment were: “joy arrow” (and that was in a contemporary but it still made me go “WTF?") and “love knob”.  Love knob?  I don’t know...it makes it sound so...inconsequential.  Love knob I remember was from a historical.
But, as credit to the authors, both books were overall really good reads. 
The first few times I came across “cock” in a historical I was definitely jolted, but I became accustomed to it.  Maybe because most times when I have seen it used in a historical, the male in question is using it purposely to shock the heroine, and the shock value is inherent in the usage. 
Also, you see a lot of words like “cockstands” in historicals, so to me it just kind of follows that “cock” would be used.
Makes me wonder, though, what euphemisms were used for the female?  You certainly don’t see the word “pussy” being bantered about in historicals so much, but I find it hard to believe that people went around calling a va-jay-jay a “hot silken sheath.”
And then I also wonder why there are so many ways of expressing a cock (Though manhood and member seem to be among the most popular) but the best we can come up with for a twat is “sheath,” whether it be “hot” or “tight” or “glistening”.

I take my cue from literature of the times, like Fanny Hill, and have used both “cock” and “cockstand” in my novels.

I also had a privateer who referred to his private parts (heh) as “King Neptune”, in keeping with our nautical motif.

Makes me wonder, though, what euphemisms were used for the female?  You certainly don’t see the word “pussy” being bantered about in historicals so much, but I find it hard to believe that people went around calling a va-jay-jay a “hot silken sheath.”

Quim and cunny are two I’ve seen, quim being my personal favorite of the two.

Regarding cock vs dick, according to the 3rd Edition of the Dictionary of American Slang, dick didn’t come into usage until the 1880s.  So use in the majority of Historicals (particularly Regencies) would be inappropriate.

Personally, I tend to attach a negative connotation to ‘dick’ and would not find myself getting ‘all worked up’ when used in a sentence.  Now ‘cock’ on the other hand.... oh baby, I like it alot.void(0);
red face

And yet, twice now. . . I’ve been slapped out of the past by the hero’s cock.

Really, Sarah, if you’re going to time travel, cockslap is the only way to go.

I vote for cock.
Hungry straining member, just about killed me from laughing when I read it in a historcial one time, can’t remember which one probably Johanna Lindsay though.

A medieval lyric.  To desensitize you.

I haue a gentil cock,
Crowyt me day.
He doth me rysyn erly,
My matyins for to say.

I haue a gentil cook,
Comyn he is of gret.
His comb is of reed corel,
His tayil is of get.

I haue a gentyl cook,
Comyn he is of kynde.
His comb is of red scorel,
His tayl is of Inde.

His legges ben of asor,
So geintil and so smale.
His spores arn of syluer qwyt,
In to the worte wale.

His eynyn arn of cristal,
Lokyn al in aumbyr,
And euery nyght he perchit hym
In myn ladyis chaumbyr.

The List is already in place for all your euphemism needs.

And, IIRC, Terry Pratchett successfully used ‘meat and two veg’, though in the context of where the character had been kicked.

I definitely prefer the word cock.

I think that the reason is that “dick” sounds diminutive. If you say it, it’s a tiny little mouth motion, whereas “cock” is a big, hearty (meaty?) word which involves your whole mouth just opening up to make the sound, as well as hard “C” sounds on either end- far more manly and strong.

Speaking of female parts, Laura Kinsale (Hi!), in For My Lady’s Heart, used the word “quaint”.  And I always thought, how quaint.

Several years later, I was reading a book on the development of the English vocabulary called “The Mother Tongue”.  I almost dropped that book when it told me that “quaint” was, you guessed it, “cunt”.

Laura, my eyes, my eyes!  ;-)

In my books, I don’t have Regency cocks.  But I do have Victorian cocks.  How’s that?

I was reading a book on the development of the English vocabulary called “The Mother Tongue”.

Sherry, that’s only my all time favorite non-fiction book!!!

I like the word cock.  I just ran across my first dick in a “contemporary” (it’s more paranormal than contemporary, I guess).  That was a little dismaying, but it was better than when the author was clearly skirting labeling the member in question.

As for the idea that lesbians don’t like cocks, put that idea out of your heads straight away, ladies.  They just don’t like cocks attached to men.

I do feel like I keep seeing “cock” in romance novels.  I also really like it, since its (TMI alert) the word I use for my man’s man root in the bedroom. 

