4 Aug 2014
Female equivalent of virile?
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.
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?
Serena Williams also popped up in the image search. Doesn’t she deserve an adjective that encompasses curvy, strong, sexy, sexual, and proud?
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
March 14th, 2016 at 11:41 AMpermalink
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
November 2nd, 2016 at 8:27 PMpermalink
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
November 2nd, 2016 at 8:47 PMpermalink
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
November 3rd, 2016 at 6:07 PMpermalink
Very insightful looking forwards to coming back. http://bit.ly/2f0xJ92
New healthy man
November 11th, 2016 at 5:35 PMpermalink
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
November 3rd, 2017 at 9:05 AMpermalink
Alex, I like that. 🙂
Teresa Noelle Roberts
November 3rd, 2017 at 7:21 PMpermalink
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
September 1st, 2018 at 4:32 AMpermalink
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
March 4th, 2019 at 11:48 PMpermalink