NEW YORK – In a recent column for Glamour, sex therapist Emily Morse responded to a letter from a reader who said she’d like to talk dirty in bed but doesn’t want to “sound like a porn star” when doing so.

“I have no idea how to talk dirty,” wrote “Marci,” a 27-year-old from parts unknown. “Normally I’d say how great he feels inside of me, tell him to put his hands here or there, but I get stuck after this. I don’t want to sound like a porn star, but I do want him to be turned on from what I say. What can I say besides this to turn him on that isn’t too intense?”

Morse replied with a series of general, commonsense tips, such as “Don’t worry too much about how you sound or what you say at the beginning – the fact that you’re trying is already turning him on” and “to sound more natural, focus on something that’s happening in the moment” and the like.

Morse’s tips are reasonable enough, I suppose, but I can’t help but think her advice isn’t too helpful to Marci, who seems to be fishing for more concrete, specific ideas.

Since Morse didn’t address Marci’s question directly, I will. Marci, if you really don’t want to sound like a porn star, below are some phrases you should avoid, along with reasons why you should avoid them, as well as some narrow circumstances in which you might go ahead and say them.

Don’t tell him your “ass juice tastes so good” while sucking his cock.

I hear women in porn say stuff like this a lot, and as porn-claims go, it’s simply not credible. For starters, it’s something which makes no sense at all to say unless you’ve just performed ass-to-mouth, which unless you really are a porn star, you most likely haven’t.

Plus, it’s just a strange thing to assert, given the very nature of buttholes and dicks. If I had just pulled my cock out of a vat of strawberry cream cheese and put it in a woman’s mouth, I might believe my cock tastes “so good” at that point. But when it has been freshly pulled out of her asshole? No way. My assumption is my cock tastes a little gamey at best and literally “like shit” at worst, in such circumstances.

Never refer to yourself as a “cum bucket.”

Even if I want a woman to pretend she’s turned on by me ejaculating in (or reasonably near) her mouth, I still don’t want her to compare herself to a bucket as she does so. Of all the things I associate with buckets, like mopping the floor, painting a house or projectile-vomiting after a night of heavy drinking, none of them are things I want to think about right before I cum. Instead, try referring to yourself as a “cum slut,” “spunk doll” or “filthy, nasty, cum-sucking super-whore.”

Abstain from asking absurd rhetorical questions.

In porn, you hear women ask the most obvious questions sometimes, like “Do you like how I’m sucking your cock?” or “Is my asshole nice and tight for you?” Trust me, if the answer to the former isn’t “yes,” you’re going to know before you get the chance to ask, because you’ll hear the guy squeal something like “The teeth! Watch it with the teeth!” And if the answer to the latter is no, then you probably are a porn star, and thus needn’t concern yourself with not wanting to sound like one.

Context matters.

As referenced in the advice about discussing the taste of your partner’s cock, there are certain circumstances in which otherwise very pleasing dirty-talk is baffling rather than arousing. For example, unless you’re engaged in a three-way with your male partner and another woman, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to ask things like “Doesn’t her pussy taste good?” or “Which of us do you want to fuck first?”

Clearly, in a standard one-on-one sexual encounter, saying these things will just make your partner think you’re nuttier than a PayDay bar. Sure, he’ll still happily fuck you – but I wouldn’t count on him responding to your texts in the days ahead.

I hope this helps Marci and other readers navigate the tricky waters of dirty talk. Check back in next time when I answer the important question “How worried should I be about my husband being alone with our babysitter – and should I be more concerned if she shows up for work accompanied by a film crew?”

Image © Silviu Daniel Tataru.