DIY Chinese penis euphemisms ft. Jingsu
Letās make some penises in Chinese.
Because there are relatively few characters in Chinese (around 20k in a modern dictionary) compared to the number of words in other languages (100k+ in English), most characters carry many meanings. This leads to ambiguities if writing were to be fully composed from single-character words, which is why most words in modern Chinese are compounded from two or more characters, and the meaning is synthesized from the individual meanings. Here are some penis-relevant suffixes, in no particular order:
-ē© thing
-åØ organ/instrument
-ę ¹ root
-č stalk
-ę£ stick
-ę± pillar
-å · implement
-å blade (ouch)
Youāll notice that these are all, well, things. This is one typical pattern for making a Chinese compound word: the second character describes the physicality in some way while the first describes an attribute (characters are flexible and can be either prefix or suffix depending on context). Here are some penis-relevant prefixes:
å·Ø- huge (the opposite would be å¾® for tiny, but itās hard to find micropenises in erotica)
ē”¬- hard
é“- yin
é³- yang
ę§- sex
é£- that
ē- jade
č- meat
å¶- violent
ē·- male
Now we can create our own penis euphemism by mashing any two together. Here are some real quotes from explicit Jingsu fanfic (translations are kept literal here, but I almost always translate every euphemism to cock because itās the English term I hate the least):
é³å · = yang implement
č§ęÆē°ēé³å ·å¤§å¾ęäŗŗļ¼ęÆäøč¬ēä¹¾é³čæč¦å¤§äøå åļ¼ä»ę¾ē¬čÆ“čæęÆē家åØäø„ļ¼č¢«ę¢ éæčē½äŗäøē¼ [x]
Xiao Jingyanās yang implement was frighteningly large, even significantly larger than the average Alphaās. He once joked that this was the might of the imperial bloodline, getting an eye roll from Mei Changsu.
å¶å = violent blade
åŖęÆēå°äøäøäøŖęø éēē¬é“ļ¼č§ęÆē°å·²ē»å°ä»ēåč æåå¼ćå°é£ē²ē”¬ę»ē«ēå¶åęµäøęæ”ę¹æēē©“å£ććčøéŖåÆ»ę¢ ć
But the next instant he came to, Xiao Jingyan had already parted his legs. Pressed that thick, hard, and searing violent blade against his wet opening.
ę§åØ = sex organ
č§ęÆē°ēåå£å·²ē»å®å Øå¼äŗļ¼é夓äø¤ę ¹ę§åØę¢äŗåŗę„ļ¼ęåØęę®å¤§č æå¤ä¾§ ćåę¶ęć
Xiao Jingyanās sac had fully opened, two sex organs emerging from inside and hitting against the outside of Lin Shuās thigh.
čę£ = meat stick
ä»äøå®äøē„éčŖå·±č¢«é»åøčä½åē¼ļ¼ä»°ēå¤“č“¹åååē·äŗŗčę£ēęØ”ę ·ęå¤ā¦ā¦čƱę [x]
He must not know howā¦seductive he looks, black cloth covering both eyes, tilting his head to strenuously swallow a manās meat stick.
é£ē© = that thing
č§ęÆē°ä¹äøåē£Øč¹ļ¼éęęčæåŗč¾¹ēę¶ęÆå«å±ļ¼åØčŖå·±ēé£ē©äøę¶äŗå äøä¾æęµåØäŗéæčē“§éēē©“å£ [x]
Xiao Jingyan didnāt waste any more time either, grabbing the disinfectant gel conveniently by the bedside, applying it a few times on that thing of his then pressing it against Changsuās tight opening.
The anatomical term for the penis is é“č = yin stalk, the word that is the closest equivalent of penis.Ā But why is the penis both a yin stalk and yang implement? Glad you asked. Yang is associated with the male and yin with the female, but the very concept of yin-yang is that thereās yin in yang and yang in yin (think of the symbol itself). The penis is a yin part because the privates are the most yin on the body. So you can think of it as either the thing of a yang being, or the yin thing on a yang beingāthe wonderful duality of the male member.
As you might expect, not all of the possible combinations are actually in use. Like, é“ę£ = yin stick isnāt a thing. Why not? I donāt know, it just isnāt. If you used it in context, readers would understand you mean penis and probably puzzle a bit over why you didnāt use the more common names.
