I’m 32, the only time I’ve ever heard “balling” to refer to sex was in The People vs Larry Flynt.
The most common use of it I’ve heard in the last 20 years has been someone who’s good at basketball.
I don’t like rap and haven’t actively listened to it in years, but I’ve still heard rappers use it a million times to mean the first Urban Dictionary definition “To be exceedingly fly, hip, deck, cool, what have you.” I could certainly believe that it has pushed out the sexual meaning for the younger generation. I think “pimp” is going the same route, it often just means “cool” now, or perhaps “with style”. In ten years they’ll be making her a shirt that says “Pimpin’ her way to the top” and the kids will think we’re crazy for finding it inappropriate.
Vaguely aware of its sexual connotations, (wm, 33) but not a term I would use and does sound a bit dated. I would associate it with sex rather then sport, but sex is the closest I get to sport so…
It was popular in the 80’s or so, not so much since.
I guess I’m old because I think of sex and Little Richard. While I am surprised that today’s youth don’t know that meaning I shouldn’t be. After all, rock and roll is no longer considered a euphamism for sex.
The sexual meaning was very common when I was a teenager, but I haven’t heard it used that way in two-three decades. Not surprised a young teacher wouldnt know it, and certainly the kids wouldn’t. It’s the grandparents more likely to raise eyebrows than the parents.
I’m 32, and while I don’t think anyone my age would (unironically) use “balling” to mean “sex” I am surprised that several people around my age have said they’ve never heard this usage before. It’s dated, but I wouldn’t consider it particularly obscure…at least among adults. That teenagers would be unfamiliar with this usage I could believe, although it would surprise me very much if no one in the class had snickered over the fact that “ball” can be used to mean “testicle”.
FWIW I just checked the OED and the most recent quote they have listed for “balling” in the sexual sense is from the 1997 novel The House of Sleep. So that’s when I was a teenager but before many of today’s high school students were even born.
As for “Good Golly Miss Molly”, according to the OED “balling” was used to mean participating in a ball (as in a dance) through the 19th century* and to enjoy oneself or “have a ball” into the mid-20th century. While the term was being used in a sexual manner by the time “Good Golly Miss Molly” was recorded and Little Richard presumably knew this, when he sang “You sure like to ball” this was probably taken by many listeners (especially older people) to mean that Miss Molly liked to dance or have fun.
*From the 1688 play A Fool’s Preferment: “Sir, I hope you’ll stay till the next Ball be past however. / Not I: I have been Balling on’t too long,…wasting all my Substance.” Or maybe that one is about sex.
And from that it went to mean someone who is kicking ass at something.
Obviously. That’s how he was able to get away with it.
Yes, that’s what I just said.
Yes, since the term “rock and roll” apparently originated from early 1900s African American slang for having sex, I think that Little Richard was aware of the sexual implications but trying to avoid being too explicit for the culture at the time.
Anyway, to answer the poll, I was aware of the term “balling” as having sex in additon to being aware of the more recent use of the term to mean something is cool. I don’t recall where I first learned of it, but I know I had heard of its use in songs like this and the Led Zeppelin song.
(Search Fu on, once safely away from work computer)
Evidently it made an impression:D:
“Balling Babysitter” - John Kellerman, Author; Diary Novels (1980), Greenleaf Classics Inc.
It very much did. All the girls were giggling about it. Not my first encounter with dirty books (that honor goes to my mom’s copy of Delta of Venus), but my first encounter with flat out porn of a verbal nature.
Yea, this is the first thing I thought of after reading the OP.
OT, but I swear I have that whole damn album memorized. After reading your post, I instantly heard, “The first word in this song is ‘discorporate.’ It means to leave your body” in my head.
It did indeed, as did “jazz” and “jelly roll.”
Jelly roll meant vulva.
I won’t disagree with you, but in Look Homeward, Angel, the protagonist ends up on “the wrong side of the tracks” one night, and a young lady there offers him “Jel-ly roll, jel-ly roll!”
In that context, it’s pretty clear that “jelly roll” is a synonym for sex, the same way someone might be offered “pussy” today.
Pussy also means vulva. Offering that, of course, is the same as offering sex but both words are slang for female genitals and not the act itself. She wouldn’t say “lick my sex” but the other two words would fit there.
Other than being 35, this.
Back before the internet, all porn was on paper. There were still pics, and books you read to see porn in your mind.
Kids today have no idea what a hardship it was. But they’ll never find a box of Playboy magazines abandoned in a lot either.