The Gay B C’s of Intercourse: T Is for Tribbing | Autostraddle

element art: Autostraddle

This is
The Gay B C’s of Intercourse
! Each month I’m determining a different sort of sex-related phrase that is used within the queer area. I am creating these meanings with assistance from queer archives, pop society, interviews, and much more. Keep in mind that terminology — especially when considering sex — differs extensively across communities, and no unmarried description or article can encapsulate every person’s experience with these terms. Make use of this line as a jumping off point for your own personel representation and conversation inside remarks.

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If you have ever pressed your nether regions against someone’s genitals, leg, butt, pubic bone tissue, or just about any other body part, congratulations — you have tribbed! Massaging your parts against another hot bod is both actually and visually enjoyable, whether you want to call it “tribbing,” “tribadism,” “humping,” “grinding,” “scissoring,” or something more. Contained in this thirty days’s column, i am particularly investigating “tribbing” due to the extended (and fraught) background. Hop into the fancy queer time machines — we’re going to old Greece! But basic, listed here is our meaning:

tribbing (n.) – the work of massaging genitals against a partner’s body

“and so i’ll say something arbitrary that not one person’s ever said, like ‘peanut butter tribadism!'”

— Bo Burnham,
“from the Abyss”

“Tribbing” or “tribadism” originates from the Greek verb τρίβω, consequently “rub.” In classic Greece, this term initially outlined the act of
a woman or intersex person
penetrating someone using their clitoris or a vibrator (yep, dildos happened to be anything well before the manufacture of silicon).

Afterwards, the text “tribas” (Latin) and “tribade” (French) were utilized to explain any woman just who engages in penetrative or non-penetrative sex along with other females, or, to estimate the 1843 book

A Greek-English Lexicon

, “a woman who practices
an unnatural vice
with by herself or with other ladies.” Hot.

If you were implicated of being a tribade — really, that would be bad news for your reputation. Here is one example: Queen of France Marie Antoinette was actually depicted as a tribade in many pamphlets (aka 18th 100 years political cartoons) criticizing the Queen’s relationship with Austria. One satirical publication labeled as “The Royal Dildo” finished Marie Antoinette as
an orgy-loving, deviant pervert
whom frequently banged English baroness woman Sophie Farrell of Bournemouth. A few years later, Marie Antoinette had been put-on trial for treason among some other various other criminal activities, such as
false accusations incest

. She was
found guilty
and beheaded.

In spite of the term’s sordid background, queer ladies, intersex individuals, and trans people have reclaimed “tribadism” and “tribbing” in recent decades to describe sex functions that include genital scrubbing, but descriptions change across resources. The Meriam-Webster dictionary
defines tribadism
as “a type of intercourse between ladies in that your outside genitalia tend to be rubbed together,” in the 1988 book

Sapphistry: The Publication of Lesbian Sex

, Patrick Califia consists of a wider range of sex works underneath the “tribadism” umbrella: “Tribadism is completed by scrubbing your vulva against your partner’s mons veneris, hip, or leg. Some lesbians additionally love to rub against their particular lovers’ buttocks or any other areas of the body.”

If you are considering, “wait a second…this all seems like scissoring,” I’m right there with you. Just what exactly just may be the difference between tribbing and scissoring? As usual, views change, but according to
this 2018 Autostraddle article
, scissoring and tribbing are a similar thing: “…scissoring is actually a colloquial umbrella term for every kinds of acts of tribadism, aka: massaging vulva against a variety of human body bits!”

In
this Healthline article
, intercourse instructor Lisa Finn leaves it because of this: “Scissoring is a colloquial phase, generally there’s wiggle area for the definition…Officially, tribbing is the sexual act, while scissoring is just one certain position.” To put it differently, according to Finn, “tribbing” requires rubbing the genitals anyplace on someone’s human body, while “scissoring” talks of the intercourse situation your Barbie dolls probably loved. You know, the one which kinda looks like this:

However if Barbies could flex their particular knees, perhaps it could resemble this:

Both of these images are from A.E. Osworth’s
scissoring manual
.

Listed here is your own note that sure, the classic scissoring gender situation is actually, indeed, a real thing that some queer folks appreciate, without, that doesn’t mean it is comfy, pleasurable, or feasible for every set of aroused individuals (especially if you should be choosing clit-on-clit motion, since that requires you to definitely try to get

really

little targets). If you’ve tried this situation and hated it, if it is simply not your thing, or if the bits and your lover’s bits simply couldn’t hook up like Lincoln Logs, 1. You are not alone, and 2. That does not mean this gender place only happens in porno or perhaps in lesbian films directed by males. The scissoring positions/techniques represented above

carry out

occur in real world occasionally, even if they aren’t taking place inside room.

Fundamentally, the essential difference between “tribbing” and “scissoring” is not important. If you like what you’re performing, refer to it as what you want, go on humpin’, and go ahead and test! Grind against a partner’s face, calf, boob, leather footwear — whatever seems enjoyable and pleasant for everybody included.

Should you want to find out about tribbing/ scissoring, discover A.E. Osworth’s
scissoring manual
, A. Andrews’
gender position manual
, the readers’
emotions about scissoring
, and Archie’s
scissoring gift manual
(and, of course, check out the scissoring
merch
).