Sexual language

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The sexual language referred to explicitly talk about sexuality , reproductive organs and their functions. Talking about things that were perceived as intimate was often subject to language taboos in human cultural history and / or was perceived as obscene . Dealing with sexual language is subject to a strong cultural change and is influenced by social and religious values ​​that have shaped the times.

History of Sexual Language

Venus of Willendorf
Signs for an antique brothel, carved into a slab of the pavement

As a form of communication, sexual language is as old as human language itself and in its beginnings goes hand in hand with human cognitive engagement with procreation and fertility. In this way, non-verbal images such as the Venus von Willendorf can be seen as preliminary stages of communicative preoccupation with sexuality, even if this was religiously oriented due to time and culture. It is unknown whether the figures or drawings were used and revered as sexual stimulation, fetish or fertility symbols . Songs and lyrics have not survived. Only myths such as B. the story of the Šamḫat in the Gilgamesh epic give an echo of possible sexual language of the past.

In excavations in Pompeii, graffiti with obscene slogans or advertisements for sexual services painted or scratched on the walls or floor have been found. The Ars amatoria was bursting with sexual language and for a long time could often only be read or published in schools in censored form, as was the Bible's Song of Songs. It is similar with the Hetairikoi dialogoi by Lukian von Samosata , Ragionamenti , the novels Trutz Simplex by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen or Josefine Mutzenbacher and the Whore Conversations by Heinrich Zille . In public in all cultures sexuality was only linguistically covered up or treated in euphemisms. The explicit sexual language in the form of vulgar language is still a characteristic of the social lower classes, to which the prostitutes belonged for professional reasons and is taboo in the middle-class society. It was and is often used consciously to differentiate and shock the so-called “better society”, such as B. by adolescents , filmmakers, writers, actors, artists or musicians. When science began to seriously deal with sexuality for the first time, it tried to deliberately differentiate itself from the sexual language of everyday life with the use of Latin and Greek foreign words and detailed, emotionless description, so the sexual act and birth can also be seen in the writings of Leonardo da Vinci , one possible pornographic interpretation is overridden by the detailed Latin and Greek labeling of all details.

Levels of sexual language

Sexual language is divided into four levels:

  • Children's language : The primitive designation of the genital and excretory organs and their products starting from the canonical babbling , which is socially accepted only in toddler age and is viewed as infantile in later years. (Typical names such as Pipi or AA )
  • Vulgar language : The use of sexual language as a vulgar language is most common and can be roughly divided into four categories:
    • Sexual language as an expression of sexual intention and erotic stimulant, compare verbal eroticism or dirty talk as part of eroticism, pornography and prostitution;
    • Use as a means of provocation or to create a social distance - e.g. B. used by young people during adolescence in their youth language or by artists or politicians to attract attention or to point out social and political grievances;
    • Use as an offense : For example, swear words often use genital parts or practices or try to question the moral and moral position or heterosexual inclination. The difference in insults in sexual language is interesting, so the questioning of moral morality is more likely to be used with women (common abuse of a woman is to be called a whore or a slut , a man as gay ( fagot ) in order to humiliate them). Insulting a woman as homosexual or a man as promiscuous does take place, but has a socially less offensive equivalent than the reverse example.
    • Use of sexual language as a sociolect : Sexual language in this form is also called whore , milieu or whore language or red light jargon. Similar to the soldier's language or Kanak Sprak , this form is linguistically shaped by the social milieu in which it is predominantly spoken and also includes the semiotic codes of a certain group of people in order to conceal the meaning of a statement from outsiders and to emphasize the feeling of togetherness ( especially here whores language or codes that describe e.g. sexual practices, such as sex for sexual intercourse etc.)
  • Standard language : Socially accepted paraphrasing of the sexual organs and practices in the form of veils, hints and euphemisms, e.g. B. Four letters to describe the bottom , the unspeakable for underwear. These disguises even went as far as the meal, so the chicken leg was in German as a chicken club , in English. called a drumstick , the brisket was called white meat because the words leg and breast were taboo. B. uttered in apparently incomplete sentences or sentences without subject or object, which were nevertheless understood by the environment (cf. Martin Luther : In the week between [object = sexual intercourse, missing], does neither him nor you harm ).
  • Technical language : Scientific description of sexual organs and practices, in cool and sober language (Latinisms and Graecisms, etc.)

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Sexual language  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Leisi, Ilse and Ernst: Language etiquette or how and what should I talk? 2nd edition 1993, p. 23 .