4 Aug 2014

Female equivalent of virile?

Posted by Teresa Noelle Roberts

19th century photo of a strong man, bare chested and sporting an impressive mustache

Not the first image that came up when I looked for “virile,” but the most entertaining.

 

A friend used the word virile in conversation the other day. That led us to rack our brains to try to think of a female equivalent of virile. The Oxford definition of the word is “(Of a man) having strength, energy, and a strong sex drive,” and when you say a man is virile, it’s almost always a compliment. We couldn’t come up with a female equivalent that celebrated sexuality and sex drive. Womanly is the literal equivalent; virile derives from an old French word meaning, simply, “characteristic of a man.” But you don’t necessarily think of a womanly woman as being lusty. Curvy, maybe.  Mature and emotionally strong, perhaps. A good mother, maybe. But not all that and lusty too. And all the words we could come up with that encompassed female lust weren’t traditionally positive. Slutty can be an endearment in the right context, but it’s still a loaded word, and it doesn’t convey another of the other positive qualities associated with being a female human.

 

Cover of the book "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding,"depicting a woman nursing an infant.

For “womanly,” you get breastfeeding or generic beauty in the first tier of image hits.

The reason we couldn’t come up with a word seems obvious enough: self-aware sexuality and a strong sex drive weren’t, and in many circles, still aren’t, considered positive attributes for women in this culture. Does anyone know of a language in which there’s a female equivalent of virile, positive lustiness and all? For that matter, are we missing one in English?

Athlete Serena Williams looking muscular and lovely.

Serena Williams also popped up in the image search. Doesn’t she deserve an adjective that encompasses curvy, strong, sexy, sexual, and proud?

 

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9 Responses to “Female equivalent of virile?”

  1. Why not claim virility for both sexes? “Having strength, energy, and a strong sex drive” applies to people of either gender. There are many ways for a person to be powerful and sexual power is among them. In some cultures, sexually powerful women are so feared, there isn’t even a word to describe them, as you have noticed. Personally, I think saying “she’s pretty virile” would be completely acceptable way of describing such a woman and wouldn’t necessarily imply she is masculine. In Spanish, there are words to describe this: “macho” and “hembra.” These mean “male” and “female” and are usually applied to animals are gender-specific objects (i.e., clothing). But “macho” and “hembra” also encompass strength, power and sexuality when applied to people. Our culture has reduced “macho” to a goofy, malevolent caricature, while “hembra,” its healthy female counterpart, is totally unknown. “Eres muy hembra,” in the right time and place, may be a great, respectful way to compliment a woman.

     

    Martin Severiano Johncox

  2. I ran across the word, muliebral. Muliebrity denotes womanly nature or qualities.
    It doesn’t roll off the tongue or sound particularly sexy.
    I had been looking for a word for healthy feminine juiciness and lustiness that is equivalent to the way virility implies male sexuality.

     

    Lliam

  3. I agree with Teresa about the reason why there are no positive words in our language for describing female virility. Any positive words that ever existed were eventually turned demeaning, as if all women who enjoy sex are whores. How screwed up is that? What in the world could be wrong with feminine virility and the idea of a woman who loves her body and loves to be f**ked?

    I’ve known healthy, well adjusted women who deliberately embraced such words as slut, strumpet, floozy, hussy, tart, trollop, vamp, and minx just to say F you to the chauvinist mindset that stigmatizes healthy women.

     

    Lliam

  4. Thanks for commenting, Lliam. It’s definitely a quandary. I’ll use slut, etc., in a positive manner in the right context–either with a character who embraces the edginess or among friends who get what I mean. But the history of those words are so laden, and so many women have had them used as weapons against them that it’s very context-dependent.

    Muliebrity just doesn’t have a ring to it, though I like the idea of it.. 🙂

     

    Teresa Noelle Roberts

  5. Very insightful looking forwards to coming back. http://bit.ly/2f0xJ92

     

    New healthy man

  6. Thank you for this thread! It’s sad, but at least I’m not alone in my search.

    We need a new word! And we can do it. I’m going to use female virility for now. I’m writing about a romantic heterosexual couple and I’m saying: “We were young, in our early 40’s and strong, beautiful in so many ways, idealistic, energetic, virile, supple, and deeply attracted to each other.”

     

    Alex

  7. Alex, I like that. 🙂

     

    Teresa Noelle Roberts

  8. I too was hoping “virile” could be used to describe a woman. I wanted to describe the heated “virile” soprano line that is played in a fiery duet with the bass line of a Scarlatti sonata. Then I found your site and this discussion; I like the word hembra mentioned above. It has the right ring (for me) of power and lustiness and the advantage of the word’s implicit gender.

     

    Russell Meyer

  9. I’m a few years late to the discussion here, but think that muliebricious makes that soft, feminine root word a little more lucious, fun, positive, and energized.

     

    Steph

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