The Guardian has a story today about some words getting booted out of the dictionary because no one uses them anymore. Words like “drysalter,” “aerodrome,” and “charabanc.” This one caught the eye of a couple of hundred “Savage Love” readers (Slog tipper credits for everybody!):
Other words on the list include “wittol“—a man who tolerates his wife’s infidelity, which has not been much used since the 1940s.
Hm. I’m not sure we can save that word. If it’s pronounced like whittle, which I’m guessing it would have to be, that would make for one very confusing verb/noun homonym. Which may be why it fell out of use in the first place. So honestly, gang, saving “wittol” may be beyond the powers of even my readers, the same folks responsible for creating and popularizing “santorum,” “pegging,” and “diamondbacking.”
But it seems to me that we could use a word for a guy who tolerates his wife’s infidelities. A cuckold, in its current and fully fetishized usage, is a man who gets off on his wife fucking other men. So what do we call a man who doesn’t get a kick out of his wife’s infidelities but who endures or puts up with them if not wittol?
Suggestions?
@ 49 – That is indeed the real meaning of cuckold (sorry Dan, it’s back to the dictionary for you), and that’s precisely why it’s used for a particular fetish.
The cuckold fetish is not about the enjoyment your derive from your wife being fucked by another man, but about the enjoyment you derive from the HUMILIATION brought about by knowing your wife is being fucked by another man.
As for the teabaggers, I find it so amusingly ironic. I always picture them with a scrotum on their forehead.
@47: I see what you mean but there is a middle ground. Someone might enjoy the freedom of a non-monogamous relationship, and put up with their partner’s non-monogamy as the price they pay for their own non-monogamy. In such a case, they might not celebrate or encourage it, but they still go along with it for the benefits it gives them.
@49: In fairness, it was mostly people making fun of the tea partiers who called them ‘teabaggers.’
As far as neologisms go, poly people sometimes use the word ‘compersion’ to mean the enjoyment they get from their partner’s pleasure (the opposite of sexual jealousy).
We’ve had a word for this for quite some time: “Doormat”
How about tolerant of wifes ever-present lover(s). Towel
Ditto on 21. Cuckold is not how Dan uses, no matter how much I like Savage Love. And I do. Very much.
What kind of subhuman bastards don’t use ‘charabanc’?
@ 45 – Thank you for being the sole voice of reason so far. My husband is secure enough in his masculinity and in our marriage that he doesn’t need a complete monopoly on my body, nor does he feel the least bit diminished if I get some ass on the side. He’s certainly not a putz, a towel, or a beta – quite the opposite. And when either of us swings, whether alone or together, it’s not something we “tolerate” but something we celebrate. I like it when my partner feels good and I like knowing other women get hot for my man. I think he gets something similar out if it when I step out. After all, I always come home to him and he knows it.
Aman like that is just plain stupid… no need for another word to describe him… divorce that fucking cunt!!!
How about schmuckhold?
@53: There was plenty of rhetoric coming from the teabaggers themselves about “teabag the liberals” or “teabag Obama.” Google image search is instructive in this regard.
There’s a standard term for this in (of course) French: “mari complaisant.” A woman who’s okay with her husband sleeping around is a “femme complaisante.”