missionary position

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 04:43 PM 5/25/2000 -0500, George Thompson wrote:
>I don't find "missionary position" in RHHDAS.  Anybody have any
>information as to the earliest appearance of the phrase or of the
>veracity or otherwise of the legend that explains it?  (The legend
>being that it was so called by Pacific Islanders, since the
>missionaries were trying to coerce them into abandoning all other
>postures and fornicating in that position exclusively.)  I'm sure
>that I had heard it before 1971.
>

How much before? FWIW, OED2 happens to have a *Jan. 1969* citation from the
Daily Telegraph....


Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu