Originally posted in 2013, and then updated in 2018 when it came back into the news, Glossophilia is happy to republish one of its most popular posts.

2018 update: The word “cum” is back in the news today, with a censored cake that went viral.

The censored cake / Facebook

*  *  Warning: contains strong language *  * 

Original post in 2013: I was watching Masters of Sex the other night on Showtime, and it struck me that Masters and Johnson were using the word come a lot. And they weren’t meaning the opposite of go. (It didn’t escape my notice that they also seemed to be coming a lot — but that’s another story…) I know these ground-breaking sex researchers of the 1950s and ’60s were famously ahead of their time, but not in their word choices — and their use of this particular piece of sexual terminology sounded weirdly anachronistic to me. I really thought that this word “come” was a more modern invention… Continue reading →