If Trump has great words, we need better ones.

ENOUGH WITH THE KISSING.   

I don't mean enough talking about it, or reporting on it.   First lady Michelle Obama spoke for ALL the single and married ladies yesterday when she basically told America that HE WHO SHE WOULD NOT NAME was making her physically sick.  But even as she explained how sick she felt about it, Michelle the FOB (Friend of Beyonce) reinforced why it IS important to keep talking about it.  We all MUST keep truthing it.    Like Don the Good Lemon said last night to one of the Trumpster fires who was on his show trying to argue that the Putin-leaked Podesta risotto story was a more important election topic than HIS sexual assault rap sheet, NO.  It's an important national conversation, which we all need to have.  Shut up, cut to commercial.  

When I say ENOUGH with the kissing, I mean the words.   Kissing is a familiar word.  It is a conveniently descriptive word.   It is also HIS word, as in I CAN'T STOP KISSING THEM LIKE A MAGNET or whatever the fuck.   But when used to ACTUALLY describe what HE does to women -- women who are unlucky enough to work for him, sit near him on a plane, or be naked teenagers changing clothes in a dressing room that he stomps into -- it is a WOEFULLY insufficient word.  

You’re reading this and you’re like oh the feminist discourse chix.  UR SO BRAINY AND BORING, SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR.  Always on about the words we use and how they influence culture!  What does it matter?   WE ALL KNOW WHAT WE MEAN.    Imma tell you what.  And you better gird your lady loins, because I’m done with this rapey clown.  In fact, I was done last January, on this very blog.   Words matter.  

When a man forces his RAPE DICK into a woman's body, we don’t call it lovemaking.   OK, lovemaking is a goofy word that I don’t actually even use, because in a lot of real ways, I’m more like an unromantic dude than a romantic gurl.  (I also hate cuddling.  Just roll over and grab me a beer).   But fine, forget that word: Rape is ALSO not even called SEX.   For good reason.  If a woman is raped, the reason we don’t say THEY HAD SEX is that sounds consensual.  It sounds almost fun.    It sounds like you just had a nice roll and now you have beer.

Making the love and making the sex is what I think about when I have a glass of wine and my hubby's hair is a little bit messy, or his work shirt is one button open, or his smile is relaxed and lopsided when he looks at me.   Sex is what I might have later -- if the kids ever go to bed, and I haven’t had too much wine, and I am not already asleep on the couch -- because I love him and want to do extra closeup zoomed in bonding.  

Kissing – actual kissing – is soooo fun.  Whenever I fantasize about hooking up with Don Cheadle, we do SO MUCH kissing.  We do some interspersed talking about smart topics, during which we laugh and laugh and appreciate each other's fine wit.  And maybe if I'm into it, we get around to some sexing.  But still, no cuddling.   And mostly, it's kissing.  Because his mouth is nice, and his eyes are sweet pools of the smart man love.   (Also, if my husband is reading this, I never actually fantasize about hooking up with Don Cheadle.    That’s a hypothetical designed to confuse Texas Congressman Blake Farenthold. Carry on.)  

Actual kissing, IRL, is softness, sweetness, and sometimes in the right moment, super sexy mouthiness.
It's what little girls see in Disney movies, all their damn childhoods, when happiness wins and dreams come true.  

   

Actual kissing is nothing like what happened to me at the age of 14, at a Loverboy concert in Wisconsin, when some grown-ass man with a wannabe bandana around his sweaty head stuck his giant tongue into my mouth because I was there.  It felt like I was being choked with a pork tenderloin.   Actual kissing is nothing like what happened to me at 16, at a friend's house, when her 35-year old uncle forcibly opened my mouth with his mouth.   He had big teeth and a Tom Selleck mustache.  It felt like I was being choked with a brillo pad. This is why most women hate the dentist, by the way.  

When HE WHO MICHELLE OBAMA WILL NOT NAME bragged about kissing women, he wasn’t bragging about doing anything that ACTUAL WOMEN or HUMAN PEOPLE actually like about and/or associate with kissing.  He was NOT sexy.  He was NOT soft.  He was HELLA NOT sweet.  He was the opposite of my secret kissing friend, Don Cheadle.  

It was more like mouth rape.  Or mouth assault.  Call it FACE ASSAULT.  IDFC what we call it.  If the news reported that he FORCED HIS MOUTH OVER THEIR MOUTHS, or FORCED HIS TONGUE INTO THEIR MOUTHS that would sound like a lot of words.  But it would be more accurate than HE KISSED THEM.  And also, they have 24 hours of news coverage to get done.  They need extra words, anyway.  

PS, the same goes for hugging, by the way.  GIVE HIM A HUG, HONEY?  Isn't that what the bus turds said, to the woman who was sent to fetch them?    I think what you mean is move your body over here so we can inappropriately grope you.  Gross.  

Words matter.  Can we use better ones?