Gleefully piercing the dense, spongy mass of confectionary delight, the debutante’s lips hangrily smacked in anticipation. Contracting musculature unnoticed as the cake-bearing fork drifted away from dish toward an eager mouth. The rich, fudgy mass disappears as lips snap shut like a Venus fly trap. Flavors of buttercream frosting and cocoa ganache coalesced. Synapses relayed bioelectric messages. Eyelids shut briefly a the woman grunted in pleasure.

“Never,” the woman started with a pause, “have I tasted anything so wonderfully…moist.”

A deafening silence descended upon the café. Silverware fell upon plates. A glass shattered upon the sun-warmed ground. A cough became a gag. One patron’s lunch erupted in a volcanic display of emesis. One thing led to another and soon the entire establishment was covered in bodily expulsions and tossed cookies.

Tears trailing the downward curvatures of her face, the hostess irrationally screamed, “you just had to use THAT word, didn’t you?”

--

Although fictional, the reactions depicted above aren’t too far off the mark. Scour the 'net for articles focusing on some of the most disgusting, abhorred words in the English language and moist is usually top of the list. Some reasons are valid, I suppose, but the valid reasons usually link to some distaste for bodily function. "Flaccid" evokes visuals of something soft and, well, floppy. "Discharge" typically directs thoughts toward bodily excretions. It’s even fair to say the our “nether regions” might factor into the thought processes as far as the m-word goes.

Seeing as it’s really the evocative allusions of moist that bother most people, let’s refocus our thoughts for a few minutes. There are a great many things that are awesome when moist. You'll see!

Cake, cake, and more cake

I think you get this one. Yeah, we could go with succulent, but I'm perfectly okay describing this cake as moist.

Cookies

Cookies should still be moist when removed from the oven. They should retain some moisture for a day or more, if I have anything to say about it.

Fruity things

Fruit typically gets described as "juicy" rather than "moist," but they shouldn't be dried out for maximum deliciousness. Ya' get me?

Skin

Skin should be moist. Maybe damp, wet, and even succulent, if you're a vampire, but moist is definitely okay here.

Moisturizer

Sorry, I couldn't resist. They don't call it "weturizng" or "jucification" creme, do they? Moist it is.

Bodies of water

Okay, this again me just being ridiculous, so I'll just step away from any explanation here.

Nether regions

Saving this one for last, I want to stress that some things are, or become, moist. It’s a normal physiological response. Depending on whom you talk to, it's a rather pleasant physiological function. Responses to it might have something to do with our attitudes toward modesty, and if we’re reacting with repulsion to a normal – potentially awesome – bodily response, shouldn’t we grow up?

If you have a contributive thought, contribute away. If you have a condemnation of my article, condemn away. Hell, if you want to sit down for a face-to-face conversation, then by all means, let’s do it. Hope you don’t mind if I devour a piece of cake in front of you. With each bite, I’ll exclaim quite emphatically that, “oh, it’s so moist!”