Greek or French and Active or Passive?

Straights were familiar with those terms.

Bump

Greek active meant anal top. Greek passive meant anal bottom. French active meant sucker. French passive meant suckee. Stopped being used probably late 80s.

I prefer these terms very much to top/bottom, which are ugly and vulgar.

When did the top/bottom started being used in US?

OP, you don't have to pass an exam to be a gay man. You just have to like having sex with men.

How did the ancient Greeks do it? What were they into?

Who says a bottom can't be active or a top passive?

These were such bizarre terms. I think I forgot they existed. There's obviously a problem with associating sex acts with specific nationalities. The active/passive framing is also weird. How active is a "French active," really?

"Top" and "bottom" work so much better.

[quote]Who says a bottom can't be active

aka 'power-bottoms'

can be HAF

I remember them from back in the old days (late 70s, early 80s) when I used to pick up the Philly Gay News. Those terms were used in the personal ads, among others.

The one that really cracks me up now is -- nowadays, when someone has "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy," they call it "CBT." But back in the day, in the personal ads, that stood for "Cock and Ball Torture." So to this day, when I hear someone talking about CBT or going for CBT, I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud.

Life is funny.

I'm so old I even remember the personal ads in gay newspapers having codes for these expressions, as opposed to writing them out in the ad. Greek Active was an upright Doric column; Greek Passive was a Doric column on its side, French Active was an upright Eiffel Tower, French Passive was the Eiffel Tower on its side.

I always assumed that French was used for oral as some kind of reference to French kissing, but what do I know?

I don't know about the specific "Greek" and "French" versions of the terms, but I do remember being in France with my husband when we first learned what "Passif" meant. We were at L'Open Cafe and this super-eager young man came up to us to try his English. I was equally anxious to try my French. We managed to figure things out and two hours later the three of us were in a hotel room, naked, sweaty, and eventually exhausted.

I know the Frenchman really enjoyed himself, as did my husband and I. But after he left we were shocked at just how much hair he had shed during the afternoon's activity. Chest hair, pubes, ass hair... the sheets almost looked like newsprint had been rubbed all over them. We ended up stripping the bed and "stealing" new sheets off the housekeeping cart to change the bed ourselves.

These terms were used in classified ads all the time.

I remember seeing them in the Boston alt weekly The Phoenix!

Stick figures thighs don’t match his BBL

Greek because of the reputation. Vases and wall art.

French for the word fellatio.

But what was the Latin John Malkovich's character was going to teach in Dangerous Liasons?

Fellatio is in Latin/Italian, R15

Hmm, then I have no idea what the reference France is. Maybe it was common there?

“Paint me like one of your French girls.”