Vocabulary Builder: "Pricktease"

This month's word inspired by the t-shirt company run by Michael Pilmer, a "progressive" audio-artist associated with Raleigh's Wifflefist collective.

Prick was initially standard English for penis from the late 16th century, when it became a vulgarism. Tease originates in the Anglo-Saxon spinning term taersan, meaning to pull, tear, comb or card. In the late 1800's, when an increasing number of women were openly questioning male sexual domination and rejecting penile penetration as an essential aspect of sexual activity, pricktease and cocktease became popular slang tems for a woman who "displays affection and sexual interest in a male, assumes sexually inviting postures, speaks intimately, allows petting or necking and perhaps indulges in sexual foreplay, but does not allow coitus or satisfy the male." (Dictionary of American Slang)

Such terms reveal possible gender differences in attitudes towards heterosexual sex. A woman can be sexually satisfied by what is often dismissively referred to as foreplay since it involves stimulation of the clitoris. The term foreplay suggests that clitoral stimulation is a mere game which takes place before the "real" action. Women are less inclined to dismiss it since, as well as being the major source of orgasm, it minimizes the risks of AIDS, venereal disease and unwanted pregnancy. Male sexual fulfillment, however, is often dependent upon penetration and the notion of overpowering female resistance.

Terms like pricktease are the product of a double sexual standard that insists upon women being sexually attractive and available to men while remaining chaste virgins. Under the double standard, a woman is damned if she does (slut, whore, tart, hussy, je-zebel, bunny, wench, tramp, etc.) and damned if she doesn't (cocktease, prude, jilt, vamp, coquette, etc.).

No term today exists for the male who leads a woman to expect sexual satisfaction but fails to satisfy her.

Taken from Womanwords by Jane Mills (UNC, Davis, HQ1115 .M54 1989; Duke, Perkin, #305.403 M657 W872)

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