element art: Autostraddle

Thank you for visiting
The Gay B C’s of Sex
! Monthly i am determining a new sex-related phrase which is used within the queer community. I am crafting these meanings with assistance from queer archives, pop music society, interviews, and a lot more. Take into account that language — specially when it comes to gender — varies extensively across communities, no single description or article can encapsulate every person’s knowledge about these conditions. Utilize this column as a jumping down point for your own personel reflection and discussion in the feedback.

If you have ever pressed your nether areas against a partner’s genitals, leg, ass, pubic bone tissue, or just about any other body part, congratulations — you have tribbed! Massaging your own parts against another hot bod is actually physically and aesthetically enjoyable, whether you determine to refer to it as “tribbing,” “tribadism,” “humping,” “grinding,” “scissoring,” or something like that more. Inside month’s line, I’m specifically investigating “tribbing” because of its extended (and fraught) record. Hop into the fancy queer time devices — we’re heading to old Greece! But basic, here is our very own description:

tribbing (letter.) – the act of massaging genitals against someone’s human body

“So I’ll say some thing random that nobody’s ever said, like ‘peanut butter tribadism!'”

— Bo Burnham,
“from the Abyss”

“Tribbing” or “tribadism” comes from the Greek verb τρίβω, this means “rub.” In historical Greece, this term in the beginning expressed the work of
a woman or intersex person
penetrating somebody utilizing their clitoris or a dildo (yep, dildos had been a thing a long time before producing silicon).

Later on, the text “tribas” (Latin) and “tribade” (French) were used to describe any girl just who engages in penetrative or non-penetrative sex together with other women, or, to estimate the 1843 text

A Greek-English Lexicon

, “a woman which practices
an unnatural vice
with herself or with other females.” Hot.

If perhaps you were implicated of being a tribade — really, that will be bad news for the reputation. Listed here is an example: Queen of France Marie Antoinette was illustrated as a tribade in several pamphlets (aka eighteenth century political cartoons) criticizing the Queen’s relationship with Austria. One satirical publication known as “The Royal Dildo” finished Marie Antoinette as
an orgy-loving, deviant pervert
which frequently banged English baroness woman Sophie Farrell of Bournemouth. Many years later on, Marie Antoinette was actually placed on demo for treason among various other additional criminal activities, including
untrue accusations incest

. She had been
located guilty
and beheaded.

Regardless of the term’s sordid history, queer ladies, intersex people, and trans individuals have reclaimed “tribadism” and “tribbing” in recent many years to explain sex acts that involve vaginal rubbing, but definitions vary across sources. The Meriam-Webster dictionary
defines tribadism
as “a type of intercourse between feamales in that external genitalia tend to be rubbed together,” in the 1988 publication

Sapphistry: The Publication of Lesbian Sex

, Patrick Califia contains a wider number of gender acts according to the “tribadism” umbrella: “Tribadism is accomplished by massaging the vulva against your partner’s mons veneris, stylish, or thigh. Some lesbians additionally want to wipe against their unique partners’ bottom or other areas of the body.”

If you are considering, “wait a second…this all seems like scissoring,” I’m right there to you. Just what exactly exactly may be the difference in tribbing and scissoring? As usual, viewpoints vary, but according to
this 2018 Autostraddle post
, scissoring and tribbing are basically the same thing: “…scissoring is a colloquial umbrella phrase for many kinds of functions of tribadism, aka: rubbing vulva against all sorts of body pieces!”

In
this Healthline article
, sex teacher Lisa Finn sets it because of this: “Scissoring is a colloquial phase, generally there’s wiggle area in the definition…Officially, tribbing could be the sexual act, while scissoring is certainly one specific place.” Put simply, in accordance with Finn, “tribbing” requires scrubbing the genitals everywhere on somebody’s human anatomy, while “scissoring” talks of the intercourse position the Barbie dolls most likely liked. You are aware, one that kinda appears like this:

However if Barbies could fold their knees, possibly it can look like this:

These two photos come from A.E. Osworth’s
scissoring tips guide
.

Discover the indication that YES, the classic scissoring gender position is, indeed, a genuine thing that some queer individuals appreciate, with no, that does not mean it is comfy, pleasurable, or easy for every set of aroused people (especially in case you are choosing clit-on-clit action, since that needs that strive for

very

tiny targets). If you have experimented with this position and disliked it, whether or not it’s not the thing, or if perhaps the pieces and your partner’s bits just cannot hook up like Lincoln Logs, 1. It’s not just you, and 2. That does not mean this intercourse place just happens in porno or perhaps in lesbian motion pictures directed by men. The scissoring positions/techniques depicted above

perform

happen in real world sometimes, even if they aren’t happening in your bed room.

Ultimately, the essential difference between “tribbing” and “scissoring” is not crucial. Providing you like what you are performing, refer to it as what you would like, continue on humpin’, and please experiment! Grind against someone’s face, calf, boob, fabric footwear — whatever feels fun and pleasant for all included.

If you wish to find out about tribbing/ scissoring, examine A.E. Osworth’s
scissoring guide
, A. Andrews’
sex place tips guide
, the visitors’
thoughts about scissoring
, and Archie’s
scissoring present manual
(and, without a doubt, examine our very own scissoring
merch
).