We’ve long known that the Swedes do pretty much everything better when it comes to sex. They actually believe that comprehensive early sex education is important, and they even have impressively low rates of teen pregnancy and STDs to back up this crazy “theory.” And they even invented a gender neutral pronoun, hen.
But this time, they’ve really outdone themselves. The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (known as RFSU over there) is holding a national competition to find a better term for female masturbation. “When it comes to masturbation, people mostly think about just men doing it and we don’t think of it as common for women,” says RSFU rep Kristina Ljungros. “If we don’t have a word in the language, how can we even talk about it?”
And she means a real word, one that respects the act as much as men respect their own me-time — not some old-school term that is steeped in frat-boy humor or sexism or shame (or all three). And the search was specifically for a single word — not a phrase or analogy. The organization first held an open competition seeking nominations, and then narrowed the entries down to the following 34 terms. And it turns out that you don’t need to speak a word of Swedish to appreciate how much better they are than anything currently in vogue…
- Pulla
- Klittra
- Vibba
- Fittra
- Muffa
- Runka
- Scrolla
- Slirva
- Filla
- DJ:a
- Lippa
- Smicka
- Jingla
- Rilla
- Gniffa
- Fibba
- Hattla
- Onka
- Glimsa
- Fappa
- Rappla
- Mippa
- Viggla
- Selfa
- Jaxa
- Klira
- Laba
- Mimma
- Ryttla
- Ponka
- Stimla
- Klimra
- Rullva
- Glitsa
The RFSU ultimately narrowed the above list down to five finalists, using feedback from Swedish voters, and will choose the winner from these five — to be announced in June 2015.
1. Klittra
2. Pulla
3. Runka
4. Scrolla
5. Selfa
In the meantime, we thought we’d give you, dear readers — both Swedish and non-Swedish readers alike — the opportunity to vote on your own favorite, from the five finalists:
