[Ads-l] Fw: "Key party" [1957]

[Bill Mullins]

@Bonnie Taylor-Blake

> I think I'd like to put together a blog
> post on all these sightings from the '50s, with prior permission of
> contributors here, of course.


Fine by me . . . .

________________________________
From: Bill Mullins <amcombill at hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 1, 2024 4:57 PM
To: American Dialect Society <ads-l at listserv.uga.edu>; OEDUK <OED.UK at oup.com>
Subject: "Key party" [1957]

[1954 Washington Post and Times Herald Nov 3/1

Early in the investigation of the Clark murder, circumstances leading up to the killing reportedly included wild "wife-swapping" parties among the Clarks and their friends.  These reports were vehemently denied by prosecution and defense officials. They denied there was any evidence of such parties, in which husbands were supposed to have tossed their house keys onto the floor while the women scrambled for them, and took as her husband-for-the night the man whose keys she recovered.]

https://archive.org/details/per_washington-post_1954-11-30_360/page/3/mode/1up?q=%22wife+swapping%22+keys



1956 Rage Dec v1n1 10/2

'Key' parties, wife-swapping—and now the latest thrill of jaded pleasure seekers . . . I Played Suburbia's Newest Sex Game

https://archive.org/details/rage-v-01n-01-1956-12.-arnold-elvis-ia/page/10/mode/1up?q=%22key+parties%22



keysies

1956 U.S. Coast Guard Magazine Mar. 28/3

At some suburban gatherings it is easy to get the impression that the frolickers have nothing in common but sex, nothing else to talk about and joke about. If the parlor games do not achieve the organized level of ‘keysies’ they certainly get as far as ‘kneesies’ and ‘grabbies’ and other informal pastimes . . . .” (Keysies, by the way, is a game where the girls toss their keys on the floor and the men pick one and disappear with its owner! )

https://archive.org/details/sim_u-s-coast-guard-magazine_1956-03_29_5/page/28/mode/1up?q=%22toss+their+keys%22

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