Dictionary of sexual slang

About this book

The rich repertoire of sexual slang in this compendium offers fascinating clues to the sexual humor and taboos, perceptions and cultural biases, mores and sexual roles of English-speaking people in times past and present. It offers abundant evidence that language gives voice to the major concerns and preoccupations of the people who speak it. This book features more than 4,000 words, phrases, and quips that have or have had a sexual connotation; hundreds of quotations demonstrating how terms have been used by sources ranging from Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Blake to pop icons such as Lenny Bruce, Bette Midler and Madonna; terms in current use as well as archaic terms and how and when they were first used; 500 years of sexual slang from the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, and South Africa; and full etymologies, explanations, and variations in usage from country to country and era to era.--[book jacket].