Making out

The sexual connotations of the phrase "make out" appear to have developed in the 1930s and 1940s from the phrase's other meaning: "to succeed". Originally, it meant "to seduce" or "to have sexual intercourse".Moe, Albert F. (1966) {{" '}}Make out' and Related Usages". American Speech 41(2): 96–107.

{{anchor|Petting}}

{{For|the behavior in which animals maintain one another's appearance also called "petting"|Social grooming}}

"Petting" ("making out" or foreplay) was popularized in the 1920s, as youth culture challenged earlier Victorian era strictures on sexuality{{cite web|author=Weeks, Linton|date=June 26, 2015|title=When 'Petting Parties' Scandalized The Nation|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/05/26/409126557/when-petting-parties-scandalized-the-nation|access-date=December 18, 2020|work=NPR}} with the rise in popularity of "petting parties".

• {{Cite news |author=Staff |date=February 17, 1922 |title=Mothers Complain that Modern Girls 'Vamp' Their Sons at Petting Parties |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/02/17/98986843.html?pageNumber=1 |url-status= |url-access=subscription}}
• An earlier article in the same newspaper rebutted an attack on the behaviour of American girls made recently in the Cosmopolitan by Elinor Glyn. It admitted the existence of petting parties but considered the activities were no worse than those which had gone on in earlier times under the guise of "kissing games", adding that tales of what occurred at such events were likely to be exaggerated by an older generation influenced by traditional misogyny
• {{Cite news |last=Dupuy |first=Mrs William Atherton |date=October 15, 1921 |title=Let Girls Smoke, Mrs. Dupuy's Plea; Penwomen's President Rises in Defense of Young Thing Who 'Parks Corsets' Before Dance. MRS.GLYN WRONG, SHE SAYS Declares Short-Skirt Girl of Today Who Goes to "Petting Parties" Is All She Should Be |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1921/10/15/archives/let-girls-smoke-mrsdupuys-plea-penwomens-president-rises-in-defense.html }} At these parties, promiscuity became more commonplace, breaking from the traditions of monogamy or courtship with their expectations of eventual marriage.{{Cite book | last1 = McArthur | first1 = Judith N | last2 = Smith | first2 = Harold L | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_txLjKkckCYC&pg=PA105 | title = Texas Through Women's Eyes: The Twentieth-Century Experience | year = 2010 | pages = 104–05 | publisher = University of Texas Press | quote = The spirit of the petting party is light and frivolous. Its object is not marriage – only a momentary thrill. It completely gives the lie to those sweet, old phrases, "the only man" and "the only girl". For where there used to be only one girl there may be a score of them now.| isbn = 9780292778351 }} This was typical on college campuses, where young people "spent a great deal of unsupervised time in mixed company",{{Cite book | last1 = Drowne | first1 = Kathleen Morgan | last2 = Huber | first2 = Patrick | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=CecCHiI95dYC&pg=PA45 | title = The 1920s | page = 45| isbn = 9780313320132 | year = 2004 | publisher = Bloomsbury Academic }}{{Cite book | last = Nelson | first = Lawrence J | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=o0hCZkuwlhAC&pg=PA39 | title = Rumors of Indiscretion | year = 2003 | page = 39| publisher = University of Missouri Press | isbn = 9780826262905 }}.{{Cite book | last = Bragdon | first = Claude | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Z12OIL1jIMYC&pg=PA45 | title = Delphic Woman | year = 2007 | pages = 45–46| publisher = Cosimo | isbn = 9781596054301 }}. and theaters.{{cite journal |title=Petting Parties at Theatres Blushingful Aweful - She Says |journal=Variety |volume=88 |issue=7 |pages=1, 31 |publisher=Variety, Inc. |location=New York City |date=August 31, 1927 |url=https://archive.org/details/variety87-1927-08/page/n296/mode/1up |access-date=June 12, 2023}}

