Meandering through XKCD I came across this gem and I got to wondering, are there similar metaphors for high schoolers in cultures not interested in baseball?
I mean, in a soccer-oriented country there’s always Sc-o-o-o-ore!! but that’ll come up maybe once in your high school career, if you’re lucky. What do you use to euphemise all the canoodling around that happens before that?
With cultural contamination there may be now, but when I was in high school in 80s South Africa, we did not use baseball or any other metaphors.
Really? So it was “I fingered Susie Jenkins on Friday night” or “I got to play with her nipples”?
It sounded sexier in Afrikaans
Fair enough. It’s sometimes shocking to hear how different cultures can be.
Interesting site, Omar but the entries there are all active verbs. I was thinking more of the breathless inquiries by folk who have not yet done much, if anything.
“So, after the prom was over did you [euphemism] (with) her?”
What about non-USA cultures where baseball is popular? Do they use the same metaphors in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, or Japan?
Long ago in Australia, it was just ‘petting’ and ‘heavy petting’ and ‘I had my hand…’
Never date a veterinary student. People might misunderstand when you say you euphemised her.
Winner! 
It seems to me if you date a veterinary student you’re the one in danger of being euphemised.
“Hey! can I practice what I learned in school this week?”
“Ummm.”
Not euphemised. Neutered or spayed.
Not directly on topic, but you may be interested to know that prom itself is a distinctly American thing. Since moving to Europe, my wife and I have been asked more than once if the whole prom phenomenon seen in American movies actually happens or is a Hollywood fiction.
It’s creeping into British schools now, along with 6 year olds ‘graduating’ in full cap and gown. It makes me very glad I left school (we don’t ‘graduate’ from school) a long time ago.
Most non-American cultures are not prudish enough to have to invent a euphemism for a kiss even amongst friends.
Not in Japan. I was told as a 20 year old that they used A, B, C. Checking, it was apparently used then but my friend in his 50s said who know what “them kids” say these days.
Direct kiss and tell was considered crass when I was in high school. It was more along the lines of:
“So. Sally. Friday night. [questioning look]?”
[Big grin, raised eyebrows]
“Really?”
[smug nodding]
“Woah!”
So what are the bases, anyway? What’s first base? Just snogging?
I don’t recall anyone using any euphemisms for anything except ‘going all the way’ in the UK. We just snogged and groped, if we talked about it at all.