# Baseball metaphors for sex - what do other countries use? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2011, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979 "2011-07-14T05:07:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/41 "2011-07-15T02:32:26Z")
> [@Tibbytoes](#): > > Does this mean I’m mistaken in my long held assumption that Brits mine their venerated English Tiddlywinks Association’s list of winking terminology for their vulgar sexual conquest euphemisms? I just took it for granted… Hah! Just found it. From Finnegans Wake, p. 583, as Finnegan and the Mrs. (so-called) go at it. From here on cricket terms also begin and continue another page till they climax (not posted). Here she reaches under her legs to tickle the wicked/wicket batter’s balls: _… her duffed coverpoint of a wickedy batter, whenever she 34 druv behind her stumps for a tyddlesly wink through his tunnil- 35 clefft bagslops as she …_ It must be mentioned that Joyce furiously considered himself an Irish, not English, writer. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/42 "2011-07-15T03:04:36Z")
> [@bup](#): > > What’s second base for gay men? Same as for straight men: touching bare skin on the chest area. Feeling up a guy’s pecs. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/43 "2011-07-15T06:14:42Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I’m so glad the new GLBT generation is more into sports terminology than when I was younger. We didn’t have pitchers and catchers; we had “active” or “passive” “french” or “greek” . . . which is actually more descriptive, when you think about it. Which is French and which is Greek? (And, uh… why? Didn’t the actual French couplings still use one of each, and same for the old Greeks?) ---
**Author:** ![11811](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/9d8465/32.png) [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/44 "2011-07-16T23:29:26Z")
There was a thread on the SDMB (perhaps lost) detailing variations, including “selling the team to Minneapolis.” ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/45 "2011-07-17T08:51:36Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Which is French and which is Greek? (And, uh… why? Didn’t the actual French couplings still use one of each, and same for the old Greeks?) French = oral, Greek = anal. And each can be either “active” or “passive.” ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/46 "2011-07-17T17:30:58Z")
I know of no commonly used metaphors in Norwegian. The conversation would instead go something like this: “Did you do her?” “No, we just fooled around” and if further detail is desired it’ll be metaphorless. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/47 "2011-07-17T18:42:27Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I’ve heard from a (precocious?) 15-year old that the baseball thing was passé, and what to say is what f: French, finger, fellate, fuck. It is less iconic, more abstract, but does make up for it in building a child’s vocabulary (assuming that the etymology of the terms is not lost). See, if we’re using only “F” words, I know it as “french, fondle, finger, fuck.” I suspect that third base as manual stimulation (and by implication, the whole metaphor) dates to a time before oral sex was as commonplace or socially acceptable as it is today. ---
**Author:** ![BleizDu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@BleizDu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BleizDu)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/48 "2011-07-18T07:23:51Z")
There is no equivalent system/gradual scale in French that I know of, and I was confused for years about what exactly their meanings were when I read about it in passing in novels. Equivalent words exist, but not a whole coherent system based around one metaphor. 2nd base would be “peloter” IMO. It comes from the pelote/jeu de paume game, some kind of tennis ancestor, played by hand at first. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2011, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/49 "2011-07-18T13:37:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > To hopefully clarify more than that XKCD does: If one kisses a member of the opposite sex, one is said to have made it to first base. If there is fondling of breasts, that’s second base. Third base is non-intercourse contact with genitals, and a home run is full-on sex (of course, there is considerable variation in the precise meaning of all of these but the home run, but that’s the general idea). The metaphor can of course be extended, but most extensions of the metaphor, you’re going to just have to explain your literal meaning anyway (the extended metaphors in the XKCD strip are in no way standard). Thank you! I was never clear on what the bases meant when they were mentioned in US movies and such. Now I know (yeah, I guess I could have looked it up). ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/50 "2011-07-21T13:58:36Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > This American uses “pulling the goalie” to describe a certain unreliable method of birth control. I always called that, “Leaving during the fourth quarter.” And that’s the only American football term I’ve ever heard for sex. Never heard anyone talking about getting a touchdown, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/51 "2011-07-21T15:08:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > To hopefully clarify more than that XKCD does: If one kisses a member of the opposite sex, one is said to have made it to first base. If there is fondling of breasts, that’s second base. Third base is non-intercourse contact with genitals, and a home run is full-on sex (of course, there is considerable variation in the precise meaning of all of these but the home run, but that’s the general idea). Thank you, I’d actually been thinking of asking someone to explain that for months but never got around to it. The only soccer-related metaphor I can recall right now re. sex is “una boda de penalty”, “a penalty wedding” being one where the “goal” of marriage has been achieved barring unusual circumtances - i.e., the bride is pregnant (again: penalty not in the sense of punishment, which most people don’t even know to be the English-language meaning of “penalty”, but in the sense that scoring from a penalty shot is easiest yet not sure, and so is getting a baby once a woman is already pregnant). I know other metaphors related to other sports but can only recall one: the space between anus and vagina/balls is called “el frontón” (the jai-alai wall) as “it is what the penetrator’s balls bang against”. Where I come from and 30 years ago, we called kissing kissing, I never knew any specific descriptor to differentiate a “groping session with breasts or genitals being fondled” from one where hands stayed away from them (it was “un lote”; if it lasted a long time/was particularly good it got upgraded to “un lotazo”), fucking was fucking (follar, for anybody who’s interested; we normally used follar rather than joder, perhaps because this one is used as a curseword and follar isn’t), oral sex was seen as “advanced materials” (a fifth base if you wish; several friends of mine had and/or gave it for the first time after being married) and anal between heterosexuals wasn’t even in our vocabulary. Current teens have moved oral to be more or less on pair with vaginal and know about heterosexual anal (no idea how likely they’re to actually practice it), but fucking is still fucking, no need for euphemisms. Oh, and since they came up: in Spanish a French is a BJ. What’s called a French kiss in English is a “beso de tornillo”; “screw kiss” (as in the noun meaning “twirly nail”, not as in the verb meaning “to have sex”). This can make misstranslations quite strange, I remember some fragment from a movie or TV series where a girl’s parents were all outraged because “you were giving that guy a French!” when all they’d been doing was kiss - if they were that irate over a mere kiss, imagine if she’d been giving him a blowjob in their front porch for real… ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/52 "2011-07-21T16:06:10Z")
Point of order: American English never uses “a French” as a noun. The noun is always “French kiss”. “French” can be used by itself as a verb, though (“I saw John and Mary Frenching”, or whatever). ---
**Author:** ![SmithCommaJohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@SmithCommaJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmithCommaJohn)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/53 "2011-07-21T16:18:59Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > This American uses “pulling the goalie” to describe a certain unreliable method of birth control. I’ve never heard that one. I’ve only ever heard “pull and pray” ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/54 "2011-07-21T17:11:57Z")
> [@SmithCommaJohn](#): > > I’ve only ever heard “pull and pray” Leading to “Pray and Spray.” ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979/55 "2011-07-21T17:19:25Z")
The OP’s very question was addressed on an episode of _King of the Hill_, when Hank asked Kahn what the terms are in Laos. Unfortunately I don’t remember the answer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-metaphors-for-sex-what-do-other-countries-use/588979.md?page=2)