Baseball metaphors for sex

This is an accepted version of this page In American slang, baseball metaphors for sex are often used as euphemisms for the degree of physical intimacy achieved in sexual encounters or relationships.

[1] In the metaphor, first prevalent in the aftermath of World War II, sexual activities are described as if they are actions in a game of baseball.

Definitions vary, but the following are typical usages of the terms:[4] The metaphors are found variously in popular American culture, with one well-known example in the Meat Loaf song "Paradise by the Dashboard Light", which describes a young couple "making out", with a voice-over commentary of a portion of a baseball game, as a metaphor for the couple's activities.

[5] A similar example can be found in Billy Joel's song "Zanzibar" in which he compares himself to Pete Rose and sings the lines, "Me, I'm trying just to get to second base and I'd steal it if she only gave the sign.

Deborah Roffman writes that the baseball metaphor has been "insidiously powerful, singularly effective, and very efficient...as a vehicle for transmitting and transferring to successive generations of young people all that is wrong and unhealthy about American sexual attitudes.