French Kiss

Posted by Masakim on March 28, 2003

In Reply to: French Kiss posted by Louis XXL on March 28, 2003

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: : : : : : who knows what is the origin of the term "french kiss" ????

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: : : : : : Thanks!

: : : : : First a general answer from the archives:

: : : : : FRENCH - The prejudice that anything French is wicked, sexual, and decadent has let Frenchmen in for more than their fair share of abuse in English. Many such expressions date back to 1730-1820, the height of Anglo-French enmity, but some are current and others go back even further." From the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Fact on File, New York, 1997).

: : : "French Kiss" is an obsolete term for what the hyperpatriotic Americans now call a "Freedom Kiss":>

: : FRENCH KISS - "a passionate open-mouth kiss with tongues caressing. This term has probably been in use since World War I, but became extremely popular with teenagers during the late 1930s." From I Hear America Talking: An Illustrated History of American Words and Phrases by Stuart Berg Flexner (Von Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 1976).

: My bijoux turtle doves! Ze French Kissing is just ze snog avec ze tongue.

: C'n'est pas zat naughtiness of using ze mouth on ze perfumed places of pleasure! Zat is known as "Frenching" and it would be zat much more shocking to your delicate parents to say "I Frenched Louis" rather than "I french-kissed Louis". So take care, mes amies, I do not want ze angry fathers a rat-tat-tatting at my port.

: Au Revoir!

: x

french kiss A full sexual mouth-to-mouth kiss with lips parted. Sometimes known as frenching, although this has had further connotaions of oral sex since the 19th century. Hence the US term for oral sex -- 'to speak in a foreign tongue.'
For some reason the word French is widely used in slang to suggest sexual meanings (see FRENCH LETTER). Hence the classic euphemism 'French lesson', to advertise services offered by a prostitute. 'French prints' is a now old-fashioned term for pornographic pictures, while to be 'Frenchified' was to have syphilis (Partridge). In the US too, gays have adopted 'French revolution' to mean the advent of Gay Liberation.
Fr4om The Slanguage of Sex by Brigid McConville & John Shearlaw.
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FYI, French culture stands for "oral sex of any kind," English culture for "bondage, domination and corporal punishment," and Greek culture for "anal sex."