You know what I don’t like though?  A book I read recently that featured the secondary couple’s man getting really excited because his heroine had “shaved her puss bare” because, well, that is such a recent thing, and because omg, all she probably had to work with was a straight edge razer she would have no experience with.*

*Now, historically, I might be wrong, and maybe completely shaved neither regions were common back then, I don’t know, and also she was supposed to have been a member of a harem before the hero rescued her, so it was plausible, but it was also reason #324 that I wanted to throw the book against the wall.

and sometimes a penis is just a penis.(with apologies to Sigmund Freud)

Shaved nether regions have been around since at least 400 B.C. in India and women were mixing up depilatories long before then.

I believe that during the discussion of birth control in historicals someone mentioned that the Sunnah, an ancient text, urged the Muslim peoples to shave their nether regions.

So if this woman was “exposed” to Middle Eastern culture, it might not be too far fetched that her veejay was shaved.

Add another vote for ‘cock’.  That ‘i’ sound in dick is just not working for me, but cock… well, the word itself gets me worked up just thinking about it, though the terms here (turgid lovesword?  mwa ha!) have the creativity factor.

Though weiner?  Lawdy.  That would snap me out of the mood so fast, I’d get whiplash.

I have greater trouble finding my favored word for the almighty bajingo.  Other than cheating with “inside her”, terminology tends to either tweak my squick factor, gynecological instincts, or just plain brings out the giggles.

Chicklet,
I remember that book.  It was penis this, penis that.  I hated it.  It was so clinical.  I would’ve much preferred manroot or throbbing love rod.  Yech!

Personally, I don’t ever say the word cock.  I do agree that dick is more of an epitath.  As in, “Dubya is a dick.”

Bitches, I dated a boy in high school with the last name “Dick.” No joke, and a more apt surname could not have been found. I am now married to a man whose first & last name closely resemble “Huge Johnson” and lucky for me, that’s an apt title as well (tmi? tee-hee).

This whole thread reminds me of the opening scene in “10 Things I Hate About You” where the guidance counselor is a romance writer on the side, and can’t think of just the right word choice - until Heath Ledger comes in with his bratwurst incident, and she goes for that.

I’ll vote for cock everytime, it just sounds more sex-ay, y’know?
I suppose it’s hard for me to be objective though, the word “Dick” has all sorts of horrors attached to it for me.

And for the sheilas - “dew-slicked petals” always makes me snort, but the historically accurate use of “purse” and “cunny” in Phillipa Gregory’s work makes me giggle too - so, I guess I’m just juvenile.

Alas, I am the only one.  Here anyway. I do know several who share my preference.

Perhaps they, too, had to help grandpa out with his chickens.  Maybe theirs never, ever called the males roosters… http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/images/smileys/wink.gif

It doesn’t bother me as much these days--getting used to it.  But I have to say that occasionally, it still pulls me from the story in a m/m romances--I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a man refer to it that way.  But again, I’m referring to contemporaries--don’t read many historicals these days.

All of this talk about how the words sound, dick versus cock, reminds me of the old Monty Python sketch about “tinny” and “woody” words.

Watch it here.

And you win, spinsterwitch—I’m mostly straight and some night I don’t like cocks attached to men!

That didn’t work. Here’s the straight link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gwXJsWHupg

This really has nothing to do with anything, but I can’t be the only reader who has a friend named Dick! No, really, I mean a living breathing person named Dick. A great guy. Of course, it is a rather old-fashioned name, and I am a woman of a certain age....

As an American who moved to Canada some 24 years ago, I was vastly entertained and sometimes perplexed by the different sayings and turns of phrase that I encountered here, some with a French influence and a whole lot more with a British influence. Loved it, and still do. One of my favourites (see, I put a “U” in a lot of words now, and I spell centre and theatre with “re” and I use “cheque” to refer to my pay, and I stand in queues, but I digress)...one of my favourites is the use of the word “dick” to mean “nothing” or “very little,” as in “sweet dick all.” E.g., That guy, he comes to work day in and day out, sits at his desk and does sweet dick all. (Sometimes, the f-word replaces dick.)

Having embraced this saying wholeheartedly, I’ve occasionally used it in the company of my friend Dick and then had to say--oops, sorry Dick.