Some of the combinations also mean other things.Ā å¶åØ = violent instrument actually means murder weapon in ordinary use. Can it be a penis euphemism during rough sex? Yes, but most of the time it means the real weapon. é£ę ¹ = that root is tricky because ę ¹ is a classifier word (a similar concept to measure words in English) for long stick-like objects in addition to its meaning of root, so é£ę ¹Ā is almost always used in conjunction with other words, like that phallic [thing], as opposed to a penis on its own, which would probably be confusing to read. But when the character precedingĀ ę ¹ is something else, like ē·- male, then itās not being used in the classifier context, and ē·ę ¹ = male root is indeed a penis.
Now that weāve gotten the explanations out of the way, I searched through the corpus of Chinese Jingsu fics on my computer (around 1000+ fics) to look for all possible combinations of the prefixes and suffixes listed above, tossing out the compound words that donāt mean penis in context, to see what the most popular penises are. Behold the Jingsu compound penis matrix:
Congratulations to our winner, sex organ, and the distant runner-up, that thing. In contrast, the anatomical yin stalk is not very popular, kind of like how penisĀ is not used as frequently as other terms in English erotica.
Okay, so now you have the power to create all kinds of penises. But whatās the correct penis to use in a particular situation? Jingsu smut is, of course, mostly ancient erotica (unless itās a modern AU), so the tendency is to go for the more literary and euphemistic, and the way to do that is to be less physically descriptive. That thing is definitely more suited for delicate company than meat stick (though some authors happily use meat stick in their ancient settings anyways), and jade/yin/yang penises are also more literary. ēč = jade stalk is, in fact, the traditional Chinese medicine term for the penis and also a literary term, in use for well over a thousand years.
č§ęÆē°åäŗēŗ¢åøå°ę¢ éæčēēčęęčµ·ę„ļ¼č¢«ē½č¤č”¬čµ·ę„čē¼å¾å¾ććę¢ ē¬ć
Xiao Jingyan tied up Mei Changsuās jade stalk with red silk, looking quite eye-catching against white skin.
Some more penises
It would be way oversimplifying things to say weāre done now when there are many more methods to form words and penises in Chinese besides our simple algorithm.Ā Letās first discuss some concepts with English analogs:
A lot of ancient cultures associated chickens with the male member, and we have cock in English. In Chinese, children call penises å°éø”éø” = little chicken, kind of the equivalent of weewee. You would definitely not use it in a sexy story.
In English you could say he pushed himself inside, and you could say that in Chinese too, with čŖå·± = self. A relatively euphemistic term.
Thereās also little [personās name], so å°éæč = xiao-Changsu and å°ęÆē° = xiao-Jingyan exist. And yes, so does å°å°ę® = xiao-xiao-Shu, Lin Shuās penis. This might be my least favorite one. These are not generally euphemisms youād see in moreā¦well-regarded erotica.
Okay, now onto the more uniquely Chinese penises. We have some more euphemistic ones:
é£čÆåæ = those words, actually meaning that which we canāt speak of, and penis. čÆåæ on its own just means words and remarks in general, but once you add that in the beginning, it becomes a whole other thing (though it can still mean those words in non-erotic contexts). This is one of the euphemisms found in the infamous erotic Ming Dynasty novel éē¶ę¢ (JÄ«n PĆng MĆ©i), The Plum in the Golden Vase, so it has a storied history, though it isnāt used much in Jingsu smut at all. äøęä¹ē© = uncivilized thing is also along these lines (ä¹ here is a literary possessive particle). You can also put all kinds of adjectives beforeĀ ä¹ē© for a more customized penis.
Speaking of adjectives, one thing about Chinese very different from English is that parts of speech are fluid, especially in Classical Chinese where many characters are basically any part of speech.Ā ē«ē is fire + hot, but it can be both an adjective, fiery hot, that you stick in front of a penis, or a noun, fiery heat, that acts as a penis itself. SoĀ ē«ēä¹ē©, fiery hot thing, is a penis, and hereās an example where just fiery heat is the penis:
ä»ēØé”æäŗé”æļ¼ä¾æē»§ē»å¾éęØčæļ¼éé¢ęø©ęē“§č“ļ¼č éåøéåØä»ēē«ēäøļ¼å°±å„½åä»ä»¬å¤©ēå°±ęÆäøå„ēļ¼ę¤å»ē»äŗé¶åµå®ę“äŗ ćå¤å®æå±±åÆŗć
He paused slightly, then continued pushing inward. The passage is warm and tight inside, clinging onto his fiery heat as if they were two pieces made for each other, finally tessellating together and becoming whole in this moment.Ā
We also have words with standard definitions that mean something else in erotica:
å°ę ¹ = dust root, which is actually a term in Buddhism that means one of the human senses rooting you to the mortal realm, often referred to as the realm of ephemeral dust (å°äø). This is a creative allusion, because what else is a penis but a root that traps you in carnal desire and prevents you from reaching nirvana? Of course, whether itās appropriate for use depends on whether you want to bring up mortality and the illusion of desire when your characters are getting it on. å½ę ¹ = sinful root, or the more fun translation, root of evil, is also along these lines.
