The Last Word On Nothing | A Modest Proposal for Re-Naming Connectors and Fasteners

Here’s a thing I hate: calling plugs and ports “male” and “female.” In case you’ve never heard of this before, the terms are applied like this: things that plug are called “male” and things that receive those plugs are called “female.”

So, a nut is female. A bolt is male. Your headphones have a male end and that plugs into the “female” hole in your phone or computer. LEGO toy bricks are considered “male” on top and “female” below.

To sweeten the deal, when you connect a “male” and “female” pair it’s called “mating.” The Wikipedia page that explains these terms is titled “gender of connectors and fasteners” which is extra annoying because sex and gender are not the same thing. Wikipedia also helpfully explains that “the assignment is a direct analogy with genitalia and sexual intercourse,” in case it wasn’t clear to you already.

There are also plugs that allow two pieces of the same gender to connect. These are called “gender bender” and “gender mender” connectors. There are also things that people call “hermaphroditic connectors” because they have both “male” and “female” elements in a single unit. These are sometimes called “genderless connectors” or even worse “bisexual connectors” because apparently nobody who names electronics ever took a gender studies or human sexuality class in college.

I’ve always hated these terms. I really see no reason why my electronics need to not only confuse sex and gender so frequently, but then use those confused terms to describe pieces of hardware. So I recently decided to start (with the help of some friends) a running list of alternative options for these things. Some of these are ridiculous, some of them I think are workable. So without further ado, here’s a brief illustrated guide to re-naming connectors. I’d love to hear your ideas too.

Worm & Apple