Good girl

Much has been written about this phrase, some of it by me.

It’s not something I’ve ever said easily, and the impulse to say (or type) it is one I’ve only developed over the last year or two, with the substantial help of one or two women in particular, who, to hear them tell it, would fairly quiver on hearing or reading the words. Or even simply “GG.”

I rarely speak the words aloud. Doing so feels trite, almost silly. A few times, I forced myself to growl it into a woman’s, ear, always to great effect. But it always has felt just a little… unnatural.

That said, I’m pretty fully sold on its use in email or text. Somehow, not having to speak it, to be seen and heard while saying it, liberates me, and nowadays, I sprinkle it liberally (though, of course, only when earned) throughout various virtual interactions. Almost always to (virtual) great effect.

I’m ambivalent about it, but have come to enjoy at least typing it, if not speaking it.

But the other day, after the snarky Luna complied with some or other request of mine, I replied, “Good girl,” and for a moment, I thought I’d lost her.

“Don’t call me a good girl. It’s unoriginal and I hate things that are generic,” she wrote. (Oh, snap!)

Well ok.

I’ve written before about my struggle with second-wave feminism and its impact on my ability comfortably to objectify. For the most part, I’m over that particular hurdle.

If you’re hot, I have no qualms about telling you you’re hot; if I want to fuck you, I’ll tell you that. If I want to see your ass, I’ll tell you to turn around, or to bend over, or to take something off. Always politely, respectfully, and often in the form of a question, or a request. But I’ll tell you. And you won’t mistake the form of the communication for its meaning.

But even though I’ll do all this comfortably, you’re still a woman to me, not a girl. A woman with power and agency. If you’re not, if you are a girl, that’s a turn-off. It’s why my appreciation for shaved pussies – greater today than it was when I wrote this – remains ambivalent.

I like women. When a woman submits to me, complies with me, the arousing potency of the act derives from her starting position of power and strength, and not from her assuming a role – the role of the “good girl” – but rather from her departing from her normal ways of interacting, even as she remains a powerful woman. She’s submitting as an expression of her agency, not her helplessness.

This is why I have such a complicated relationship to this expression.

What do you think? Guys, do you say it? Feel it? Mean it? Women, what do you think? How does it make you feel? Why?

2 comments

  1. I’ve gotta say, being told I’m a “good girl” rarely does anything for me. I don’t find it particularly sexy, that is for certain.
    On occasion, every now and then, it can be quite nice but generally? Nah, not for me.

  2. A well-placed and passionately uttered good girl might make all the difference to me. But only in the context of BDSM and only from my partner. If it has been a particularly hard scene, with limit pushing and lots of pain application, a “good girl” can hold me back from “sub drop.”

    “Good girl” uttered after I blow him makes me very squirmy and wet.

    Why? I’m not sure. It may be part of my thing for aural stimulation. I love verbal validation and pet names make me whimper. In fact, when he growls the word “baby” it may actually have more of an effect than “good girl.”

    The denotation of both of these words/phrases might make it seem like I enjoy being made to feel like a girl or a child, or somehow less than a woman, but that isn’t true. But it definitely has something to do with validation–of my person, of my sexuality, maybe even of the relationship a bit? Some parts of my sexuality don’t always make sense to me, but I rarely question them.

    However, I am interested in this post.

    Cheers.

    Xoxo

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