Anyway, there’s no way on god’s green earth that I could think of the word dick in that other way anymore.

quim being my personal favorite of the two

Whereas I wince every time I read this, it somehow conjures up something wet and gelatinous and not at all attractive. *shudder*

Kalen, I’m with you, but I have no idea why “quim” reminds me of jello. Too much like “Watch it quiver!” maybe? Gah!

I just finished LK’s “For My Lady’s Heart,” which I loved by the way, and she used tarse. I had to look it up even though I had a pretty good idea what we were referring to.

I like cock (hehe!) and I don’t find it to be too jarring, especially when it is internal rumination.

HA! growth11! How does it know?

Cock throws me every time I read it in historicals (just not used to seeing it, I guess), although I do prefer it to euphemisms.  I can’t stand “his sex.” Ick.

I have a friend named Dick.  He hates Thanksgiving ‘cause he always dreads the question “Turkey, Dick?”

Hee.

Hmm, I didn’t know using “dick” as “nothing” was a Canadian thing.  I’ve used it in the same context. “I can’t do dick about that.” I remember a Tommy Lee Jones line in Men in Black right before he introduces Will Smith to the office building full of aliens, something like “Everything you think you know about the world is worth precisely dick.”

So yeah, definitely not sexy AT ALL.  But definitely “cock” is sexy.  “Shaft” is neutral for me.  All the others are snort-inducing.

I also read a historical last year in which “cock” was used, and at first it threw me (and a cockthrow is arguably worse than a cockslap), but I was so weepingly grateful that the author had switched mid-book from “rod” that I didn’t mind.

Dick is the root of all evil…

YES I AM!

Oh, and I believe that cock was actually a much more matter of fact word in the past (anyone else?), so try not to be thrown off by the polite hero using it.

IIRC, “cock” was a fairly respectable euphamism that went out of favor during the the English Inter Regnum.  That’s what happens when you let Puritans run the show.

Male internal monologues in the historicals I’ve read always seem to dwell more on the fact that their breeches/trousers/whatever they’re wearing below the waist suddenly don’t fit right, than on anatomical terms.  But forget “meat and two veg” and “junk,” I want to see somebody successfully use “state of priapism.”

Forgot to say. . . I don’t know why, but it gave me a fantasticly happy thrill when I saw the tiny checkmark my copyeditor had made next to “cockstand” in my manuscript. I giggle every time I think of her busting out her dictionary to look it up. Cockstand. Check!

I want to see somebody successfully use “state of priapism.”

God I love a challenge . . . *grin*

OT indeed, but I remember my grandmother when she wanted to point out something was odd saying “queer as dick’s hatband.”

I also remember a discussion on the AAR site a number of years ago (2001 maybe) about cock.  I believe that at that time cock was not the favored work, although I doubt if Dick would have fared much better. 

I also has read a couple of books set in Glasglow where cunt is tossed about in a way that would be shocking in the US.

Cock fangirl.  Quim is kinda squicky, especially if it’s sopping, drenched, or dripping...makes me want to recommend a personal hygene product.

It’s inevitable that modern word usage & culture manifest in fictional writing.  And unfortunately, so few historical authors actually know their subject.  A recent SB accurately commented that many hisorical novels are merely contempories in costume.

Robin Schone uses some interesting historical terms, no idea if they are correct.  Having withdrawal, time to re-read Kinsale.

Kalen...you have a book out soon?

I don’t find references to “cocke lane” in medievals jarring because I’ve pictured that time as being more gritty and base.

I was recently annoyed at the Brava firefighter book because it was chock full of PUSSY, TITS, CLITS & cock. Cock just paled in explicitness. At least manroot would have added variety to the mix.

I love the cock. Dick is juvenile, and seems like the same sort of sexual silliness as, say, hooters. I have been forever scarred by some similar discussion a year or so ago in which someone mentioned a “marble truncheon of love”. Gah!

Quim feels sci-fi to me, and definitely textured in some sort of ooze. I read someone’s books, loved them, but she exclusively used quim and it jerked me out of the story so hard every time. Yeah, it’s accurate along with cunt in actual, historical erotic things. In 18th c. romantic fiction, there’s so much Latin double entendre. Like “locus amenus” and varied garden imagery. Her grotto of love is a lot less awful when it’s in Latin or French.

I do get jarred by cock! How good to find others do too. Only in historicals, though. Because a man wouldn’t have used it in front of a lady, and I would like to think he is a gentleman all the time :). BUT:::: ‘Tis far better when in a book called The Duke, the hero’s penis was referred to as a “shriveled mouse.” I kid you not. Gahhhh. Give me a healthy cock any day!

Because a man wouldn’t have used it in front of a lady, and I would like to think he is a gentleman all the time

Ooooo, not me! I prefer him to be a gentleman in the kitchen and a bossy man-whore in the bedroom. Hee.

Cock is nice.  Cock is good.  Cock won’t enter Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood...which makes it all the better. 

BUT, it’s a helluva job “mixing it up” when you’re writing stuff that requires frequent references to body parts.  I, for one, hate repetition.  Therefore, euphemisms don’t particularly bother me unless they grate against the tenor of the story.  They don’t even bother me if the author has made them up.  They only bother me when they’re absurdly hyperbolic sans any connection to a comic thread in the novel’s fabric.  If there is a comic element, anything goes; cleverness trumps outrageousness, as far as I’m concerned.

I just get fast-sick of the same old shit.

Neither word bothers me, but what gets me is the inconsistency of use sometimes. I’ll be reading a historical and throughout the book, the author has used the term manhood or shaft and then in just one scene, the word cock is used. It drives me nuts. I have no idea why, but if you’re going to pick a word, use it throughout the entire book.

The worst I read - and this was just recently in a new contemporary novel (more chick lit than romance) was willy. I had to go back and make sure I read it right. It totally threw me off the rest of the book and it was almost at the end.

A great book that is directly on point, THE BIG BOOK OF FILTH: 6500 SEX SLANG WORDS AND PHRASES by Jonathan Green.

It’s just a ginormous list of bad, bad words and phrases.  Date of usage is also included as is place of origin.  Love it.  Also the cover is hysterical:  a bar of soap with the word filth embossed on it.  There’s a very real looking pubic hair on the bar of soap and for the longest time every time I picked up the book, I kept trying to brush it off.

Cock is the most normal name for that part on a guy, at least it is for me. The word penis is too medical (reminding me of sex-ed classes in school where my sex-life was severely depressed hearing a 55 year old man talk about condoms), the word dick always makes me think of old men called Richard (I dunno, I need a good shrink to figure that one out), and other slang names like schlong and purple-headed yoghurt slinger just make me laugh - not a good thing to do when faced with a man’s cock, you have to agree.

I would rather see a cock in Regency England than a hardened member (there’s a bad porn movie in there somewhere, no wait, all porn movies are pretty bad).

I remember seeing an old Mickey Rooney movie when I was a kid, and he almost trips over a woman and says “pardon my boner” - my brothers and I laughed until we passed out. I love it how words get new meanings over time.

Another vote for “cock.” (I think it could win a Presidential election at this point.) The word does have a meaty, manly sound and look to it, whereas “dick” is skinny and juvenile.

You have to open your mouth wide for cock, but you can handle dick with your teeth clenched…

I don’t find references to “cocke lane” in medievals jarring because I’ve pictured that time as being more gritty and base.

That’s still pretty mild.

Quim is kinda squicky, especially if it’s sopping, drenched, or dripping...makes me want to recommend a personal hygene product.

As opposed to, say, a sopping, drenched or dripping cunt, quaint, cunny, vagina, purse, honey pot, love sheath, or love grotto?

***...hearing a 55 year old man talk about condoms), the word dick always makes me think of old men called Richard...***

Ouch!

DICK THE OLD MAN!!! Somehow I have the same image too! Must be that sex ed trauma :)

wow! I see that there are many fans of Cock. The thing is, I do still think it jars me when I am reading a historical, even if it is historical term. I don’t mind manwhores either, but I don’t like when they use it, at least if they just do it once. If they use it more than that,,,,hey...I get used to it! But I hate when all of a suden its all turgid manhood this, member that, and then.. COCKKKKK!
I guess I am picky.

Dick reminds me a lot of Richard Nixon, actually. Which isn’t something that generally gets my quim sopping.

(Spamblock word: blood83.)

Madd- I had no idea.  Thanks for the info.

It was still a terrible book, though.

Claudia...Firefighters Anthology...with the exception of Susan Lyons, wasn’t it horribly awful?  Publishers lost a customer here, I’ll never touch another book by either of the other two authors...bad, awful, nasty, eeewwwwh.