A Cunning Linguist
Talk Wordy To Me!
Hi (No) Wonderers,
The importance of communication can’t be overstated. Communication helps us to understand, and be understood. It helps us to learn, explore, and expand our horizons. It helps us to process, articulate, and satisfy our emotional and sexual needs. It helps us be a functional, grown-ass part of a functional, grown-ass intimate team.
But what do we use to communicate? For a great many of us… words.
Many of us grew up hearing a rhyme to the effect of “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt us.” By now, you and I both know this to be a steaming, percolating crock of horseshit. It discounts the importance of emotions and their regulation, invalidates any pain other than the physical kind, and ignores the role words play in stirring hateful rhetoric… which DOES manifest as physical violence, disproportionately against historically excluded groups. Dehumanizing language such as slurs and noun-ified adjectives (e.g. “female,” “transgender,” and “illegal” as nouns) makes it easier to view certain groups of historically excluded humans as somehow less human… which, in turn, makes it easier for aggressors to justify heinous acts of violence against them. On the surface, such linguistic nuances may seem pedantic; however, the way a speaker uses words can reveal important information about how they view other humans.
So yes, there is a VERY good reason for the ick you feel when someone uses “female” as a noun: it reflects a speaker who discounts women’s humanity. I won’t go so far as to say “vibes don’t lie” – anyone with anxiety and/or trauma knows they lie all the damn time! – but this particular one doesn’t.
Fortunately, words can convey more than red flags and ick. Subtle language changes can also reflect favorably on a speaker’s thoughtfulness, and the speaker’s willingness to acknowledge and include people unlike themselves. When a speaker makes an effort to include the historically excluded (e.g. gender-neutral greetings), it hints that the speaker spares a thought about them. If a speaker refers to another person by that person’s proper name and pronouns, it suggests that the speaker respects that person’s identity and personhood. (By contrast, if a speaker deliberately misgenders and/or deadnames another person… it suggests the speaker’s lack of respect for the other person’s autonomy, that the speaker thinks they know the other person’s identity better than they do their own, that the speaker would sooner tell the other person who they are than bother asking and listening. Red flag.)
Ther power of words also translates inwardly; if we are able to name our emotions, it helps us recognize them and process them. Naming our emotions transforms them from amorphous “irritation-we-can’t-quite-put-our-finger-on” to something more concrete and actionable, something our higher cognitive functions can use to inhibit the impulse of raw emotion arising from the amygdala. Dr. Dan Siegel calls this “Name It To Tame It.” We see this strategy in action when parents ask a verbal child who’s having a meltdown to “use their words” so as to recognize and address the root cause of the emotional discord.
Lisa Firestone Ph.D.
Knowing and naming the parts of the body – as well as the feeling they generate when stimulated – mitigates shame and facilitates safe, satisfying, enthusiastically consensual intimate exploration. Penis. Testicles. Scrotum. Vulva. Labia. Clitoris. Vagina. Cervix. Rectum. Buttocks. Breasts. (Say those again! And again!). Y’all can miss me with these cutesy euphemisms that perpetuate genital shame and ambiguity. The proper anatomical names help decrease the shame surrounding them, help young people take ownership of their own bodies, and help young people confidently enforce healthy bodily boundaries. If a parent really cares about their child’s “childlike innocence,” they would do well to empower their kid with the knowledge, terminology, and confidence required to ward off anyone (God forbid!) looking to violate it.
Know your anatomy, so you can know your autonomy.
Words Matter,
Merrit