In the 1950s, Life magazine depicted petting parties as "that famed and shocking institution of the '20s", and commenting on the Kinsey Report, said that they have been "very much with us ever since".Havemann, Ernest. [https://books.google.com/books?id=EkgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA45 "The Kinsey Report on Women"] Life magazine (August 24, 1953) In the Kinsey Report of 1950, there was an indicated increase in premarital intercourse for the generation of the 1920s. Kinsey found that of women born before 1900, 14 percent acknowledged premarital sex before the age of 25, while those born after 1900 were two and a half times more likely (36 percent) to have premarital intercourse and experience an orgasm.{{cite book|last=Duenil|first=Lynn|title=The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s|date=1995|publisher=Hill and Wang|location=New York, NY|page=136}} The Continental{{Citation needed|date=January 2023|reason=What continent?}} zeitgeist is illustrated by a letter that Sigmund Freud wrote to Sándor Ferenczi in 1931, playfully admonishing him to stop kissing his patients; Freud warned him lest "a number of independent thinkers in matters of technique will say to themselves: Why stop at a kiss? Certainly one gets further when one adopts 'pawing' as well, which, after all, doesn't make a baby. And then bolder ones will come along who will go further, to peeping and showing – and soon we shall have accepted in the technique of analysis the whole repertoire of demi-viergerie and petting parties".Quoted in Malcolm, Janet. Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (London 1988) pp. 37-8

In the years following World War I,{{cite web |last1=Weeks |first1=Linton |title=When 'Petting Parties' Scandalized The Nation |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/05/26/409126557/when-petting-parties-scandalized-the-nation |website=National Public Radio |publisher=National Public Radio, Inc. |access-date=6 April 2023 |date=26 May 2015}} necking and petting became accepted behavior in mainstream American culture as long as the partners were dating.{{cite book |last=Breines |first=Wini |url=https://archive.org/details/youngwhitemisera0000brei_d0m1 |title=Young, White, and Miserable: Growing Up Female in the Fifties |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-226-07261-4 |pages=117–118 |url-access=registration}} A 1956 study defined necking as "kissing and light caressing above the neck" and petting as "more intimate contact with the erogenous zones, short of sexual intercourse".{{Cite journal|last=Breed|first=Warren|date=1956|title=Sex, Class and Socialization in Dating|journal=Marriage and Family Living|volume=18|issue=2|pages=137–144|doi=10.2307/348638|issn=0885-7059|jstor=348638}} Alfred Kinsey's definition of petting was "deliberately touching body parts above or below the waist", compared to necking, which only involved general body contact.{{cite book |last1=Weigel |first1=Moira |url=https://archive.org/details/laborofloveinven0000weig |title=Labor of Love |date=2016 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=9780374182533 |pages=76–77 |url-access=registration}}

Making out is usually considered an expression of romantic affection or sexual attraction. An episode of making out is frequently referred to as a "make-out session" or simply "making out", depending on the speaker's vernacular.Cann, Kate. Hard Cash (London 2000) pp. 262 and 237 It covers a wide range of sexual behavior,{{cite book |last=Lafollette |first=Hugh |url=https://archive.org/details/ethicsinpractice0000unse_a2a3 |title=Ethics in Practice |publisher=Blackwell |year=2002 |isbn=0-631-22834-9 |location=Oxford |page=243 |quote="making out," which can comprise a rather wide variety of activities |url-access=registration}} and means different things to different age groups in different parts of the United States. It typically refers to kissing, including prolonged, passionate, open-mouth kissing (also known as French kissing), and intimate skin-to-skin contact. The term can also refer to other forms of foreplay such as heavy petting (sometimes simply called petting), which typically involves some genital stimulation,{{cite web|url=http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/heavy%2Bpetting|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121219071443/http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/heavy%2Bpetting|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 19, 2012|title=Heavy petting - definition of heavy petting in English from the Oxford dictionary}} but usually not the direct act of penetrative sexual intercourse.{{cite book | last = Crownover | first = Richard | title = Making out in English | publisher = Tuttle Publishing | location = Boston | year = 2005 | isbn = 0-8048-3681-7 | quote = "Making out," used in the title of this book is a colloquialism that can mean engaging in sexual intercourse, ... | page = [https://archive.org/details/makingoutinengli00rich/page/4 4] | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/makingoutinengli00rich/page/4 }}

The perceived significance of making out may be affected by the age and relative sexual experience of the participants. Teenagers sometimes play party games in which making out is the main activity as an act of exploration. Games in this category include seven minutes in heaven and spin the bottle."Notes From the State of Virginia", with Wesley Hogan, in First of the Year, vol. II, edited by Benj DeMott (New York: Transaction Publishers, 2010) p.121

Teenagers may have had social gatherings in which making out was the predominant event. In the United States, these events were referred to as "make-out parties" and may have been confined to a specific area, called the "make-out room".From Abba to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Late 20th Century by Mansour, David. (2005) {{ISBN|978-0740751189}}. p.110 These make-out parties were generally not regarded as sex parties, though heavy petting may have been involved, depending on the group.

• Sexual slang

{{reflist}}

Category:Sexual euphemisms

Category:Sexual acts

Category:Kissing

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