I teach english to adults here and once in a while some students ask expressions that are a bit off the normal dictionaries cover.
I want to know several expressions related to sex, dating and parties. See if I have some terms right.
(It might fall a bit into IMHO… but I thought it more appropiate in general questions.)
Making out: Kissing, light petting, no sex. Usually in parties and maybe people who barely met ? What do you call when people who meet at a party just kiss one another ?
(We use the verb “staying”… meaning it was a one time thing)
Dating: Refers only to “steady” relationships ? How do you say when a man and a woman just go out infrequently and have sex ?
Heavy Petting ?
One thing that really confuses my students is that we have a specific expression for a couple that is only boyfriend and girlfriend (not married couple). I understand that in English they are referred to as “they are Dating” (a verb)… while here we say they are “Namorados” (a noun). Any nouns in english besides couple ?
Any other expressions related to sexual and relationship innuendo ? Please do specify what US region you are from or if your British. Slang is welcome too if its not too uncommon. I might be using some very old expressions... so feel free to correct me.
(2) Where, when, who, doesn’t matter, it’s still making out.
(3) No specific word for this.
(4,6) Dating usually means that the couple isn’t living together. If the relationship is basically just sexual, it’s said that they’re just sleeping together, it’s casual sex, or they are fuckbuddies if you want to be crude. If they are living together or have been involved for a long time, they are said to be a unit, an item, cohabitating, or one of the people may be called the live in boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other (SO) of the other.
(5) Groping, usually with clothes still on.
Other: If one person in a relationship is involved with someone else also, it’s said that they are cheating, having an affair, seeing someone on the side, sleeping around, having extracurricular activities (usually used if the person is a student or teacher, since the phrase normally means a school activity other than normal coursework).
“Canoodling” is a popular word in gossip columns. It means snuggling, kissing, very close conversation in a public place. If a couple are “seeing” each other exclusively, they have become “an item.” If one moves in to the other’s home, they are “living together,” or “shacking up.”
If one spends the night in someone else’s bed with no intent of a long-term relationship, it’s a “one night stand.” The phrase comes from show business, where it meant a single performance by an entertainer before moving on to the next town. If someone makes a succession of one-nighters with different partners, he or she is “bed-hopping,” or “sleeping around.” This is sometimes said with scorn or disapproval. If you want an insulting word for somebody who enthusiastically sleeps around, it’s “slut.” Slut can mean a man or a woman, but usually it’s “slut puppy” for a man.
There are lots of words for “prostitute.” “Hooker, streetwalker, call-girl, tart, whore (often shortened to ho), lady-of-the-evening, and working girl” all mean a woman who has sex for money. Note that “working girl” often also refers to women in legitimate lines of work, too. Most prostitutes are female, but there are men in the field, too. They are called “gigolos,” when their customers are female. I don’t know what to call a male hooker who works with men.
Prostitution is illegal in most of the US, both for the tart and her customer.
When I moved in with ladybug, I sent out an email to close friends and family with the address change info, etc., and a brief, typographically erroneous introduction explaining that she and I were “snacking up.”
And really, I guess it wasn’t completely inaccurate. I got far more replies regarding that phrase than comments about the change in my lifestyle.
Instead of “shacking up,” Catholics seem to love the phrase “living in sin.” Which I’m all for. Both the situation, and the phrase, because it amuses my heathen self to no end.
Anybody can make out. A couple, a husband and wife, two gay men or women, two random people at a party…
Hooking up/Hooked up: refers to either casual sex or heavy petting
Spooning: snuggling together back to front (fit together like two spoons)
In response to “How far did you go?”: 1st Base: Kissing / light petting (over the clothes) 2nd Base: Heavy petting (under the clothes) 3rd Base: Oral sex All the way: intercourse
Fooling around: first or second base
Either they “hooked up” or were just “fooling around”
"Hhhmm… like a 69 lying down ?"
No. One of you lays on his/her side (perhaps as if to sleep) and the other snuggles up behind and assumes the same position. Spooning is a specific kind of snuggling. It’s not necessarily sexual.
"Would you say “making out” when a regular BF/GF couple are kissing only? Or it implies a non-regular couple ?"
The term “making out” simply means to kiss, so it can be applied in any situation. (Some people hear in this term a certain connotation suggesting that the kiss was especially long in duration, forceful, or sloppy. These people would assert that “making out” is more passionate than “kissing.”)
Are you talking about the “Hollywood” or the “European” kiss? Two people kissing as a form of greeting? That’s not common in general American society. If you’re talking about strangers who start kissing each other for pleasure, that’s a kind of making out. It makes no difference whether they’re strangers or whether they expect it will happen again. I don’t think light petting is included in making out. Making out means kissing.
Not necessarily. Two people who are dating have some level of regular romantic involvement. Theoretically, you can be “dating” more than one person. Another word for this is “going out with.”
This kind of relationship doesn’t really have a “polite” name in general American culture. While it might happen occasionally, it’s considered a kind of promiscuity and you wouldn’t really talk about such a relationship except with very close friends. In that case, you could use the term “fuck buddy,” a vulgar term for what is usually considered a vulgar kind of relationship.
Manual contact with private parts, including breasts, buttocks, and crotch, fully clothed or sometimes reaching under clothing. A woman’s hand touching a man’s crotch, though, is going further than heavy petting.
You got the main ones. They’re dating, they’re a couple, they’re seeing each other, they’re boyfriend and girlfriend. In general polite society, you generally don’t refer to a person as a “lover,” because that specifically means you’re having sex and that’s no one’s business anyway.
This often has a non-sexual meaning. “We hooked up the other day” could very well mean nothing more than “We met and spent some time with each other.”
