They say that Helen's face launched a thousand ships; but no prominence of the female body seems to have inspired as many clichés as the breast. If I were to devote a month to each, we'd still be here next year. The nipple, the areola and the breast entire – each is a busy shipyard whence one overworked simile after another slides down the wordwright's slipway and plummets into the literary ocean. Were I to take this opportunity to dive to the sea-bed and bring forth every barnacle-encrusted treasure, this essay would never get written. And so, to spare you the tedium, I shall reluctantly push my grapefruit aside, and pocket my silver dollar for another month; instead, I shall focus upon that enigmatic point where clichés congregate like nerve-endings, jangling our sensibilities until bodily fluids well unbidden...
How, then, do we convey the essence of the nipple to one who has never enjoyed the felicity of live encounter? How can words recreate its esoteric appeal and present it to the jaded imagination? In my mind, I see the erotic draftsman at his drawing-board, brow furrowed, trawling his experience for the illuminating metaphor, the vivid phrase; and in his desperation, he finds himself chewing the end of his pencil – and eureka!
The phrase “like pencil erasers” finds 701 matches on Google. Of these, nearly 600 have nothing to do with stationery. I did my search a week or so ago – by now, the number will surely have risen. Here's a representative sample:
“...I was completely hairless, and on my chest were two not so small breasts sporting nipples that looked like pencil erasers and aureoles the size of silver ...”
Ah, yes, silver... But let us not be seduced by silver. Instead, iron discipline! – Like a good sentry, I must stick by my post. Nipples or bust!
Now a nipple is clearly not erotic unless it sticks out a good inch or two. And as all students of cliché well know, nothing sticks out like a sore thumb (14,300 Google hits). Is that perhaps why, of the 19 occurrences of “like little thumbs”, no fewer than 15 are applied to nipples? Here's a representative example:
“...than being irritated the wool was now exciting me as it rubbed on my nipples and a quick check confirmed that my nipples had hardened like little thumbs...”
Do your thumbs harden? My sympathy. Or again:
“...My legs looked like they belonged on a fashion runway, not wrestling cruise liners to a stop, and my nipples were still standing up like little thumbs, each of...”
Well, let's taxi on down the fashion runway – our journey is not over yet, and there's plenty else left standing up, poking out or otherwise arresting our attention:
“...complexion. Evan shivered in the cold and his nipples stood out like two dark sentries on a flat plain. He glanced at Orlando uncertainly...”
Is nothing sacred? I shall never be able to see the Changing of the Guard in the same light. Have another:
“...Their perky little pink nipples stood up and out like two sentries standing guard over her mother's milk and I couldn't wait to taste them both...”
“...you're good, very, very good,” moaned Janet, as she arched into the touch of her soulmate's lips on her nipples. ... They stood like sentries guarding a lost secret...”
And even when they're not on sentry-duty, nipples are often to be found standing to attention in the drill-halls of erotica:
“...Her breasts were beautiful, they were rounded just right and the nipples stood to attention as if being inspected by an army officer...”
Not all descriptions can fairly be called clichés, of course. This comes from a web site called Swear word of the day:
“PIGMY'S COCKS – (euph) Big pointy nipples, nipples like a fighter pilot's thumbs, nipples like church hat pegs, nipples like a blind cobbler's thumbs, nipples you could dial a phone with, nipples like pencil erasers, nipples like jeep starter buttons, nipples like a hum-vee's wheel nuts, nipples you could hang wet combat jackets off.”
This leads me to what I think is the strangest of this month's clichés – and perhaps it will not seem so strange to you – the phallic analogy. In my head, I can accept that the engorgement of the nipple might call to mind the far more dramatic reaction of the male body to erotic stimulus. But to me, the image it conjures up is totally bizarre. And there is something inappropriate (not to say repugnant) about describing female arousal as a diminutive version of the male equivalent.
Now I must admit that nipples are not the only beneficiary of the phallic analogy: fingers, toes and tongues all receive their due. Nevertheless, nipples get their fair share. Of “miniature cocks”, nipples get about a third of the seventy Google matches (although it must be added that most of the matches for fingers seem to originate in the same story, replicated in dozens of places on the net). The same goes for “tiny cocks”, but I thought this one particularly choice:
“...I kissed each of them, sucking gently to bring the nipples to their full potential. Her nipples stood out a good inch, hard like tiny cocks...”
“An inch?” I hear you cry. Yes, I'm afraid it's true. There are hundreds of occurrences of nipples “at least an inch long” – here's a specimen:
“...Her areolae were at least three inches across, and sprout- ing from them were nipples as thick as my finger and at least an inch long...”
And for the ne plus ultra:
“...nipples ... About 13 1/2 inches long fitted with 7/16" 24 TPI male nuts at each...”
— That, of course, is from a site specializing in brake pipe overhaul.
Next month: the areola.
Till then, honk honk!
O.
This article evoked some amusing and thought-provoking responses.