åŖęÆčæä¹äøę³ļ¼č§ęÆē°åę ¹čæę²”č¢«č§¦ē¢°å°ēå°ę ¹å°±äø颤äø颤ēē«äŗčµ·ę„ļ¼ē”¬é¦é¦å°å°åčēäŗµč£¤ęčµ·äøēåøēÆ· [x]
At this mere thought, Xiao Jingyanās utterly untouched dust root trembled upwards, forming a stiff tent in his thin underclothes.
å½ę ¹ = life root, meaning the source of vitality or reason for living, which is obviously the penis. This one does refer to penis in ordinary use as well, often humorously.
ä»ēå½ę ¹åē»č§ęÆē°å«ēļ¼ēØåå®č£¹ļ¼å ä¹č¦ęä»ēéä»čŗ«ä½éåøåŗę„äøę ·ć[x]
His life root was held in Xiao Jingyanās mouth and forcefully sucked, as if threatening to extract his soul from his body.
ę¬²ę = desire. Very popular in erotica, not in the dictionary as a penis, and may confuse a first-time fic reader why an abstract concept is being shoved places.
č§ęÆē°ę”ä½ę¢ éæčēŗ¤éæēåč æļ¼č®©ä»ē¼ åØčŖå·±č °äøļ¼ęåæ«č¦åæēäŗēę¬²ęęµåØé£å°å°ēå „å£ļ¼ę ¢ę ¢å°ęØäŗčæå» [x]
Xiao Jingyan gripped Mei Changsuās slender legs, letting him wrap around his own waist, and pressed his desire, nearly exploding with need, against that tiny opening, slowly pushing in.
åčŗ« = split body, or where the body parts (and what you do with it to another body). Its usual meaning is to find time to do something else, and this meaning is only for erotica.
At this point, I should say that some of these may have been invented for erotica to get around censorship. The coined words often evolve to become part of the vocabulary of the in-group over time, such that even when thereās no need to censor, people instinctively use the vocabulary to signal, whether subconsciously or consciously, that theyāre in the know.
Of course, just because a euphemism is popular, or of proper ancient lineage, doesnāt mean it will be subjectively to your taste. Jade stalk burns my eyes despite being a classic literary term, which probably says more about my Chinese than anything else; someone whoās really internalized this term and isnāt still on the literal level of understanding probably doesnāt mind it at all. Honestly, my original intention was to giggle a bit at all the euphemisms, but now that Iāve stared at them for a while, they all seemā¦okay to me (except xiao-xiao-Shu, that one can die). Not sure whether thatās a good thing or not.
A bonus last one very relevant to Jingsu, é¾ę ¹ = dragon root, just for His Majestyās penis.
č§ęÆē°ēé¾ę ¹čæååØčŖå·±ä½å ļ¼äøä½ę¹æę»ē²č »ļ¼äøēē¼čļ¼čøåēäø¤ē¹åč¢«čęē©å¼ļ¼ę¢ éæčēę³å°±čæä¹ęčæå»ē®äŗć[x]
Xiao Jingyanās dragon root was still buried inside him, his lower body slick and wet, a completely sorry mess, and the two nubs on his chest were being wantonly toyed with againāMei Changsu really wished he could just pass out on the spot and be done with it.
Hereās a penis alignment chart that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a summary of our findings:
What if I donāt want to make penises?
As youāve seen so far, Chinese is very good for euphemisms, and you can write the dirtiest smut without mentioning any parts once.
My favorite Jingsu sex euphemism is easily ę¢ å¼äŗåŗ¦, literally plum blossoms bloom for the second time, which is an idiom meaning reaching the pinnacle again. Itās frequently used to describe a footballer scoring the second goal in a single match, someone finding new love after a failed relationship, or yes, orgasming for the second time in one night. But in the Jingsu context, it can also be literally read asā¦Mei Changsu āopensā for the second time.
I would write another post on euphemisms for other body parts and sex in general (including the inexplicablyĀ many sex puns in NiF canon names), but this euphemism is clearly the pinnacle, and I will not reach it again.
