The Next Time You Ladies Masturbate, You Can Refer To It As “Klittra”

As we reported last month, the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education was conducting an exhaustive search for a new word to use when describing female masturbation, and we've got a winner. According to Vice (link below) the new word is "klittra," which is a portmanteau of the words clitoris and glitter.

In an attempt to remove potential taboos, ​RFSU (the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education) this month held a competition and a referendum looking for a new, non-awkward word for female masturbation. The winning word was "klittra" – a mix of the words "klitoris" [clitoris] and "glittra" [glance/glitter].

Will "klittra" make it easier for Swedish girls to talk about the stuff we do with our vaginas? And can anyone come up with a new word for something, just like that? Slightly confused, I called up the linguistic departments of various universities. At Lund University, I got in touch with a linguist who wanted to remain anonymous. Over the phone she explained things to me from a social perspective: "It's the Swedish Language Institute that decides if a word should be listed in the Swedish Academy's Dictionary. Whether it gets there depends on how often the word appears in newspaper articles and modern literature. Also, the Language Institute makes a 'new words list' every year. But most of those words disappear pretty quickly." She also said that it takes many years for a word such as "klittra" to get to the top because it's a "subcultural word and phenomenon." One example of a word that went through a long journey before it was generally accepted is tjej [the modern Swedish word for girl], which was around for 150 years before it was written in dictionaries. :/

Man, nothing says serious journalism quite like emoticons. Well done as always Vice.

Via Vice