Pillow talk: Pet names that shame
Britons’ top term of endearment is the one women most despise, writes Hannah Betts.
SHOCK NEWS from the world of sugar coatings: according to a survey by the sex toy retailer Lovehoney, the dismal ‘‘babe’’ has usurped ‘‘darling’’ as the pet name for paramours in the UK.
A third of Britons are said to use babe or baby; one in eight favour love or lovely; a mere 10th resort to darling; while sweetie, sweetheart and gorgeous bring up the rear.
Other top 10 handles in a poll of presumed English speakers include ‘‘cuddles’’, ‘‘pudding’’ and – brace yourself – ‘‘stinky’’.
This is rather confusing, as not six months ago the same publication to announce these findings reported babe to be women’s most detested monicker, along with the positively paedo ‘‘baby girl’’ and ‘‘baby doll’’, and not so delectable ‘‘pudding’’ and ‘‘pumpkin’’.
Sweetcheeks, snookums and muffin were also out. However, ‘‘gorgeous’’, ‘‘beautiful’’ and ‘‘lovely’’ were deemed socially acceptable.
Or perhaps it is not in the least confusing for, as marriage itself teaches us, something that is familiar may also be despised. In this context, one notes that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s pet names for one another are rumoured to be Babykins and Big Willie.
There is something resolutely stomach-turning about the moment when such epithets make the transition from pillow to public.
Recently I encountered a woman who referred to her husband as Snuggle Muffin loudly, stridently and possessively.
Many will view the ascendancy of babe, in particular, with consternation. Apparently it took flight, in a more snarling context, with Bob Dylan ( It Ain’t Me Babe), lately gaining currency as banal sadist Christian Grey’s sign-off in Fifty Shades of Grey.
Sloppy, Americanised, fundamentally infantilising – being addressed in such terms surely constitutes a punching offence, no safe word allowed.
It is testament to society’s confusion of the roles of lover, child and sibling, where the young are prematurely sexualised, adults irredeemably infantilised.
Still, I have an issue even being addressed by my own name. It feels reprimanding, while, in an erotic context, a tad too ‘‘Top marks to me for remembering it’’. ‘‘Betts’’ is reserved for friends, ‘‘darling’’ for thespians, and ‘‘sweetheart’’ for my father.
Pet names and diminutives invariably prove testing. Muriel Schulz’s 1975 essay The Semantic Derogation of Women charts the way in which female designations inevitably descend into sexual slurs, whether originating as neutral (those indicating kinship, say) or endearments (such as nymph, doll, peach).
And then, of course, there is the ever vexing issue of the politically modish term with which to refer to one’s significant other.
The only individuals who appear entirely happy with husband and wife are gay men and lesbians for whom it serves as a convenient abbreviation for: ‘‘Stuff you, society at large, for not letting me have a husband or wife.’’
‘‘Partner’’ is too corporate, while a friend tells me that she has resorted to the appositional ‘‘This is X, my person’’, or Glaswegian ‘‘This is my man/woman’’ – the latter striking me as a tad Neanderthal in the manner of, ‘‘This is my luh-ver’’.
That said, I am so emotionally stunted that I was wont to refer to said individual/s with the overliteral Person I am Currently Sleeping With. I am, needless to add, currently single.