Comments on: Making Love

By: word smith

word smith — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:03:19 +0000

F Scott Fitzgerald often refers to the term in his short stories from the 1920′s era. Clearly his debutante’s are experiencing romance through conversation, flattery, perhaps light petting. Agreed that the meaning of “hooking up” progressed in the same fashion but at a much quicker pace.

By: Perry Lassiter

Perry Lassiter — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:21:34 +0000

I still hear “hooking up” in the sense of meeting and going along with. “My bro hooked up with his pals downtown and went joy-riding.

By: Gordon P. Hemsley

Gordon P. Hemsley — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:58:44 +0000

The same change appears to have happened to “hooking up”, as well, albeit in a much smaller time period.

Only a few years ago, the phrase meant the same as the meaning you cite for the 1950s’ “making love”. Now, it apparently has progressed much farther, into the 2010 definition territory of “making love”. It is, however, on quite the opposite end of the emotional intimacy spectrum.

By: Robert Beard

Robert Beard — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:09:16 +0000

Hmmm. In those days, I don’t think proper ladies and gentlemen made love even in the original sense before marriage. Wonder if the phrase devolved from “making eyes” at each other.

By: The Ridger

The Ridger — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:12:16 +0000

It’s pretty easy to spot in Victorian novels – say, Trollope – when “make love” is used in contexts that clearly mean nothing more than verbal exchanges. For instance, from The Duke’s Children:

Very little was said between Silverbridge and Miss Boncassen which
did not refer to the game. But Lady Mabel, looking on, told herself
that they were making love to each other before her eyes.

By: Robert Beard

Robert Beard — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:44:33 +0000

It may have started out in California–or England–in the 50s but it went nationwidein the 60s. I have several ear-witnesses as proof. I, for one, made love in both decades both ways.

I was living at the time in the more prudish South and I am sure that had an impact on the interpretation of all terms relating to physical contact between people of differing s-xes.

By: Neal Whitman

Neal Whitman — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:26:45 +0000

I’ve had the same reaction when I’ve listened to older songs or seen it in books from the early 20th century: “Are they actually referring to having sex?” Your explanation is plausible and appealing, but do you have evidence for it? The OED has 1927 for what it deems its earliest attestation of “make love” in this sense, though the earliest indisputable one is from 1950: “One of the Carvers made love to her and she had a baby.”

I also hear the refrain “feel like makin’ love” in a classic rock song of the 70s, and wonder what sense is intended there, since by that time the idiom was well established (or at least, established enough for my parents to have used it with me in talking about the facts of life).