Another kind of buddy

[Erik Hoover]

The terminology is versatile, in keeping with sexual relations.

I remember a lesbian acquaintance of mine referring in 1992 to a
"fuck buddy" relationship with a man.

The term fills a need, doesn't it?

Erik




On Jun 13, 2007, at 11:10 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Another kind of buddy
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> ---------
>
> At 8:35 AM -0400 6/13/07, Landau, James wrote:
>>
>> ...
>> As for "fuck buddy" being a gay male usage, that makes sense.  The
>> word
>> "buddy" is usually (though not always) applied to a man's male
>> friend or
>> helper, e.g. the "buddy system" in swimming.  (However, one can
>> imagine
>> a girl's swimming class using the buddy system.)
>>
>> Therefore for a woman to refer to a male lover as a "fuck buddy"
>> is odd,
>> since women do not generally refer to male friends as "buddies".
>> Equally odd for a man (or for that matter a woman) to refer to a
>> female
>> lover as a "fuck buddy".  Hence the presence of the word "buddy"
>> implies
>> a male-to-male relationship, with the f-word specifying it is a
>> sexual
>> relationship.
>>
> FWIW (not much), there are twice as many google hits for "she's my
> fuck buddy" as for "he's my fuck buddy", and previous posters have
> indicated that whatever the origins, this is now a unisex term, no
> longer implying male-to-male relationships.  That conforms to my
> intuition too.
>
> LH
>
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