A Survey

Semantics can be sexy!

Some of the manly men on our team were sitting around gossiping yesterday and it came to light that there is some confusion about verbs used to describe sex/foreplay--related acts. It seems that regional dialect and date of birth had a significant effect. Those born in the dark days of the 1970s used vastly different terms than the much more connected and technologically savvy 1980s babies.

The most profound differences were seen between groups that attended different universities. The U of R alumni could barely communicate with the RIT alumni. Observations indicated that crude hand signaling and bodily gestures were the only way these two groups managed to describe what happened last Saturday night. Ow ow! And once RIT figured out that U of R was saying "We hooked up", they still didn't know what happened.

Regardless of who you're speaking with, there are some major confusions about what someone means when they say "We hooked up" or "We made out". My feeling is that you say "I hooked up" when you really didn't have sex, but you want people to think there's a possibility that you did and you want to remain mysterious--but then of course, you could have had sex...nobody will ever know! I don't think "made out" EVER implies sex happened.

Just to be sure, let's refer to urbandictionary.com. These were the most popular definitions:

MAKE OUT
"the act of swapping spit with your significant other... or perhaps just some hottie you met at a party, but anyway, you just sit there sucking at each other's faces for an extended period of time and if you're lucky there might even be a little roaming around of the hands if ya get my drift :p"

HOOKING UP
"An incredibly ambiguous phrase that drives me absolutely insane when people use it."

Well, there you have it. What do you say?