What we talk about when we do the nasty.

January 9, 2009 7:39 PM

I am interested in phrases used during sex in various languages in dialects.

In particular, I am interested in various idioms of lovemaking, i.e. I have observed North American men and women both tend to say 'Oh Jesus' or 'Oh God' even if they are not Christian, or not religious; they will also say "fuck me", but usually only if being penetrated. I have heard a Mexican say "Ay Papi" and a French woman say "Oui, c'est bon". I know some of these things can be very individual, but I imagine that certain phrases are common enough to make note of.

posted by idiopath to society & culture (29 answers total)

iku iku = Japanese
posted by kanemano at 9:25 PM on January 9, 2009

Japanese:

気持ちいい！(lit. "it feels good") -> "That feels so good!"

行く！(lit. "go") -> "I'm gonna come!"/"I'm coming!"
posted by fantastico at 9:25 PM on January 9, 2009

Whoops, forgot the romanization: 気持ちいい - kimochi ii / 行く - iku
posted by fantastico at 9:27 PM on January 9, 2009

Chinese has 爽 shuǎng, which is "feels nice" but in a James Brown "I Feel Good" rather than wimpy sense.
posted by Abiezer at 10:30 PM on January 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

In het Nederlands:

Lekker!!
posted by monospace at 10:56 PM on January 9, 2009

An added request / clarification: it would be great to have a pronunciation, translation (both literal and idiomatic would be best), and whether the term is gendered (is it something you would only say to someone masculine, to someone feminine, someone on top/bottom etc).

Thanks for the great suggestions so far, and the amusing story.
posted by idiopath at 11:09 PM on January 9, 2009

Lekker!!

In German, that means delicious.
posted by dunkadunc at 11:16 PM on January 9, 2009

Well, if you're doing it right in Japanese you're hopefully going to hear "駄目!" (pronounced as the Spanish "dame"), which means:

駄目 [だめ] /(adj-na,n) (uk) useless/no good/hopeless/(P)/

However, I'm sure I wasn't the first and won't be the last amorous dude to totally take the utterance the wrongest way possible, since its use in these situations is rather idiomatic. . .
posted by troy at 12:06 AM on January 10, 2009

French:

Grave, or "serious". Akin to saying 'harder', if you're being penetrated. Also, nique-moi, which is the equivalent of 'fuck me'.
posted by nonmerci at 12:45 AM on January 10, 2009

Well, if you're doing it right in Japanese you're hopefully going to hear "駄目!" (pronounced as the Spanish "dame")

It is rather interesting that, if you're doing something right in the bedroom in Japan, your female partner will usually say "dame, dame," or "no, no", or, more precisely "I'm going to come" followed by "iku."

Another somewhat confusing, but sexy, Japanese bedroom is iya, as in "what could you possibly be doing to me down there?" or "why are you removing my panties?"
posted by KokuRyu at 1:30 AM on January 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

In German, geile would be hot, as in horny.

I live in Korea now so I'm researching the angle here for you.
posted by bardic at 1:34 AM on January 10, 2009

What an interesting question. Ever thought of a field study? Personally, I grunt and sigh a lot, in all my languages. My experience which consist of Finnish and American women don't yield a pattern. I'll keep you posted.
posted by keijo at 1:38 AM on January 10, 2009

You should read George Steiner's essay:

So in "The Tongues of Eros", another of the books that got away, he writes of having been privileged to make love in four different languages. This unwritten book was to have been a kind of sexual autobiography. It would have explored the relationship between eros and language ("I believe that... the love and lechery of the polyglot differs from that of the monoglot, faithful to one language"). For those of us who've only ever managed to have sex in one language, it may be difficult to suppress a giggle as Steiner recalls one of his lovers, called Ch, crying out the name "Sankt Nepomuk the Lesser" as she reached climax. Another lover employed the euphemism "taking the streetcar to Grinzing" to signify "a gentle, somewhat respectful anal access".
posted by lucia__is__dada at 3:02 AM on January 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

It's geil, not geile, in German. Also, it used to mean horny and now it's a slang term just meaning "great". As to whether people actually say that during sex, I have no idea.
posted by creasy boy at 4:01 AM on January 10, 2009

I swear to god that we heard my roomate (from Mexico) yelling "Arriba! Arriba!" in her bedroom when her boyfriend was visiting. Me and the other roomies called her Speedy Gonzales ever since.
posted by dabitch at 6:02 AM on January 10, 2009 [4 favorites]

In spanish acabar means to have an orgasm.

