Hurts So Good

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, my name is Joni. I’m calling from Juneau, Alaska.

Welcome.

Thank you. Well, I listened to your show and I thought I would ask this question.

If there is not a word in the English language for this, I think there should be.

And it has to do with, I’m a massage therapist and I have asked my clients if they could help me with this.

Finding a term for that feeling of, you could express as, it feels so good.

That feeling when you’re getting a massage and someone gets in there and says, right there, oh, that’s it.

What is a term for that feeling?

So is it the relief or is it the pleasure that kind of follows the pain of a massage?

Which one is it?

Both? A little bit of all of it?

I think of it as, I can tell you the word that I came up with.

Okay.

Go ahead.

And that it’s more of the term for the sensation itself, and I call it sense anguish.

Sense anguish.

So a little bit of pain and a little bit of sensuality, is that what we’re talking about here?

I guess the sense part just has to do with the fact that it is a feeling.

I see.

But it’s kind of, it hurts so good.

Actually, I can tell you that one of my massage clients did come up with something that she has used over the last couple of years.

And she calls it a hootsugu.

She turned it into a noun and said, oh, that’s a hootsugu, which is short for hurts so good.

Hootsugu.

I like that.

It sounds like something you’d find in Alaska, too.

Yeah, a little furry mammal, right, that’s very nice to cuddle with.

Hootsugu.

Well, I can go with that.

Interesting.

I like them both.

Hoots of Goose got a particular kind of cute flavor to it.

And most people that I ask, they always say,

They make some kind of a grunting sound.

You know, I’m looking for something we can spell

And maybe even look up in the dictionary one day.

Okay.

What is the name for that?

You’d think there would be a combination of Greek words like hedonalgia or something.

Yeah, that’s what I would expect.

Hedonism and then algae, hedonalgia.

For pleasure and pain put together.

I don’t see anything like that.

You know, Joni, I think your words are as good as any.

Hootsie goo and sinsanguish.

We might have to ask all of our listeners who either get body work or are massage therapists themselves.

Maybe they have a term for this besides just a groan of pleasure or a joan of pleasure.

So this is the feeling that you get, the relief that you get from having just the right perfect spot massaged.

Yeah, I’m thinking.

Or identified.

Or identified.

Yes, thank you very much. I appreciate hearing what people come up with.

Okay.

Thanks, Joni.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Take care.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your ideas for Joni to words@waywordradio.org.