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Baseball metaphors for sex

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The game of baseball is often used as a euphemistic metaphor for physical intimacy in the United States and other places the game is played, especially to describe the level of sexual intimacy achieved in intimate encounters or relationships.[1]

Films and television shows too numerous to detail have included baseball metaphors for sex such as "I didn't even get to first base" or "No, I struck out" in a sexual or romantic context.

History

In the baseball metaphor, sexual activities are described as if they are moves in a game of baseball. In the United States from the end of World War II to present, men of all ages would sometimes use this competitive analogy to describe, usually to boast about, their successes in "making it" with girls.[2][3]

List of sexual metaphors

Although details vary, the most broadly accepted description of what each base represented is as follows:

Other baseball sexual metaphors:

  • Striking out is often used to describe rejection and sexual frustration.[11]
  • Pitcher and catcher are used to describe the participants in male homosexual anal intercourse.[11]
  • Switch-hitter refers to bisexuals, while a "switch" may refer to someone who takes both a "top" or "bottom" role in domination play.[citation needed]

Recent changes

This sequence of "running the bases" is often regarded as a script, or pattern, for young people who are experimenting with sexual relationships. The script has changed slightly since the 1960s. Kohl and Francoeur note that with the growing emphasis in the 1990s on safe sex and efforts by the feminist movement to expand sex beyond phallo-vaginal intercourse, the "home run" has taken on the additional dimension of oral-genital sexual intercourse. Richters and Rissel similarly point out that "third base" has since become seen, by some people, to comprise oral sex as part of the accepted pattern of activities, as a pre-cursor to "full" (i.e. phallo-vaginal) sex.[12][13]

Mullaney reports the idea that the introduction of oral sex is in fact a "new teen model", that is replacing the "traditional base system", in part as an "unintended offspring of 'abstinence-only' education". In this new model, sex acts, including many that were not included as part of the traditional "base" system, are classified in a wholly different way. The acts that count as "sex" are distinguished from those that do not count as "sex" according to whether it is possible to become pregnant from them. Thus oral sex, anal sex, and "a variety of other acts" are reclassified in the new model as "not a big deal" and "part of the realm of abstinence". Mullaney states that "obviously, not all teens subscribe to this revised model of classification".[14]

Educators have found the baseball metaphor an effective instructional tool when providing sex education to middle school students.[11] Levin and Bell, in their book A Chicken's Guide to Talking Turkey With Your Kids About Sex, make use of it to aid parents in the discussion of puberty with their children, dividing the topics into "first base" ("Changes from the neck up"), "second base" ("Changes from the neck to the waist"), "third base" ("Changes from the waist down"), and "home plate" ("The Big 'It'").[15] The bases may be different for different people, and genders.

References

  1. ^ Steven L. Hellermann and Andrei S. Markovits (2001). Offside: soccer and American exceptionalism. Princeton University Press. p. 66. ISBN 069107447X.
  2. ^ Suzanne Romaine (1999). Communicating Gender. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 210. ISBN 0805829261.
  3. ^ Marty Jezer (1982). The Dark Ages, Life in the United States, 1945–1960. South End Press. p. 248. ISBN 0896081273.
  4. ^ a b Ava L. Siegler (1997). The Essential Guide to the New Adolescence: How to Raise an Emotionally Healthy Teenager. Dutton. p. 27. ISBN 0525939709.
  5. ^ a b c d teenwire.com Editors (2001-01-06). "Ask the Experts: What do people mean by going to first base, second base, third base, and hitting a homerun?". teenwire.com. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ a b c d Randal Munro, xkcd.com Editors (2009-02-10). "The "Base" Metaphor Explained". {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ Homeword.com Information of Adolescent sex and sexuality
  8. ^ Sex and Baseball: Covering the Bases, student.com, 7 November 2005.
  9. ^ Eye Weekly
  10. ^ Houston - News - Podnography
  11. ^ a b c Alvin L. Hall and Thomas L. Altherr (2002). "Eros at the Bat: American Baseball and Sexuality in Historical Context". The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 1998. McFarland & Company. pp. 157–182. ISBN 0786409541.
  12. ^ Juliet Richters and Chris Rissel (2005). Doing it Down Under: The Sexual Lives of Australians. Allen & Unwin. p. 32. ISBN 1741143268.
  13. ^ James V. Kohl and Robert T. Francoeur (2002). The Scent of Eros: Mysteries of Odor in Human Sexuality. iUniverse. pp. 153–154. ISBN 059523383X.
  14. ^ Jamie L. Mullaney (2005). Everyone Is NOT Doing It: Abstinence and Personal Identity. University of Chicago. pp. 153–154. ISBN 0226547566.
  15. ^ Kevin Leman and Kathy Flores Bell (2004). A Chicken's Guide to Talking Turkey With Your Kids About Sex: A Healthy Look at Sexuality for. Zondervan. ISBN 031025096X. {{cite book}}: External link in |author= (help)

External links

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