Yo acabé - I came.
Tu acabaste - You came.
Voy a acabar - I'm going to cum.
etc.

Coger is to fuck. At least in South America, in Spain it's to hold, to grab.
posted by cloeburner at 6:49 AM on January 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Chinese has 爽 shuǎng, which is "feels nice" but in a James Brown "I Feel Good" rather than wimpy sense.

I guess that's a mainland usage. If you said 好爽 in Taiwan, you'd be laughed out of bed. Here you'll hear people say 舒服 (shūfú) which literally means "comfortable."

Funny story: A Western friend was having relations with a local lass when she erotically moaned in English: "Comfortable!" He was so overcome with the giggles that he almost couldn't continue.
posted by alidarbac at 6:53 AM on January 10, 2009 [4 favorites]

I'm not sure about what Israelis say during the act itself, but the slang for having an orgasm is "ligmor" (leeg-MOR), or "to finish." Gamarti (gah-MAR-tee) = "I came." Fortunately, Hebrew has another word for "to finish" - lesayem - since ligmor has become too colored with this meaning to be comfortably used in other contexts.

(I haven't been there in a long time, so my slang may be about ten years out of date.)
posted by bassjump at 8:00 AM on January 10, 2009

Ay, que rico... ! = Oh, feels so good... !
Ay si, si si si ... ! = Oh yes, yes yes... !
Asi asi ... ! = Just like that, keep doing it just like that.. !

And venirse is literally "to come" ¿Ya te veniste? Did you come (yet)?

But frequently I hear terminar, "to finish" No terminaste?! You didn't come?!

And coger can be just as inappropriate or sexy as "to fuck" can be in English, depending on the circumstances:)
posted by Locochona at 8:59 AM on January 10, 2009

In spanish acabar means to have an orgasm.

Actually acabar means to finish, conclude, etc and often times is used non-sexually. It is a euphemism for coming.

Venir literally means "to come" (mostly in non-sexual terms) and variants are used in the bedroom.

On preview, what Locachona said about terminar and "¡ay qué rico!"
posted by birdherder at 9:17 AM on January 10, 2009

Some Lonely Planet phrasebooks have sections dedicated to the subject of sex and what you should say! (Both voluntary and involuntary utterances are covered).

Google books is your friend.....

Spanish
Thai
Japanese
Russian
Indonesian
Brazilian portugese
Greek
German

Searching the other languages in these phrasebooks on google books doesn't find 'sex' or 'love' or have the pages blocked out. Maybe some phrasebook writers are randier than others?
posted by lalochezia at 11:49 AM on January 10, 2009

I don't know why I'm clarifying this, but I knew acabar means to finish, I just didn't include the more common meaning...

It's a pride thing.
posted by cloeburner at 1:35 PM on January 10, 2009

lalochezia: those links are interesting, but they all seem to have more focus on talk before after about the act, rather than the local idioms used during.
posted by idiopath at 1:40 PM on January 10, 2009

I've heard the Tagalog masarap (delicious) used during the act.
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 4:31 PM on January 10, 2009

A friend told me that in Israel he once jokingly said that a girl might say "ani ba-a" (UH-nee BAA), literally "I come" or "I'm coming". But his friends teased him, because "ani ba-a" literally means "I approach", and refers only to distance (as in, coming when beckoned).
The way they told him to say it was "ani gomer" (UH-nee go-MAR, or, quickly, as "nee' g' mar" ).
If it's being said by a woman, it would be "ani gommeretz" (UH-nee go-MARE-etz).
Meaning "I'm finishing". And to pronounce it properly, you'd roll the R's at the back of your throat similarly as you would in French.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 11:28 PM on January 10, 2009

A boy in Quebec who had climbed through my window said, "Je veus rentres dans le ventre," and that remains among the most erotic words I have ever heard spoken directly to me.

I have asked my French-speaking neighbor to translate, because "ventre" means "stomach" to me, but he says, yes, it is the place in you where he can be. So there.
posted by emhutchinson at 2:42 PM on January 11, 2009

Sorry, that would be "veux" and "rentrer" I am more than a little rusty.
posted by emhutchinson at 2:45 PM on January 11, 2009

I had a friend say something similar to me about a girl in english, but it doesn't sound nearly as romantic:

"I want to get up in her guts."
posted by empath at 6:34 PM on January 11, 2009

in castilian spanish (i.e. from spain),

"follar" = to fuck, have sex.
"correr" = to come

i second "ay, qué rico"
posted by maca at 6:23 AM on January 13, 2009