"fuck like a mink" [Was: "mink" (n.) = 'a black, a Negro'?]

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:43 AM -0400 5/11/09, Charles Doyle wrote:
>At least "fuck like minks" makes a kind of sense as an image--as
>does "fuck like rabbits" in regard to reproductive proclivities.
>
>In contrast, the simile "fuck like snakes," familiar to me from
>various parts of the South, is less transparent in its imagery. Do
>we envision intimate and tortuous physical entanglement? Is some
>free-floating phallic symbolism implicit? A primal and serpentine
>knowledge of good and evil?
>
>--Charlie

I came across "he fucks like a rattlesnake" when I was googling for minks:

_fucks like a rattlesnake_ - To copulate vigorously. Often in the
colloquial phrase: he fucks like a rattlesnake
(from the "Dictionary of Sexual Terms")

Also appears as "fucks like a rattlesnake in heat", which may or may
not have been the original form--interesting, since I thought "in
heat" usually applies to females but this one is almost exclusively
used for males.

"like a rattlesnake", used for males, is a manner adverb, while the
"mink" (and I assume "minx") variant can apparently index manner,
frequency, or indiscriminacy.  Not that there are no male-referential
terms indexing indiscrimacy; the same sources suggest "...anything
with a hole in it", "...anything on two legs", and the like.  I'm
reminded of a now defunct (but still archived) bisexual-oriented
web-mag "Anything That Moves"; cf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anything_That_Moves.

LH

>______________________________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
>>Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 09:58:35 -0500
>>From: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>>I doubt that the average black American has any idea what a "mink"
>>>is, other than an expensive fur coat. If it wasn't for the fact
>>>that I read extensively, I certainly wouldn't know more than that.
>>>Joel's opening sentence should read "... among white people,"
>>>because it's news to me. Black people don't know it. we say,
>>>"fucks like a rabbit," when the subject comes up.
>>
>>When I was in college, the Resident Assistant who lived my floor in
>>the dorm had a girlfriend who was less than gifted in the looks
>>department. We all called her "rabbit", because the only reason we
>>could figure he dated her was that she must screw like a rabbit.
>>
>>The RA never got the joke, so far as I know, and often asked "Why
>>are you calling her Rabbit?"
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org